headphonesonly

Open Letter: An Update and Exciting News

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to give you an update on how I’m doing and what’s coming up in my life. It may have been a while since we’ve last talked, or maybe not. I’ve spent the past two years at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario for Radio Broadcasting. It’s been an exhilarating program offering a lot of hands on experience in the studio and on the air. It has given me a lot of opportunities including one I’m really excited to tell you about. I’ve been working at the Corus Radio London cluster for the past year and a half mostly working at AM980 (http://am980.ca). One of the exciting things I get to do there is produce and co-host “Saturday Mornings with Cheryl Weedmark.” Cheryl is a household name in London. She was a host on the A-Channel Mornings for 10 years in London. She has made the move to talk radio and this gave me an opportunity to work with her. It’s been a wonderful experience and one that will continue to grow. All of these things, including my time spent at myFM before college have prepared me for and lead to what is going to be an incredible couple of weeks ahead of me.

I’m privileged enough to be going to Vancouver for a week to be covering the Olympics. What’s become more than a sporting event will bring over 80 nations, more than 5500 athletes, and the hopes of our own country to the ice, snow, and mountains of BC. I’ve been invited by a company called VeriCorder (http://vericorder.com). VeriCorder is a company out of Kelowna started by a former CBC journalist who had had enough with lugging his bulky recording kits around and wanted to develop a platform in which he didn’t need all the gear and could still get his job done quickly. Several years later came the iPhone and not much later, VeriCorder started development of their applications. They make iPhone and iPod Touch applications designed for mobile journalists and media personnel to capture, edit, and send media from the iPhone back to the newsroom. I met Gary, the CEO when he came to Fanshawe interested in integrating the software into Fanshawe’s newsroom.

Several months later, they asked me and another student from Fanshawe (I’ve attached a photo of us) if we were interested in what they were calling the MOJO Revolution Project. (MOJO is short for Mobile Journalism.) This experiment would be all inclusive, they would fly us to Vancouver, give us a place to stay, feed us, provide us with a media pass, and in return we would capture one of the world’s biggest events proving how powerful their applications are. It didn’t take much convincing to get me on board.

That’s what my next two weeks are going to be about! I’m leaving this Wednesday, February 10th and will be there for the opening ceremonies and the first week of the games. I’m incredibly excited about this once in a lifetime experience. I wanted to take this chance to thank you. You have contributed greatly to my development and success and I appreciate all you have done. If you are interested in following my journey, I’ll be capturing it all and would love to share it with you. I’ll be sharing via twitter (http://twitter.com/nickwynja),  facebook (http://facebook.com/nickwynja) and countless other mediums, but the best place to find it all is athttp://nickwynja.ca. I would love to hear from you about how you are doing, what you’re most looking forward to at the Olympics, what events you are going to be watching, and who your favourites athletes are. Talk to you soon.

Cheers,
Nick Wynja

Vancouver Bound

I’m heading to Vancouver for a week to cover the 2010 Winter Olympics! A company called VeriCorder has invited me down. They are flying me out, giving me a cot to sleep on in some student house, and stocking that house up with boxes of cereal. They are giving me a Transit Pass (hopefully TransLink is better than the LTC) and a Media Pass. VeriCorder creates iPhones apps designed so mobile journalists can record, edit, and send their media right from the field. . One of the apps they are releasing shortly is Poddio Pro; a slick audio recording and editing app. I’m going to help demo the app to thousands of journalists at Robson Square before the games then once the games start I’ll be let loose in Vancouver with an iPhone and a Media Pass. I’m not going to be feeding you the scores or the medal rankings because you can see and hear that anywhere. I’m going to try and bring you what you can’t see.. the things and people behind the podium and what the games are like for any person lucky enough to be in Vancouver. I do feel really lucky to be able to be in Vancouver for an event that will hopefully bring the nation together.

You can read my updates right here, follow me on twitter @nickwynja, or hear me on AM980.

Arkells LIVE on Fanshawe Radio

Arkells dropped by the CFRL Studios at Fanshawe College’s Broadcast Center and Jeremy got to sit down and talk with them. The Arkells played a live acoustic set showing off their incredible live sound.