Film-maker Jesse Dylan has put together a video for Creative Commons to explain why we need to save the world from failed sharing. It’s a great introduction to the idea of creative commons and an example of why we should support it – the video uses a lot of images shared under the cc license and the music is from NIN. You can see the full list of artists here.

Creative Commons is in the midst of its 2008 fundraising campaign. Find out how you can support Creative Commons at its support site.

I think it is a very accurate description!

Should your blog be your destination site?

I’m finally putting together some changes I’ll be making to this blog, which is sadly neglected at times – not because I have a lack of things to say, but more because I’m often communicating on other sites these days – mostly Twitter, but also the Norg (of course!), 12 seconds, blip and a number of other social networks.

It’s tempting to pull all those interactions back on to your blog – you see it less now, but there was a time when some bloggers were posting all their day’s tweets on to their blog as posts. You have Twitter badges now, which have replaced that somewhat, but the interaction is still happening on Twitter. Then there’s video that you can produce on sites like 12seconds, Seesmic and Phreadz which can often take forms of video blogging, but this is happening on a site other than your blog and in all together different community than others you may belong to. A lot of those sites have been integrated with Twitter and you can post any updates automatically to your Twitter stream, but that is also not incorporating the interaction and community with which you engaging. And then ofcourse there is Friendfeed, which pulls all these streams together in another community of its own. I guess that sort of leaves one’s blog, out in the cold, so to speak.

Don’t get me wrong, I think a personal blog has its place, but rather than pull all the lifestreams back to it, I think they have just become part of the constant fractured stream/identities that we create. I guess they are no longer our central destination site. Perhaps our need to make it one is born out of a sense to quantify the influence we have – it’s hard to know your reach on Twitter for example – sure, you have X number of followers, but how many read your views at any given time?

Blogs still have an important role, but I think they are just now part of the fragmented identities that so many of us have across a number of networks. I don’t think that’s a bad thing and just like “control media” needs to learn how to let go, in some sense we have to as well. I think we gather different audiences across different sites and that diversification can actually add to our online profile instead of detract from it. Just because I care what you say on Twitter might not mean I read your blog, but that’s one avenue you have my attention on, that you may otherwise not. Those of you interested in my blog may not care whether I’ve wasted an hour one morning looking for white socks.

I guess wanting to hold on to our online identities in one place is an old-way of looking at things. Growing your profile in future might mean more fragmentation, but that’s something we’ve been telling larger monolithic corporations like news sites to get their heads around for years. Time to taste our own medicine perhaps?

Photo: Venetian Glimpse by BombDog

Any readers who have started following this blog from talks I give from time to time on Public Relations may recall me mentioning Nick Hodge. It usually involves me putting up this picture and telling people that “this is the face of Microsoft”. Well, the man will be in town for Edge of the Web and I had a chat to Nick about what we should expect from him on this outstanding occasion. So here’s what he had to say:

IE6 is an abomination and one of the worst things for web development productivity EVA according to Microsoft evangelist (and Professional Geek) Nick Hodge. (Geek kudos accrued.)
One thing you learn about Nick pretty quickly is that he’s not one to shy away from criticising his employer when he thinks they’ve got it wrong. At the same time, you can also pretty much guarantee that anything good he has to say about Microsoft he truly believes in. Nick will be presenting a talk at Edge of the Web on “Not your father’s Microsoft” and is hoping to convince even the most hardened and cynical code-monkeys that Microsoft has learned from past mistakes and wants to engage in an “internet frame of mind”.
This is something Nick is really passionate about, having been a big supporter of open-source software for years.
Nick admits Microsoft has been late to the game in embracing open-source, but there are some interesting developments that he wants to communicate to developers. He’s particularly excited by the IronRuby project that is bringing Ruby into the .Net platform, a step that has seen Microsoft accept external contributions. The other thing he wants to highlight is the Silverlight tools for Eclipse it has released, which is the more common framework for development compared to Microsoft’s commercial Visual Studio. And yes, he even wants to tell you about cool ways you can use Microsoft on a Mac (he owns one himself.)

Ofcourse, Nick is looking forward to hanging out with the Perth web community, one he feels other Australian cities could look to emulate (it is true, we do rock!) He’s here to listen as well as give a presentation, so even if you are most cynical about what he has to say – seek him out and have a chat.

If you haven’t got your tickets to the conference I suggest you do. It’s not often that you’ll get to experience something like this in your own city. Hope to see some of you there.

PS. I’m hoping to get a much more incriminating picture of Nick, so I can keep my tricks fresh!

Nick that does NOT mean I want to see you with your shirt off – a LOLcode shirt will do

In the spirit of the Australian web community, I’m pleased to announce I’m doing a new podcast with Elias Bizannes on TPN called Silicon Beach Australia. We’ll be talking to Australian web entrepreneurs about their companies, dreams and motivations. Our first podcast is with Mike Cannon-Brookes from Atlassian and we have some great guests lined up already. Have a look and leave feedback. It’s all about the conversation people

My new movie muse Fidlr told me about the Drunk History series, which I just have to recommend everyone to look at. I was really busy and didn’t get round to watching them till yesterday – but it is just frakin BRILLIANT.

This is my favourite one *hic* but make sure you look them all up on YouTube.

I spoke on a panel yesterday at the MEAA’s Future of Journalism summit in Brisbane on, “Tools or toys: techniques and technology for the digital age.” Margaret Simons opened the conference with some very straight-shooting talk on where she saw the industry heading and it looked vastly like unexplored territory. What makes her points so interesting is that she is one of the few journalists I know who is trying to forge a living from journalism outside of established media companies and she is very frank in saying that she is still trying to find out how to do that exactly. As Cameron Reilly pointed out the economics of media have shifted fundamentally and its time we looked for new models, but we are not going to find them by relying on the old way of doing things. Margaret said she believes the most exciting journalism in the future will not be happening in traditional media – something I agree with wholeheartedly. It’s not happening often yet, but it is starting to happen and there will come a time when traditional media is not the place where the most interesting stories are happening or even where most news is made.

The other point then is how do we find these stories? I like Jay Rosen’s video on “How to Digest News“, which goes some way in explaining why crowd-powered aggregation sites are so important. You can’t assume that on your own you can find the best news out there – finding a trusted site that filters news for you makes more sense.

My own advice for journalists on how to prepare for the future is to start investing in themselves and to experiment in online participation. Going from writing news in a straight non-personal style to writing online is quite confronting – I remember it took me some time to find my voice and gain some confidence in writing from a personal perspective. The best place to start to learn the nuances of online communication, in my opinion, is Twitter – and the key is not then to just create content, but to participate as well – a point Jean Burgess from QUT made during the day. It’s those who start taking the risks now that will be better off in the future. I know it’s a confronting situation, but it’s time to face reality – things are not going back to what they were.

UPDATE: You can find more coverage on the seminar on Lavartus Prodeo,  and Wooly Days.

I’ll be speaking at The Future of Journalism Summit in Brisbane next week on Saturday, 13 September. I decided I’d give the MEAA a call after I looked through the panelists and found most were from control media companies, who quite frankly, are no longer the authority on all things media.

Details for the event are:

The Future of Journalism Conference
2 George Street, Brisbane QLD 4000
9am to 4pm, Saturday September 13, 2008

Members: $66 Students: $44 Non-members: $88
Enquiries & Bookings: 1300 656 513
or email melissa.mcallister@alliance.org.au

I’m also hoping Brisbane Twitterers can organise a BTUB on the Friday as I’d love to meet some of them.

I’m even willing to sponsor the event – well Brisbane Norg is anyway Nothing like free beer to spread a bit of love.

Thought it was worth pointing out a great piece in Crikey today by Dr John Cokley from The University of Queensland  about the MEAA’s role in the Fairfax sackings.

I’ve been having similar thoughts – I’ve yet to see an MEAA event advertised that seems to have any grasp of the changes taking place in media – other than to point out that its happening.  Dr Cokley writes:

The future of journalism rests with journalists, not with the owners and managers of the processes of capital designed to deliver journalism. This is the incredibly simple distinction which MEAA officials have failed to make explicit – perhaps even to realise – in the current stoush (and in all previous ones I’ve witnessed since I paid dues from 1981-1995).

You can read the full piece here.

If you are one of the journalists standing in a picket line outside The Age and SMH, I have to ask – do you realise how pathetic you look?
If there was a journalists equivalent to the forlorn lovers “He’s not into you” I’d be suggesting you read it. It’s time for some straight-talking, so forgive me if my words sound harsh and unsympathetic, but it’s not like the writing hasn’t been on the wall for some time now. Break-ups are tough, but you can get over this and move on to better, brighter things.

Let’s start with the basics. Fairfax and other news monoliths like it cannot survive in the future. I almost feel silly having to say that, but there it is. Fairfax made a bold first move by being quick to get traditional reporting into an online format, but I guess they took it for granted that the memory of those early days would sustain the audience. Seems like you may have as well. But it’s crunch time and you have some choices to make. The good news is there is an opportunity to redeem yourself.

David Kirk has made you an offer and is calling for volunteers before compulsory redundancies. Your relationship is clearly strained and here he is giving you a dignified out and you choose to beg him to take you back? Where is your backbone, your fire, your passion for news? Has Fairfax got you so wrapped around its finger that you think the only way you can be a good journalist is to stay with it? Guess what – people produce good news outside of news corporations everyday. And you can too. Take the divorce settlement and learn to stand on your own feet again. You are better off investing in a relationship with your audience – you’ll find it infinitely more rewarding.