As promised, tonight I was a guest on Washington Business Tonight – my first TV interview.  The show’s anchor, Rebecca Cooper, invited me on the show after she read my response to the recent DC Creative Economic Forum.

Here’s the interview, for your viewing pleasure:

(If that video doesn’t work right for you, click here to watch it on the show’s website.)

I was sure I would look too shiny, or say “um” every other word, or move my head too much – instead, I look a bit like a stunned gazelle at first, but after that I think I come off ok. I’m glad I got to talk about the challenges of defining “the creative community” (let alone the “creative economy”) and to shine a light on one of the city’s creativity champions, Phillipa Hughes.

The News Channel 8 studio is in Rosslyn, and since I’m always late, I gave myself an hour to get there, and arrived uncharacteristically early. I filled the time chatting with the receptionist, who happened to be the biggest fan of PBS I have ever encountered. Seriously, he listed about a dozen shows he loves, from oldies but goodies (This Old House, Mystery) to the new American Experience series We Shall Remain. While we were chatting, the other guest of the night, a gentleman from the Heritage Foundation, arrived, and said he was there to talk about GM, and Mr. PBS launched into a tirade against the U.S. auto industry for killing the electric car (“that documentary aired on PBS,” he was sure to note).

At about 6:50, the show’s producer came out to fetch me and the Heritage gentleman, and led us through a labyrinth of Politico.com cubicles (Politico shares the News Channel 8 space) to the show’s set. At 7:00, the show was live, and by 7:30, I was back in my car, on my way to improv practice. After which I rushed home to watch my Tivo’d self.

…and blog about it.

Tagged as: creative_business, creative_community, thoughts_on_dc, video