I told you that I was named a Fellow of the SBE this morning. This evening I attended another awards event that had several honorees.

LOI International is a PR and marketing firm that works with companies including Myat and VCI Solutions. The company president, Lauren Darr, wanted to recognize the efforts of people who work for broadcast trade publications. With that, she created the Inky Awards.

(The name is a long story, but some info is posted at the LOI Inky’s site.)

The categories recognize those who work in editorial and sales. I was nominated in the category of Excellent Editor, Radio-US. I was nominated with four other radio publication editors. I was pleased to learn this evening that I won the category. Jim Haupstueck of ERI was there to read the nominees and present the award.

One note from one of my nominators reads, “[He] has applied knowledge of the technical aspects of radio, skills in language, and the ability to convey clear ideas and meaning of a subject to provide useful resource to radio broadcast engineers.”

I proud of that statement because I feel that is one of my strengths, and it captures what I try to do with Radio magazine.

I’ll also congratulate my counterpart and associate at Broadcast Engineering magazine who received the Excellent Editor, Television-US award, Editorial Director Brad Dick.

I attended the Society of Broadcast Engineers board of directors meeting this morning. I’m the immediate past president of the SBE, which make me a voting member of the board. One order of business was to approve a nomination for the membership grade of Fellow of the Society.

If you don’t know what that means, the SBE by-laws define a Fellow:

“A member who has rendered conspicuous service, or is recognized as having made valuable contribution to the advancement of broadcast engineering or its allied professions, dissemination of knowledge thereof, the promotion of its application in practice, may be elected a fellow of the Society.”

The board approved the nomination of John Heimerl, the chief enterprise officer of Hampton Roads Educational Telecommunications Association in Norfolk, VA. Congratulations, John.

There was another nomination that was evaluated by the board before the meeting, but was kept confidential by one member of the board. It was kept a secret from me. Why? Because I was nominated.

I was informed near the end of the meeting, and I have to admit that I was very pleased and surprised.

I know many Fellows of the SBE. I have worked with quite a few, including several past presidents. I have learned a great deal from all of them. I now have the honor of being included in their ranks.

Thanks, SBE.

I posted some things that I expect to be in and out at the 2009 NAB Show. I’m in Las Vegas now, and after walking around the convention before the exhibits open, I found some items to add.

In
* Interest in technology
I stopped in the SBE Ennes Educational Workshop and saw an interested crowd. The room was not as full as I have seen it in previous years, but there was a decent crowd. And they were all focused on the presentation.

Out
* Broadcast attendees
I said earlier that while the overall attendance will be down (something the NAB admits), the raw number won’t look as bad as it really is. I expect attendees to stay only a few days instead of the entire week.

However, even these numbers may be deceiving. I saw a quote from Dennis Wharton, executive vice president of media relations at the NAB, who echoed the reduced attendance expectation, but he also noted that only 20 percent of the attendees are actually broadcasters. He attributed this to the diversity of the convention now. This leads me to the next out:

* The broadcast focus of the convention
If only 20 percent of the attendees are broadcasters, why is it still called the NAB?