LernerMedia Global

K. Lee Lerner, Le Cordon Bleu, December 2010

As our colleagues and friends know, 2010 proved to be a rewarding, but  hectic, year.

After  a exhausting summer of work (book, film, and  helping coordinate media coverage of the Deepwater Horizon spill, we were approached to write and edit a book on global food issues. This was a project of love and allowed us to reconnect with colleagues around the world. However, in anticipation of the global food crisis now emerging, the multivolume set was completed in just five months instead of  15 months). We think the book, due out in April 2011, will be a solid offering the field.  More about this book in future posts.

In response to the Gulf spill we also undertook an emergency revision of a major multi-volume environmental encyclopedia so that it could include the latest information on climate change and offer coverage of recent natural and environmental disasters.

Together these two book projects literally consumed 20 hours a day for five months. They also pushed all other media work (including our Great Libraries documentary) into 2011 and 2012.

As our colleagues are also aware (those still speaking to us, anyway), in 2010 we contributed heavily to year end media retrospectives on the Earthquake in Haiti, Deepwater Horizon spill, Chilean miner rescue, and the continuing controrversies of the Iranian nuclear program.

None of this would have been possible,   especially in a year of corporate transition, without the guidance, assistance,  hard work, and “keep us all sane” humor of dozens of our colleagues. From our publishers and production companies to our own interns, we are fortunate to work with bright, capable, and good  people.   We are truly humbled by your skill and inspired by your dedication to producing quality content.  We simply could not have made it through the rigors and trials of 2010  without you. We owe you profound and lasting thanks.

We finally wrapped work in the U.S.  and moved to Paris on December 15th. We have a lovely apartment in the 6th on Rue Vavin, less than 100 meters from the Jardin du Luxembourg.  I do not have my cycle, and so running in the park is the new way to keep fit.  We’ll see if these old rugby knees can last.

We are currently involved in both book and media projects in both the U.S. and Europe. We will be living and working on projects out of Paris the first half of 2011.

When not traveling, we  are increasingly rotating our time between Paris, the U.S. Gulf Coast (working aboard our sailboat Bellissima B. as much as possible), and Bonnieux in Provence (where the movie A Good Year was filmed). Although LernerMedia Global is still a .co.uk site, the projects and colleagues are now truly international in scope.  Thankfully, our recent transformations now allow me to focus at least part of my time  on film development and other projects that have interested me for years. Accordingly, my trips back to or through London are less frequent, increasingly short, and at odd intervals.

However, I’m frankly (and somewhat embarrassingly), still at a loss for time to develop this journal and other  social media sites –and I am not sure when this might change. I have pulled nearly all of our backstories offline (including many of the  photos and films from our  global circumnavigation in 2008).  We are revamping all the backstory entries to stream new video and so many of the categories  are missing or offer just a fraction of the prior content.  Our new media partnerships actually make social interaction more complex because we no longer technically control and own some of our past work. However, as time allows I will be rebuilding our web sites and introducing some wonderful new features.  We have a some highly skilled media colleagues in Paris and I absorbing as much as I can (or my French allows).

We do, however, continue to travel and work in many dangerous areas, and so we remain sensitive to both client confidentiality and security issues that will probably preclude rampant social networking.  Given the time I see colleagues devote to these tasks, I think I might hang on this an excuse to avoid plunging in!

As our colleagues and other media professionals know, to facilitate LernerMedia work globally and to more properly focus on print, media, and new film projects, LernerMedia was divided into separate companies (LernerMedia and LernerMedia Global) during 2010. As a result our online sites were scheduled to undergo extensive renovation. Our heavy commitments to coverage of the Discovery Horizon oil spill, and the book projects mentioned above delayed our anticipated development of our new online resources in 2010. New websites, reflecting LernerMedia’s new diversification, are now scheduled for launch in April 2011.

I will be attending and helping host participants to the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers (WCFSP) in Paris in late November 2011. France Télévisions is hosting and we hope to see you there!

Until the new platforms launch, older version of the LernerMedia website will remain posted at www.lernermedia.net. I have some updates for this journal I will be posting soon.

Our youngest daughter is attending Le Cordon Bleu and living with us in Paris this semester.  We watched the BCS game  on a computer feed that started at 2:30 am.  Ellie was online with her friends back on campus and at the game throughout.  What can I say except “WAR EAGLE”  (I did not go there , but I have paid many tuitions) Great times. We ere able to attend the LSU game and it was fantastic to see the enthusiasm  and traditions.  I must now live my promise to all deities (major, minor, nonexistent, and humanistically allegorical) to never again care about any American football game. What a season! What a string of heart-stopping comeback wins!

It’s a dark family secret that we also have a child  with a transcript from that other major school — the best three loss team in America.  Accordingly we root for the Crimson (and any other SEC team) and delight in their success when not playing Auburn. I have no personal conflicts, however, int he sheer delight gained by watching and rewatching this year’s Iron Bowl. Whenever I fell down, I pull up the clips from YouTube.

My reward for a tough 2010 was a three day traditional boulangerie course at the Le Cordon Bleu . It was grand.

More on 2001 projects soon. Yes, we will be hiring starting in February for projects both in the U.S. and E.U.  We are expanding our environmental coverage — and we can always use those with experience in an expanding online content market.

Bonne Année!

Cheers,

Lee