Future of News / Future Civic Media BarCamps
I'm going to propose the following format for each entry:
Title
Abstract
Organizer(s)
The title of the session should click through to a more in-depth description and dialog of what will be included in the session, links to preparatory material, etc. So, for instance, if I were to do a session on my new proposal for a crowd-sourced TV Guide, it might look like
YouTV: The role of participatory television scheduling.
TV guide has shut down its operations in several major cities in the United States, leading to a dramatic increase in clicking during the first five minutes of every prime time hour. How does this effect the screenwriter's guild (lengthened character exposition, increased reliance on flashbacks) and more importantly, advertising revenues? How can citizens band together to provide the episode synopses and critical timing information that help the average American schedule four hours of their every day?
B. Z. Clown, Sue P. Sails
PLEASE ADD YOUR SESSIONS BELOW!
We are Here: Mapping and Community
A discussion on mapping and community, in order to orient our efforts, survey best practices and locate mapping historically and socially. The current trajectory is to begin with a more cultural and social perspectives on mapping, segue into design in a broad sense, and end up at current technical implementations and issues. Josh, David and Jeff might provide some case studies to help ground this or we might focus on emergent case studies/discussion from the group.
Matthew Hockenberry, Sara Wylie, Josh Levinger, David Zwarg, and Jeff Warren
Models for community engagement
I'm preparing to launch Oakland Local, a community news and information hub (has a JLab seed grant) that will marry grassroots community information/news with beat reporting and investigative journalism and am eager to discuss models and best practices. This session will focus on case studies from participants, what has worked, level of effort, combining civic journalism and professional reporting and storytelling--but with a focus on engaging and representing community.
Susan Mernit, Rich Gordon,BEVERLY BLAKE, Paul Grabowicz, Amanda Hickman, Chris O'Brien, Geoff Dougherty, Harry Dugmore are among the people who have expressed interest in this session-let's consider a call or email to plan how we might present to each other (and all others wecomed). What are your 3 burning questions? (please add them)
Mobile track/session ideas Susan Mernit suggested "Mobile & news: Interfaces, experiences, platforms Mobile seems critical to me as a key development piece for all future of new products and development; what are the best practices, interesting and successful experiments, platforms, products, tools we can teach one another?" Lots of response, including much from people with more expertise than me(Susan) on this topic--interest from Katrin Verclas , Rich Gordon, Jacob Colker, Beverly Blake, Ory Oholloh, Chris O'Brien, Joyce Barnathan, Roberta King, all like this session idea. Chris Csikszentmihalyi offered to possibly expand track.
Mobile Media Toolkit - a brainstorm MobileActive.org is expanding on its "Mobile Voice" report focusing on mobiles in media with an expanded Mobile Toolkit with use cases, interesting and successful (or not) experiments, platforms, products, and tools for using mobiles in media development, media production, and citizen media. This session will be a 45-min brainstorm on what you would like to see as part of the Toolkit. Bring your questions, your projects, your wishes, your ideas, your need for specific content her. We will develop the Toolkit over the next six months with as much user input from around the world as possible. (session facilitator: Katrin Verclas)
Demystifying Mobile Tech] Proposed session that will demystify working with mobile technologies by showing how to send or receive sms, or to microblog in a few lines of code, describe the issues involved in handset programming, and talk about strategies for building more complex systems. Additionally, we can talk about mobile technologies and their role in democracies, specifically in regard to media/surveillance/control. With mobile phones, however, each phone is completely controllable (without the user's permission) in each of its transactions. David Reed, one of the inventors of the Internet, has said "If I were commissioned to design an information medium from scratch for Robert Mugabe or some other despot, it would look a lot like the mobile phone infrastructure." (suggested facilitator - Chris C?)
Mobiles and Radio -- the Perfect Combination? I would love to see a session with some use cases on mobiles/radio -- synergies, tools (most mobile sin India, for example, have radio built in), best practices, and new ideas. Possible use cases: Lindaba Ziyakfika project in Grahamstown South Africa.(happy to facilitate but more eager to learn! Katrin Verclas)
I (Rick Borovoy) am a Visiting Scientist at the Center for Future Civic Media with experience doing a VC-funded start-up based on innovative wearable computer technology that came out of the Media Lab. I've thought a lot about the entrepreneurial process, particularly as it applies to seeking out new intersections between a technology, a user community, a development team and a funding source. I'd love to co-lead a session on these issues.
Rick Borovoy, Vikki Porter, Pam Fine
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