Category: Conferences

Would You Help a Reporter?

Conferences, FutureVisions, Smart Bloggers

Ross Dawson’s Future of Media Summit generated quite a lot of debate on both sides of the Pacific. There was some excellent coverage of the summit from a variety of angles, with Stephen Collins asking What will the future of media look like?, Chris Bishops pondering the business models around monetising future content and Craig Wilson viewing the summit with one eye focused on the Twitter backchannel.

henchmen on tvSeth Yates has provided an excellent summary including notes on all the panels which is a great reference point for those who attended, and those who could not. Reading back through these posts it is clear that the debate shifted to a discussion about future roles, not necessarily future industries. Indeed, much of the discussion falling out of the conference has been around citizen journalists vs professional journalists.

Stilgherrian’s summit coverage, (and the same post at Crikey with a different commentary/discussion), plus Jonathan Este’s response, (which was originally posted on Crikey and reposted on Stilgherrian’s blog with comments) turned the heat up on this debate.

ATHLETE Director Dave's Pics - A Frenzy in Gotham: The PremiereClearly this is an emotion-charged discussion. And while it is a discussion that needs to take place, it strikes me that we are being bogged down in a debate that may be solved by refocusing our cognitive surplus in another direction — finding an innovative way of delivering value across the chasm between the "traditional" and "social" media groups. In fact, finding a way of bringing journalists and new media practitioners together may be the best way forward.

Last week I saw a link to Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter site. It is a site designed to connect reporters with credible and expert news sources (and yes, that includes bloggers). It is opt-in. It’s a site that uses technology to provide value to a community that, in many ways, does not yet exist. It is well facilitated. But I wonder, is this something that would work here in Australia? It certainly could, and should.

But participation costs. It means leaving your shoes at the door. It means rolling up our sleeves and reshaping the media industry from the ground up. It is not the total solution, but it is a first step. What do you think? Would you help a reporter?

Future of Media Summit 2008

Conferences, Old Media, Social Media
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Ross Dawson’s Future of Media Summit was held simultaneously in Sydney, Australia and San Francisco, USA.

I live blogged the proceedings using CoverItLive (my first real usage of this service) while also attempting to feed this information into the Twitter stream — which you can view via Summize.

There was much "traditional media" vs "new media" discussion which bogged down the flow. This was particularly evident during the panel discussions which were heavily laced with members of "traditional media", with bare and often no representation from the "new" side of the business. This forced the alternate conversation into the "back channel" — the Twitter stream which was equally one-sided.

It wasn’t until later, during the unconference sessions, where Stephen Collins and Jed White took the lead in introducing the participants to Twitter (and the under-conference that had been happening all day). Unfortunately I had to leave by this time, but was able to roughly follow proceedings via Twitter — with new names popping up every couple of minutes. Perhaps, in this way, the future of media is PARTICIPATION.

But before we can get to participation, there is some work to do on education and on technology. There is some effort required to re-think the business models and the frameworks that we use to value communities, consumers and the space where they intersect with brands and publishers. It seems that ten years on, the vision of the Cluetrain Manifesto is coming into focus.

Congratulations go to Ross Dawson and team responsible for bringing together some of the stakeholders. I will be interested to see the way that this conversation pans out over the next 12 months.

I will have more analysis around this event in the coming days — and keep an eye out for the coverage from Stephen Collins, Stilherrian, Chris Saad, Craig Wilson, Mark Pesce and other attendees.

The Future of Media Conference

Conferences

Ross Dawson has consistently been thinking through the future of media from a business perspective for the last few years. In 2006 Ross developed this strategic framework which still holds great value for organisations yet to come to grips with the opportunities and challenges of Web 2.0 (and let’s face it, that is the majority).

This month, Ross has released the latest installment — the Future of Media Lifecycle. It is a nice framing device for the main thrust of the Future of Media Summit that is occuring simultaneously in San Francisco and Sydney next week.

If you are in Sydney (July 15) or in San Francisco (July 14), you can register here … and participate in the live conference, the city-to-city live hookup and in the unconference sessions that are bound to bring some life to the proceedings. After all, where else are you going to get this array of speakers for one low price?

And if Pubcamp Sydney was any guide, there is bound to be a healthy Twitter back channel in action — and with luck — a vibrant series of unconference discussions.

Pubcamp Sydney in Hindsight

Conferences, Digital Strategy, Social Media

Last week, Jed White from itechne hosted Pubcamp, Sydney – the Web 2.0 media day – bringing the publishing/media world face-to-face with the increasingly vocal and empowered social media/web 2.0 crowd. This week, it was followed up with a Melbourne event.

Broken into a short format presentation style (similar to the approach we took at Interesting South), a variety of speakers provided their take on the current role and the future of media. There was a panel discussion and a debate — all followed by unconference sessions which allowed participants to actively investigate some of the topics raised during the presentations.

In Sydney the room seemed to divide into two camps. One one side were the new media folks, furiously commenting and conversing via the Twitter “backchannel” — and on the other the “traditional media” folks who appeared largely unaware of the un-unconference being carried on through Twitter. There seemed to be no middle ground between the two sides — each holding firm to the belief in their own relevance.

It was, however, during the panel discussion where the Twitter conversation spilled over from the back channel onto the conference room floor. The panel appeared to be populated by people who had spent most of their careers in the publishing industry with no “new media” representative. Stephen Collins summed up the collective Twitter response along the lines of “you don’t know what you are talking about”. From that point onwards, there was no going back — with the conversation becoming stuck around the relative merits of “professional” vs “citizen” journalism.

It wasn’t, however, until I sat in on Matt Moore’s unconference session on value networks that I began to see a way forward. It is not that there is no overlap between the two camps, it is just that there is no shared vocabulary for us to discuss shared areas of interest. And rather than spending our energies debating the relative merits of our own cases, I feel it would be far more productive identifying opportunities where each group could collaborate or experiment together. This, of course, means new ways of identifying and measuring value — it means new approaches to community and to business.

And while there may well be a long way to go before we see such opportunities come to pass, perhaps Pubcamp is the first, tentative step forward. Next time, I hope to see greater web 2.0/social media representation; getting down and dirty with the business model discussion; less plugs for new services/offerings; discussion on the role of communities; involvement from digital strategists/agencies.

For more detailed coverage of the Sydney event, see Renai LeMay (for the AFR), Craig Wilson and Nic Hodges (let me know if I have missed your coverage). Melbourne has been covered by Ben Barren, Michael Specht, Stephen Mayne.

Pubcamp Sydney Voxpop

Conferences, Old Media, Social Media, Web 2.0

Craig Wilson and Gordon Whitehead from Sticky Advertising took some time out at Pubcamp Sydney to probe some members of the audience on the future of media in 2008. Here is the first set of responses … featuring (in order of appearance Gavin Heaton, Sean Carmody and Markus Hafner).

I am currently writing up a review of the Sydney event, but in the meantime, take a look at Matt Moore’s summary or view the twitter stream for yourself. Don’t forget, Pubcamp Melbourne next week.


PubCamp – The Web 2.0 Media Day from Sticky Advertising on Vimeo.

Register for PubCamp, Sydney

Conferences

mad friendsEver since I attended my first BarCamp in Sydney I have been thinking that the opportunity for a similar effort focused on digital media, social networking and media would be fantastic.

So with PubCamp – The Web 2.0 Media Day set down for June 18 in Sydney and June 23 in Melbourne, it looks like there will be an afternoon of interesting, unconference-style discussion.

  • RSVP for Sydney here
  • RSVP for Melbourne here

And as the events run from 3pm in the afternoon, you don’t need to take an entire day out of your busy schedule. Go on, what are you waiting for?

Interesting South Debrief In-Brief

Co-creation, Conferences, Smart Bloggers

  Lauren Brown sketches the speakers 
  Originally uploaded by servantofchaos

The Interesting South gang (Emily Reed, Katie Chatfield, Ian Lyons, Gregg Girling, Matt Moore, Rob Marson, Stig Richards, Tim Longhurst, Gavin Heaton, Lauren Brown) breathed a collective sigh of relief around midnight last night. After months of planning, the presentations all came together in a way that held the sellout crowd in thrall.

Our speakers performed very well in front of a large and curious crowd at the Belvoir Street Theatre. As we started, our MC for the evening, Tim Longhurst asked the audience to turn on their mobile phones and contribute to the conference via Twitter or by SMS direct to his mobile phone.

Mark Bagshaw kicked off the proceedings with an astounding speech about opportunity, challenge, disability and optimism — setting a very high bar for all who followed. Roger Dennis encouraged us to look at different industries to identify innovative opportunities for our own. Emily Reed investigated, to all our fears, why marriages fail.

A brief interval saw the audience burst into conversation, inspired by the six word biographies they were wearing. The Belvoir Street front of house team were busy watering the thirsty audience and the staff from Wagamama negotiated the jammed foyer as best they could.

Christian Mushenko shared some everyday heroes with us all. Tim Noonan lived up to his reputation, delivering a daring, daunting and slightly saucy discussion about what it means to be the real you. Annalie Killian reminded us that change is the constant in our lives and was followed by Wade Millican who brought us to a central meditative space in the space of minutes. Zoe Horton brought tears to all our eyes as she stepped through the challenges and delicate joys of genetic counselling.

During the next interval we ran the brave Tereasa Trevor through Marlaina Read’s presentation on the History of Photography. Marlaina was unable to make it to Sydney to present, but she offered to send the slides, and in the spirit of open source, we called for a volunteer presenter. Tereasa stepped up to the challenge via an SMS to MC, Tim Longhurst.

On returning to the theatre, we were treated to Scott Portelli’s awesome images and video of swimming with whales off the coast of Tonga. And then keeping with the animal theme, Ian Johnston asked us whether animals think about what other animals think. Suzanne Dagseven gave an inspiring speech about finding your purpose and escaping the mundane everyday prisons of our own making. Tereasa delivered her own take on Marlaina’s presentation and then Stephen Collins explained exactly how Web 2.0 technologies can be used to make real change — in this case his daughter’s school board. Michael Lister stepped us through the intricacies and amusing challenges of bus route design. Russ Tucker introduced us to his Viral Waistcoat and all the people who have worn it (BUT it seems to have gone missing. If you know where it is, please let him know!).

I will put together some deeper thoughts on the presentations as time allows … but for those who were not able to attend in person, we will share videos and photos as they become available. Thanks to all who participated!

Joseph Jaffe Got Shouty at Ad:Tech

Conferences

  Joseph Jaffe Got Shouty 
  Originally uploaded by Cam Beck

Joe Jaffe was unable to attend Blogger Social … but in the spirit of fund raising, his name tag was auctioned off.

It seems that "Joseph Jaffe" has had several sightings at Ad:Tech in San Francisco where the marketing bloggers were out in force thanks to Tim McHale at the Madison Ave Journal. You can check out their coverage all over the web — and by following the adtech twitter stream.

Thinking on Your Feet with Anil Dash

Conferences

Just found this great video of Anil Dash thinking on his feet at SXSW (tip of the hat to Angus). Here he is participating in Battle Decks which is a a presentation competition where he has never seen the slides and yet must weave a story around what he sees on the screen. Very impressive.