Oct 06, 2011

As with many (most?) tech-nerds, I’ve always been enthralled with a Steve Jobs keynote presentation. They were always so… simple, elegant yet informative. This was in contrast with many of the “wall o’ bullet point” slides common in many tech presentations, something that I’ve been guilty of in the past.

My eyes were opened when I read this Presentation Zen blog post in 2005, which was followed up by another post. At the time I was preparing a presentation for the 2005 Noise-Con in Minneapolis. Upon reading those articles I scrapped my presentation and rebuilt it from the ground up to emphasize the visuals and de-emphasize the bullet points. I was partially successful - lots of visuals that allowed me to tell a story, but still too many bullet points.

Presentation Zen followed up the Jobs articles with two more that compared and contrasted the presentation style of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates which gave me more to think about. The next opportunity I had to make a presentation was the 2006 Internoise conference where I gave my paper on the Springfield noise ordinance.

My goal was to improve on the conversational nature of the presentation - to make it “magical” if you will. My presentation was graphics and visuals, with a total of 6 bullet points. Unfortunately I can’t make the presentation available on my site; the presentation includes some photos taken by a friend with the promise that the photos would only be shown at the conference. However this presentation was witnessed by author Garret Keizer who described it thusly in his book The The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want: A Book About Noise:

And he was a minority of one, a singleton indeed, in being the only presenter who dared to appear without a “PowerPoint presentation.” Instead, as befitting someone talking about his hometown, he showed us slides of the city as he spoke.

Mission accomplished. Thanks Steve. You will be missed.

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Sep 20, 2011

Truth be told, when I started CSL in 2003, it wasn’t because I was one of those MIT-entrepreneur-types who wanted to start a business just for the sake of running a company. I simply wanted to do interesting work in the field of acoustics and (hopefully) make a living doing it. Starting my own business seemed, at the time, to be the best way to accomplish that.

In the intervening years I’ve had ups and downs but certainly in the last 18 to 20 months business has been very successful: with the help of the folks over at Home Theater Shack my calibrated microphone business has taken off, and consulting work has also seen a serious uptick. I have been so busy that, quite frankly, I’ve had a real problem trying to keep up with the workload. I’ve been thinking for some about hiring on some help but I’ve never been able to bring myself to pull the trigger.

That changed last month. I formed Cross-Spectrum Acoustics LLC with Lance Meister, a friend and colleague with whom I’ve worked before. Lance brings 16-years of transportation noise consulting, project management, and marketing experience. As a co-author of FTA’s Transit Noise & Vibration Impact Assessment guidance manual, he is one of the foremost experts in addressing rail noise and vibration issues. Combined with my own acoustical engineering and measurement experience we have a skill-set that can address the acoustical consulting needs of any number of markets. And hopefully have fun doing it.

Right now, Cross-Spectrum Acoustics LLC is a separate company from Cross-Spectrum Labs, but both entities will be around to focus on different types of projects. The websites for both companies will start evolve over the coming weeks to reflect the new direction.

So what’s going to change? For existing clients, not much. I will still work on existing projects under the Cross-Spectrum Labs banner and will honor existing Cross-Spectrum Labs contractual requirements. I intend for future sound & vibration consulting work to be performed under Cross-Spectrum Acoustics. The biggest changes for consulting work is that a) future clients will receive business cards with a green logo rather than a blue logo, and b) there will be other folks to help pick up the slack when I’m overwhelmed.

Calibrated microphone and sound level meter sales will continue under Cross-Spectrum Labs for the foreseeable future. Microphone calibrations for OEMs and for users with their own DIY/other microphones will continue to be handled by me personally. At some point in the future I will hire someone to perform the calibration work to address demand, but only when I am sure I can find someone who will work to the standards I have set for those products.

New clients, please feel free to contact me (or us) through Cross-Spectrum Labs or via and we will route you to the right place. Existing and past clients/customers, I thank you for giving me to opportunity to serve you and I hope to work with you in the future.

Make no mistake - although this is a moment of transition, we are most definitely open and eager for your business.

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Aug 16, 2011

The Real Deal has an article about MTA’s ban of nighttime blasting along the corridor.

The cool thing about the article was a video taken last year by the Launch Box blog of an actual nighttime blast:

Here is the blog post that discusses the video. The Launch Box blog has a lot of info regarding the construction progress of the 2nd Avenue subway as well as lot of history behind the project. It’s worth checking out if you are a railfan.

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Aug 03, 2011

You know you want one:

Are you on Twitter? Wanna be part of the #AVTweeps crew? Ask nicely and maybe you can have one of your very own.

Speaking of #AVTweeps, Thursday’s #AVChat discussion will center around A/V certifcations. See you there.

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Jul 11, 2011

Because of my increased travels as of late, I find myself searching for quality podcasts to keep me company on those lonely drives (speaking of which: MassDOT, please get cracking on that Springfield-Worcestor-Boston HSR corridor. KTHXBYE). One of my most recent finds is the NPR Planet Money podcast which explores financial issues from a variety of angles.

This week’s episodes addresses the question “How much does it cost to make a hit song?” using Rihanna’s “Man Down” single as a case study. There have been a number of articles that discuss music industry accounting practices, but the Planet Money team takes an actual song from conception to release and follows the money. And it ain’t a pretty picture:

‘Treating the radio guys nice’ is a very fuzzy cost. It can mean taking the program directors of major market stations to nice dinners. It can mean flying your artist in to do a free show at a station in order to generate more spots on a radio playlist.

Sometimes I think I got into the wrong end of the audio business. Then again, I like being able to sleep well at night.

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