“Traditional corporations have been doing this for a long time – there’s science behind it, they know what they’re doing.” Steve’s opening comment is following by a “ha” from the audience.
“I think before we define the worst, I think we should define what would make it the best.” Steve Pratt starts off showing promo shots for morning shows on radio stations, from Dano and Jono to the nugget. The all request lunch hour, the all request electric lunch. Then there’s “the wacky morning show idea the morning zoo,” followed by other formats and re-hashed formats.
Truths of private radio: Continue reading this post ⟩⟩
“He might look like your average college professor but he’s f’ing insane – he’s the funniest guy I know,” notes Kris Krug as he introduces Rob Cottingham, today’s second keynote. Nancy White will also be doing a freeform graphical interpretation of Rob’s talk as we go along.
He says his daughter told him to “Break a leg” this morning, “and can you tell her that Peter Mansbridge really should make way for some younger blood?”
“I would like to begin with a moment of silence for all the services that have died since the last Northern Voice: Pownce, SocialFM, Rogers Customer Service.”
“We’re going to try and make a little history this morning, I’m going to use a little tool made by our friends here in Vancouver, “HootSuite” — I’m going to strive to become the first stand up comic in history to heckle himself. And frankly I’m exactly the kind of jackass that I was afraid would show up.” He says we’re all welcome to join him on twitter using a special hashtag that is exactly 140 characters long.
Here’s here to talk about what makes social media funny. Starting with podcasting, how funny is podcasting? Rob then impersonates a podcaster’s opening remarks, which I wish I could get the audio for.
Up next, end-user license agreements, funny? “There’s a reason the button says ‘submit’.” Rob says, “The guy selling heroin at an elementary school would say, my that sounds a little one-sided.” “Take my rights, have my kidneys and give me my free Scrabble application!”
Beta testing – funny? The room is slightly indifferent but Rob thinks beta testing is funny. Rob is reading a beta testing agreement while Nancy is writing and drawing feverishly with felt markers on the board behind him.
Memes, funny or not funny? “I’m going to go with not funny.” On the screen Rob has the”Drive a 6″ stake through your hand meme” which ends with “tag six people you really don’t like.” He then calls up the “3 people you’ve cheated on your spouse with” meme” and the instructions are hilarious.
Blogging, funny? “Blogging amazes me, how much of blogging is about blogging?” A lot. “Any communications channel opens up conversations about that communication,” ie. the Verizon “can you hear me now?”. The topic more interesting to people about blogging is monetizing blogging.
Business in the social web is funny to Rob. It’s all about “continuous arguable improvement”. It’s not the heart of social media. This “wasn’t dreamed up in anyone’s boardroom,” he adds, “this world of social media was invented and re-invented by us.”
With regards to social media or web 2.0 whatever you want to call it, “at the heart of this thing is creative self expression and the ability to connect.”
Rob mentions Andrew Keen’s book, The Cult of the Amateur, and how he thinks that’s the wrong idea. It’s about a supportive culture of friends both online and in the real world.
“By applause, LOLCats, funny? Or not funny?” Funny wins. Rob never was a big fan, but it’s the lesser of many evils. “Shared laughter is more than just a sound.”
“The social web is hilarious, and thank god.” He says, “if you’re already doing teh funny, keep it up.”
Welcome to day two of Northern Voice 2009 we have two keynotes this morning and the first is Nora Young (from Spark on CBC Radio) to discuss On Buried Hatchets and Better Tomorrows discussing a new ecology of information for content creators, from mainstream media to online publishing.
Update: When new technologies arrive there is a culture shift. Nora’s first example is the telephone and how it changed the way people communicate — from small things such as what do you say when you first pick up the phone?, “ahoy” got a nice round of chuckles.
Spark is about technology and culture so the intersection with social media was a great fit for Young. Along with a colleague they came up with tips for mainstream media based on social media such as transparency. “Mirror the more open, loose, and character of a blog,” asking, “what would a blog sound like on the radio?”.
“We deliberately try to show that we’re not live, and we’re not perfect — which isn’t too hard to do — but we try and let the seams show.” Nora’s presentation is peppered with great archived audio as well.
Another tip for mainstream media based on social media thinking is to “give up on the idea of being the sole authority.” They “try to bring the idea of a perpetually unfolding conversation into the program.” She says they are also very open about the fact that some of the best ideas come from the Spark community and those who enjoy the show. “Have integrity in your desire to foster community.”
Update: “There are some real, practical and esthetic challenges,” for mainstream media in order to shift to this kind of thinking.
“It’s not what you know but who you know, we’re living in an age of socialized information,” Nora uses Twitter as an example of this, “it’s becoming a fantastic tool for information gathering and dissemination.” With Spark they also put out questions, share information and engage their audience even more.
Nora also mentions that it’s a collaborative truth meaning “the contribution of the individuals is important but not an important as the sum total,” which she notes as a really big change. “The culture of the book which is linear and individual to the culture of the web.”
Update: “Mobiquity: being continually connected in the mobile web,” is another shift Nora mentions. When more people connect to the internet from their phones than desktop computers what does that mean for content and the way blogs are viewed? (Editor’s Note, check out Brave New Code‘s WPtouch plugin if you’re on WordPress — it makes your blog look amazing from a mobile device).
What happens when you have perpetual internet connectivity? The web isn’t detached from geography, it can be hyper-local, mentions Nora.
“It’s not just about the technology it’s about all the layers of social organization,” Nora gives an example of her local farmer’s market and how she likes to get eggs from the egg lady. If they market were totally connected and she was aware that the egg lady would not be at the market that day she probably wouldn’t have ventured out. However she didn’t know, she did go, and she had a great experience — which she could have missed out on if she had all the information re: the egg lady. (There are some negative implications of being *too* connected…)
She moves on to sustainability, what people want versus what people say – closing the gap, “so there’s a better marriage of information,” so that “consumers can now contribute information about what they want in a product and designers can get that.”
Example of a participatory culture in business is the stock photo industry and how the model for stock photos no longer exists with sites like Flickr.
“Who the hell has time for all of this?” Nora notes that, “If you can make things simple and elegant people will spend a lot of their own volunteer energy to figure things out.” (Editor’s Note: Yay open source!)
Flipping information sharing on its head Nora gives an example of a class where the teachers sent the kids home with video podcasts in order to get the info and learn then when the kids came to school, the personal face time was to interact, work, and discuss what they learned.
Update: How do we find spaces for deeper shared learning? At the bare minimum, Nora says this means we have to push for information access, and we need to remember what all of this collaboration is for.
The name for this session per the Northern Voice website was “Mash Media Storytelling” and having recently seen RiP: A Remix Manifesto, I’m definitely interested in this topic. That, and I also caught James Chutter speak at Interesting Vancouver this past summer and would love to hear more.
Update: In 2004 James graduated film school at NYU, at the same time Tim O’Reilly coined the term web 2.0 noting that just as he received all his professional training the tides shifted, and now “some kid in his basement who didn’t finish high school is making better films than you.” He looked up “web 2.0” and saw that one of its largest elements is participation.
His first example is radio and how War of the Worlds mashed what radio was — news and audio theatre — and how Orson Wells was a storyteller that understood the technology of radio and also the distribution of the medium, creating what was a great mash-up.
“Now this is the slide I call ‘Don’t do what Doug does,” Doug is the CEO of Universal Music. A short while ago he realized he made a mistake by throttling the music industry and it’s all about getting, sharing, re-using, and interacting. As a result, the online music channel for Universal is now widely popular.
Whether you’re in music, art, film etc. how do you get it out to more people and networks? James Chutter calls it Mash Media: Appropriating media to reach a mass audience. “Let’s use the content that’s already out there.”
Update: With regards to sharing content and re-mixing it (and a concerned person in the audience when it comes to original content and copyright — and also keeping the quality of the original work), James personally believes “if you don’t want someone participating with your art work, then don’t put it out there.” I just added that this is why Creative Commons exists, so that people can give you permission (and publish under a license) that allows for re-mixing, depending on the levels you set.
Another comment from the crowd says that sometimes new works, based on others, might actually bring more attention to the original creator — you may not have seen the original but maybe now you’ll look it up based on what you’ve seen. It’s turning into a Q&A session so everyone decides to let James proceed with his presentation.
Update: James pulls up more examples from art work to We Feel Fine, a site that scrapes the net for the words “I Feel” and then re-posts those statements.
James’ next slide actually tells the story of a band that was promoted by a mash-up artist, whose own fan base included someone who worked at Apple and then used a song from the first band in an iPod Touch commercial (which pretty much ties into a comment we heard from the crowd just a few minutes ago).
He introduced MindsOnTwitter.com which is his little mash-up story using Tweets from people on Twitter.
James’ presentation has concluded and now the copyright and re-mixing discussion continues in the room.
When Uncleweed is on tap for a speaking engagement I make sure not to miss it even though I’ve seen him do over a dozen talks in the years I’ve known him.
In fact, his F*ck Stats Make Art talk last year was so successful that he was asked to present it this year at SXSW.
Today he was talking about the process from idea to publication while sharing his personal journey surrounding his Letters from Russia series. I wasn’t live blogging his session as I wanted to pay attention and focus on his message, delivered as he stood before a packed while sporting a smoking jacket.
I did however jot down some of his quotes on Twitter and John Biehler snapped some photos so I’ll share those now.
“I came across a ticket that was $420 to Belize. I was like ‘BUY’ … I wonder where Belize is?”
Photo credit:
Dave on Flickr
“If any of you have read it, it’s a big long story and there’s a lot of war and a lot of peace…”
“If you snip the kite string will it soar higher? No it will tumble to the ground.”
“80% meditation, 10% execution, 10% inebriation.”
“What makes a work important is giving it an audience.”
Photo credit:
Dave on Flickr
Check out Dave’s podcasts, blogs, and prose on his site, which links to a bagillion other sites where his inspirational content lies.
