Counterprogramming against the Scobles at ConvergeSouth
Stunned is the only way to describe how I reacted when I saw the classroom at A&T fill up during our session at ConvergeSouth. And people kept squeezing in. Co-leaders Allen Johnson and Stewart Pittman and A&T hostess-with-the-mostess Teresa Styles dragged in some more chairs. We were scheduled at the same time as the Scobles, which is a little like the WB counterprogramming against the Super Bowl. Or at least that's what I thought before about 80 people walked into the classroom.
For the discussion of "Creating a new media culture in a traditional newsroom," we expected a group of professional journalists from the MSM. What we got was a wonderful mix of traditional journalists, academics, citizen journalists, vbloggers, political types and even our incredibly transparent and open city councilmember, Sandy Carmany.
As a result, I'm not sure the unconference format worked as well as
it should have, and that was my fault. (I'm no Oprah.) We spent too much time talking about whether to moderate comments and getting resources from editors and publishers and not enough time on the key question posed by Janet (not sure of her last name. Janet Conover, was that you?), which was about strategies on moving newsrooms forward. Sorry about that.
But the discussion was robust, and we could have used another 60 minutes, easy. (Alas, I had a place on the sidelines of a soccer game reserved so couldn't stay.) I came away with a clear desire to moderate comments to enable constructive civil conversation. Also that we need to do a better job to work with the smart people around here who understand new media.
And, most of all, I remembered how much fun it is to discover the future together. The energy in that room for experimentation in the pursuit of the greater good was palpable to me. We need to do more, faster.
I wished I had been able to participate in the Scoble's thing. But what's good is this from Xark, which helps me.
Comments (2)
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heh.. i didn't know the title of the discussion before attending; now you can understand why i got so frustrated. ;)
Posted on October 14, 2006 10:25 PM
Good luck JR.
I'll give you one tip: if you choose to do more video -- which you should -- PLEASE don't let your current editors and reporters decide what video to do.
The trick with video is not the technology. That's the easy part.
You need to think about what video people will actually watch. Ideally, it would have nothing in common with what runs in the newspaper.
Approach it this way: would you see the video you're considering shooting on the TV news? If not, then don't bother shooting it.
Why? Because TV is smart. Much smarter than you would give them credit for. They work on ratings. And, if they aren't putting it on TV, then there is little or no interest in it from the public. That means, it's really not worth YOU doing.
That doesnt mean you can't experiment, but don't have EVERY video be "an experiment"
Good luck...
Posted on October 14, 2006 11:37 PM