by Dot Cannon

Two weeks from today, is it.

For the first time, New Media Expo will be happening in tandem with the National Association of Broadcasters Convention, in Las Vegas.

We love NAB, having had the opportunity to see it since the 1988 convention, themed “Broadcasting and Democracy: The Winning Ticket”.

A surprise 1988 guest–whose presentation we’ll never forget–was “The Great Communicator”: then-President Ronald W. Reagan.  (He told a wonderful story about his on-air days as “Dutch Reagan”, when he interviewed evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson.  The President said that, knowing little about his guest, he ran out of questions and signaled his engineer to play a record, expecting a hymn or other sacred music.  Instead, the engineer put on “Minnie the Moocher’s Wedding”–in response to which McPherson exited the studio and slammed the door!)

This 2015 tandem event has the potential to be equally memorable–if not more so.

For the next weeks, up to and including the week of NAB/NMX, April 12-17th, we’ll be featuring “Over Coffee®” interviews with scheduled 2015 New Media Expo speakers.

Our first guest, comedian and motivational speaker Charles McFall, is scheduled to host a panel on “How to Build a Community That Grows Your Influence and Income” on Wednesday, April 15th.  Charles, on the far left in this picture, taken at 2014 NMX, is one of the co-hosts (as well as the executive producer) of the Success Freaks podcast.

As always with NMX, we know we’ll learn a lot–and will be wishing we could “time travel”, as this year’s often-concurrent sessions include discussions of podcasting trends, legal issues, marketing and monetization.  All of the above are BEFORE we add in the video, “Creative Master Series” and discussions of electronic news gathering through aerial robotics (yup–drones!) that will be part of this year’s National Association of Broadcasters convention.

Viva NMX!  Viva NAB!  See you in Vegas.