We Media: Conversations & collaborations
This exciting conference "Conversations & collaborations" takes place in New York on Oct 5. Organized by Associated Press, the conference hopes to stimulate new thought & directions for participatory media, and shared networks. I am deeply interested in the idea of ordinary people producing as well as consuming media, and now that I have won a fellowship to this event, I hope to take in a wide swathe of all the buzz & activity in these areas.
The event has Al Gore as keynote speaker, as well as speakers from Yahoo, Craigslist, & from various blogs & media companies. I will be blogging the days events right here, & reporting on interesting happenings & my observations.
Check out more about the event at We Media.
In this context, would like to point out some examples of meaningful shared experiences through technology:
1. Work in modern times often means that families continue to stay connected across distances, and that's what we do too periodically. While I broadly work out of New York, my husband is a globe-trotter, and we stay in touch these days through Skype or Google Talk. Now not only do we speak whenever we please, without the costs of long-distance telephone, but there is so much ambient information I get about his day & his surroundings: when he got back home from office, has he gone for his usual jog in the morning ( when he logs in at 5=30 AM I know he has skipped his jog!!).
The other day, we were chatting on Skype, & the doorbell rings at our home back in India; that very ordinary sound meant so much to me, as it brought back memories of my own days back at home. So anyway, it was this neighbor of ours who had come to visit, & my husband drags him to the computer, & there followed this very rich, threesome conversation. It was almost as if I was back in my living room in India, & the neighbors had dropped by. Powerful!!
2. This story was narrated by my student, as she was finding her way to the NYU building for the first class. She did not know how to reach the building, she checks with a few passers-by, but nobody can help her. Next she calls up a friend who has been living in the city for years, but this too didn't help. At her wits end, she calls up, via her cell phone, her mother living in another state; the mother looks up the address on some mapping site on the web, passes on the exact location to my student, & she finally does make it to class!!
3. I usually don't much care for high-tech wizardry such as Google Earth: I mean, I hear people going ga-ga over how cool the zooming features are, or how you can fly in & out of views. As far as I could see, there were these variously sized blocks standing for buildings, & you could get a peek into this street or that street. Great, but I still didn't find it personally meaningful!! Till the other night my son whooshes down into his school campus, points to a curved wall in a building, & says, "Do you see this, this is where I have my lunch every day." Now that's something, isn't it?
Tags: we media, collaboration, social software
The event has Al Gore as keynote speaker, as well as speakers from Yahoo, Craigslist, & from various blogs & media companies. I will be blogging the days events right here, & reporting on interesting happenings & my observations.
Check out more about the event at We Media.
In this context, would like to point out some examples of meaningful shared experiences through technology:
1. Work in modern times often means that families continue to stay connected across distances, and that's what we do too periodically. While I broadly work out of New York, my husband is a globe-trotter, and we stay in touch these days through Skype or Google Talk. Now not only do we speak whenever we please, without the costs of long-distance telephone, but there is so much ambient information I get about his day & his surroundings: when he got back home from office, has he gone for his usual jog in the morning ( when he logs in at 5=30 AM I know he has skipped his jog!!).
The other day, we were chatting on Skype, & the doorbell rings at our home back in India; that very ordinary sound meant so much to me, as it brought back memories of my own days back at home. So anyway, it was this neighbor of ours who had come to visit, & my husband drags him to the computer, & there followed this very rich, threesome conversation. It was almost as if I was back in my living room in India, & the neighbors had dropped by. Powerful!!
2. This story was narrated by my student, as she was finding her way to the NYU building for the first class. She did not know how to reach the building, she checks with a few passers-by, but nobody can help her. Next she calls up a friend who has been living in the city for years, but this too didn't help. At her wits end, she calls up, via her cell phone, her mother living in another state; the mother looks up the address on some mapping site on the web, passes on the exact location to my student, & she finally does make it to class!!
3. I usually don't much care for high-tech wizardry such as Google Earth: I mean, I hear people going ga-ga over how cool the zooming features are, or how you can fly in & out of views. As far as I could see, there were these variously sized blocks standing for buildings, & you could get a peek into this street or that street. Great, but I still didn't find it personally meaningful!! Till the other night my son whooshes down into his school campus, points to a curved wall in a building, & says, "Do you see this, this is where I have my lunch every day." Now that's something, isn't it?
Tags: we media, collaboration, social software
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