Category Archives: Leadership

‘Get My Vote’ Website Launches

The NPR Digital Media team just went Beta with a new social media site to give individual voters a chance to share their personal views on how a candidate can get their vote.  The site is live here: npr.org/getmyvote.  The site is open and anyone can join and upload their point of view as audio, video, or text. 

The site is the brainchild of Andy Carvin, one of my NPR coworkers and a well-known evangelist of social media. NPR’s election unit will be covering personal commentaries uploaded onto Get My Vote throughout the rest of our election coverage. Andy gives many more details about the site, its origins, and plans for NPR and PBS member stations on his latest blog post.

Thomas G. Ayers: 1915 – 2007: My neighbor led civic, racial initiatives

This post’s title is adapted from the Chicago Tribune’s obituary for my former neighbor, Tom Ayers. Mr. Ayers lived two doors down after his retirement as CEO of Commonweath Edison. I have a lot of personal remembrances of Mr. Ayers, and remember him very clearly as being tolerant, reserving judgement, and exercising modesty. They went to barbeques, drove GM cars, and bought candy from my brother and I when we sold it to raise money for our baseball teams.

I learned more about Mr. Ayers and his son Bill after we’d left Glen Ellyn and moved to Rochester, NY and throughout college.  As my father suggested, Mr. Ayer’s stature as an industrialist and a community leader influenced my decision to attend the University of Michigan.

I’m still learning. The Tribune’s remembrance traces Tom Ayer’s contributions to the Chicago community.