"Excuse me," says a distinguished looking gentleman poking his head in my office.
"Can I help you?" I ask, thinking he is in the building for some meeting and simply needs directions to the restroom that's just a few doors beyond my office.
It turns out the visitor, David Williams (E'64), is here for a Pittsburgh Alumni Chapter meeting, and he is walking to the bathroom. But, on the way, he noticed the nameplate outside my door and hoped to share with me a suggestion for the magazine coming from another alumnus who lives in "the middle of nowhere." Although I'm about to begin editing this issue’s cover story, I lean back from my keyboard and motion for my impromptu visitor to come in. It looks like dinner tonight may need to be reheated.
The suggestion doesn’t take too long to pass along, though: the alumnus from "nowhere" would like the magazine to publish the Carnegie Mellon football scores. I assure Mr. Williams we will give the suggestion consideration but also point out the limitations of a quarterly publication. Football scores, for instance, would appear months after the games took place. A more timely way to get results, I suggest, would be to instruct his friend to go online to the university’s Web homepage and click on Athletics. There, he'll find the latest news on all the intercollegiate teams and rec programs, too.
Good suggestion Mr. William replies, but in the case of his friend, it will fall on deaf ears. Even though he describes his friend as bright and, of course, well educated, he doesn’t go online. Ever.
Ten years ago, even five years ago, that admission may not have surprised me. But, today, even my 83-year-old father is online daily!
Mr. Williams wishes me well and allows me to return to my work. I open the file of the cover story, which is set in Kobe, Japan. For the feature, the interviews took place using Skype, free software that enabled a Pittsburgh-based writer to have face-to-face conversations, via the Web, with students enrolled in the university’s Kobe-based program. The accompanying art to the story was shot by a Japanese photographer who the magazine's creative director discovered via the Web. The digital photos were then sent to the magazine via the Web.
In other words, the Web enabled Carnegie Mellon Today to report on a story based 6,000 miles away without the writer, editor, or creative director ever leaving Pittsburgh. As I make my way through the text, I can't help but think how sad it is that the alumnus from "nowhere" isn't taking advantage of today's miraculous communication technology.
But, as depicted in the story, there is a downside, too. The Web, which has become a part of our daily routines, has also perpetrated a wave of online criminal activity. That's why the world needs a new kind of Sherlock Holmes, profiled in Crime Stoppers. I believe it’s a compelling article, along with all the other features and department stories packed in this issue.
What's not on the following pages are football scores. But for our offline alumnus, the Tartans scored 21 unanswered points to beat Washington University 21–13 at Homecoming on October 31.
—Robert Mendelson
Executive Editor
