[Sandy Greene]

Thanks for your thoughts, Bill.

As to your question, “who is using tape decks these days,” that would be the people who pay the bills.

Sure, you and I both know there are more convenient solutions than running strips-on-spools but the majority of my clients still need to use existing content on tapes to keep costs down.

To be honest, just inserting movies onto slides in Keynote is a great way to consolidate digital versions for a show. But I still need to control decks and DoReMis.

Thanks to everyone who’s responded thus far.

The search continues.

[Sandy Greene]

That’s so bizarre. The protocol is fairly straightforward, you’d think some coder would have done this by now…

Thanks for responding, Jon!

Anyone else out there know of a software solution?

[Sandy Greene]

Hi! Long-time reader, first-time poster!

I just wanted to give y’all a short little insight to my experience as a mentor-ee.

My program was a wee bit different than the one Rick is describing, but it was a mentor ship, none-the-less.

21 years ago I was very good high school student, but I was bored bored bored with my classes. One teacher noticed, and suggested I apply for this program. In order to be accepted, one had to be a good student, but moving in a direction that the high school wasn’t equipped to facilitate. For example, we had 2 girls who had mentor ships in chemical engineering, and one that went to the big zoo and worked with the dolphins. This wasn’t “work study”.

I originally wanted to edit film. I was enthralled with the tactile experience of physically cutting film. Alas, even in the late 1980’s, that sort of film editing was hard to find in our area. So they decided for me that television was close enough. I was a little disappointed, but it certainly made sense.

Anyway, to cut to the end of the story. I ended up being paired with a guy at the local cable station at first, with the intention of moving me to the CBS affiliate when they felt that I had enough background. The guy at the cable station took to mentoring me like nobody’s business, and I ended up staying there for the full year. I don’t think I would have gotten nearly as much education from the affiliate. Having worked at a TV station since, I know how fast things move, and how much time there isn’t to stop and explain oneself.

I truly believe it’s the reason that I stuck with my video production major in college (although I toyed with another major, and ended up with a double major). After graduation and a 3-month internship, I worked my way up the ranks, through three companies, before starting my own business nearly 9 years ago.

All this time, my mentor has been a good friend and a valued resource. Still, we keep in touch, and I consider him one of my oldest (longest) and dearest friends.

He continued to mentor a few kids after me, but eventually got out of it when he started working on his HTML skills. He’s no longer in the business, but is very supportive of me and my business. We’ve even worked together professionally in the past several years.

Man, I think I should give him a call!!

Thanks for letting me share my story!

Sandy