NewMedia2012 – Where the hell is my Green Tea Soy Latte?

by Julie Burgmeier

Jonathan and I drove to Langley for the NewMedia 2012 – or, where the hell is this headed anyway?- conference.  The morning was bright and the drive fine.  We were running a little late because of an extra exciting night in Seattle at the Tractor celebrating Jonathan’s birthday.    Because we left La Conner like a jet plane taking off, we had not satisfied our caffeine addictions.  Not to fear, my Starbucks honing device lead us directly to the Starbucks drive-thru in Oak Harbor.  My treat was an iced soy mocha.  Jonathan’s treat was what he thought was going to be a green tea soy latte, but as we were driving south toward Langley he took his first sip.  I happen to be conversing with one of my employees on the cell phone, when I heard rants from the driver’s side.  Apparently, Starbucks served his drink with cow’s milk by mistake, or he wasn’t articulating his thoughts clearly after his birthday night.  Nevertheless, the boy was not happy. 

Now that at least one of us had satisfied our caffeine addiction, we headed south to Langley.  It had been 16 years since our last visit.  We were DINK’s enjoying a B&B; now we are crazy married people with three kids.  We proceed to miss the Langley turn.  “How could this well known town be so poorly marked,” I wonder.  Or is this the driver’s brain working un-caffinated.  We do a U-turn and hope for the best.  We fly into the Clyde Theatre, run to the bathrooms, grab bottled water (gratefully) and find our way in the dark, (clumsily climbing over attendees and stepping on several toes) to reach two seats.   

We had received an e-mail a couple days prior noting the conference was starting 15 minutes early, which didn’t help our situation.  By the looks of the presentation schedule we missed Robert Gilman    Robert founded the Context Institute, one of the earliest NGO’s to focus directly on sustainability.  Robert’s presentation placed New Media in the context of cultural shifts that are underway.  Joe Pulizzi, founder of Junta42.com, was speaking rapidly (as everyone preceded to do) on the projected screen via skype as we hit our seats.   I hear something about his son’s birthday and that’s about it.  On the flip side, I have since been to his website about 20 times, subscribed to his blog, I now follow his tweets, and I ordered his book.  That about equates to rock star status. 

Tom Kennedy is next on the line-up.  See if you can make sense of my notes. 

*Visual Journalism – Audience time is scarce. 
*The text tyranny is over. 
*Gaming paradigm. 
*Multi-media becomes the new journalism. 
*Journalism = more organic. 
*Professionals and amateurs = together. 

I’m not an expert note-taker…or at least I haven’t practiced since my product knowledge seminars from the educational textbook/software days.  But to give myself a little credit, these folks were speaking faster than that jet plane taking off earlier.  Next on the runway…Alexis Gerard.  Alexis is the co-author of “Going Visual – Using Images to Enhance Productivity, Decision Making and Profits”.  Here’s what I got on paper (yes that is real tree paper). 

*Billion pic’s each month on Facebook. 
*Frictionless environment for the creation of visual content. 
*Democratization of visual communication. 
*Here what I say, See what I see (phone). 
*Flickr-spring 2005 225,000 users and 3 million images.  *Fall2005 425,00 users & 20 million images.  *Now: 3 billion images and 5,000 images added every minute. 

I impressed my friends on Facebook with the “democratization of visual communication” line.  Shh…don’t tell them it’s not mine.

Russell Sparkman is last up on the first round of presenters.  I have spoken to Russell on the phone a couple times, explored his website, and somehow winded up on his e-mailing list, which is how I found out about NewMedia2012.  Russell is the type of guy who you would enjoy working with, hanging out with, and living next-door to.  He was too busy talking to all of the big wigs at the post-event party to actually meet, but I’m sure he would have been gracious even if I had butted in. 

The most memorable moment of the entire conference centered around Russell and didn’t happen during his actual presentation, but I think now is a good time to share.  Russell is the only one speaking who had a remote mic on since he was also the MC.   A presenter was interrupted by a louder mic which, most of the audience believed, was the sound of someone peeing.  The audience hesitantly began to snicker as we noticed Russell wasn’t on the stage and was the only one miked.  The peeing stopped and Russell then appeared back on-stage.  There was a moment of hilarious awkward silence when Russell explained there was a  door open back-stage and an unusual pacific northwest downpour was in progress.  I’m not sure he understood at that moment what it had sounded like to us.  His composure indicated he was incredibly composed or just didn’t get it.  I LOVED that part of the conference.   

Russell talked about one of their earlier projects One World Journeys which was funded by the Florida Dept of EPA and was created in 2002 with a foundation of documentary storytelling.  Notes: 

*Content matters:  inspire hearts, inform minds, and influence actions. 
*Content comes BEFORE social media!
*2012:  Storytelling more common. 
*Customer content will drive social media. 

I made a note for Jonathan to check out programmableweb.com which may be too technical for me and is usually the case when I pass things on to Jonathan.  If you are interested in API’s, mashups, and the Web as platform then explore this site.  I will when I have time to.  Russell mentioned   Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawkin and the fact that there are 1 million plus NGO’s which make up the largest social movement.  Now what happens when these NGO’s become publishers?  You have a documentation on the human condition.  Now wouldn’t you want to be Russell’s next door neighbor?

 Bathroom break before the second set of  presentations begin.  I climb and clamour quickly over everyone to race to the bathrooms first.  Because I was so prepared I knew there was only one toilet in the ladies restroom.  AHA…I’m in there first.  As I exit the bathroom I’m complimented by the 15 women standing in-line.  They think I’m very smart for getting there first. 

If the first set of presentations were like jet planes, the second set of presentations were rockets.   Brent Friedman, astronaut #1.  Brent has an interesting past – Hollywood for 20 years.  Now he is founding partner in Electric Farm Entertainment, a leading digital media company specializing in science fiction.  Notes: 

*multi-touch technology helping to organize images. 
*3-D representation of content. 
*Difference between what makes news and what makes history (I tweeted that one…cool.)
*Collaboration – social media invisible collaboraters and woven into peoples lives.
*Being part of a field of co-workers and friends.  
*Dinosaur=big computer.  Little furry animals-social media (that was my take on the metaphor but I felt like it was an inside joke…probably something I should know but I don’t)
*Time slicing in the workplace with tools we carry with us.  If these are work collaboration tools they will continue. 

 As the conversation turns to inbound marketing, peer instruction, and the comment “People are the actors & media support them…” , there is a “You Lie” shout from the crowd which is almost, but not really almost, as funny as the peeing episode.  Oops…back to my notes. 

*Obligation to answer back. 
*Raises the bar on civic competence on understanding  key technological issues. 
*Vulnerability to upload and access video.
*Open standard for video on the web. 
*Monetize their content – trust ratings such as you see ratings on ebay sellers. 
*Transmedia – audience+medium=form.
*Media platforms: tv, computer, handheld.
*Modular, compiled & branded *1 minute-15 minute-30minute-2 hour = multiple revenue streams. 
*Online=reveal the backstory via twitter/facebook. 
*On air=1st 12 webisodeson MTV.
*Mobile=extended narrative.
*Always on audience allowing them work cooperatively with creators to build out a transmedia storyverse….a persistent digital universe. 

WOW….sorry about the cliff notes on this.  I wish I had the time, motivation, and research to articulate what all that means.  BUT…I love the word transmedia and have already tweeted it.  That will be a good one to impress my friends on Facebook.  I better do some research first to make sure I nail the context correctly.

Joesph Tringali is the co-founder of 5th cell media.  As Joseph started talking about video games, I started to become irritated.  Not about the subject of the speaker but because video games cause stress in my house.  With a 14 year old and 11 year old sons, I’m constantly having to manage their screen time.  Aaargh.  I then realize that my sons are tricking me.  I tell them during the school week they can get on facebook for social interaction.  Heck, I remember the days of a teen line.  I then started to notice farmville this and that.  What the heck is farmville?  It’s a video game.  Those little stinkers.  Now I have to monitor their time on Facebook.  And then there is the ipod touch.  “Mom…I’m just listening to music”.  Sure.  Right.  Videogames.  So as you can see I’m not paying too much attention to the speaker and I don’t even have notes.  I’m just getting irritated until I hear the statistic regarding women and videogames.  That sucked me right back in.  But I’m thinking this has nothing to do with me…I don’t play video games.  Wrong.  I play Scrabble online with my mom and sister.  Busted. 

Marcia Hofman, the one and only female presenter, is a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation working on a broad range of technology-related civil liberties and intellectual property issues.  Macia noted that the Facebook population is close to the population of the USA.  She believes this will create a greater democracy.  A great website to bookmark, use and educate others:  creativecommons.org  The discussion touched on the Goliath Google.  Marci noted that she remembers not too long ago when Microsoft was the giant.  She believes the Google scene will look different in five years. 

John du Pre Gauntt, founder of Media Dojo, was next and my notes are incomprehensible.  This is not John’s fault.  I’m not sure this is even what he said, but I’m having a tough time reading my writing “Media is looking for a durable mutation on how it’s going to be marketed”.   Lastly on the runway, George Henny.  George was very comfortable on stage and must have rock star status in his circle of fibers.  The conversation was whidbey-centric.  I’m sure there were some good takeaways but all I can remember are some pretty slides.

My stomach has been growling but kind of in a hang-over way.  It’s the kind of growling that’s craving fried food.  A glass of wine is almost starting to sound good – as they say the “hair of the dog”.  Jonathan and I race out the door thinking about food and wine.  I know I should be thinking about schmoozing, making contacts, talking to intelligent like-minded thinkers…but I guess that’s not the case or they would also be running up the hill.  I follow other conference goers wearing their name tags.  Jonathan decides to get the car as it looks like it’s going to be a hike.  There is a light mist coming down as you would expect in the winter.  The walk is beautiful.  I raise my face to the mist and appreciate the spritz.  A cute hip looking guy with funky hair-cut and cool jeans smiles at me.  I’m feeling pretty good despite the hunger pains.  Finally I reach the restaurant.  I notice the for sale sign and I have a moment of sadness recognizing how tough this economy is on many locally-owned businesses and property owners.  (I’ll share a personal story sometime in the future when the dull ache subsides). 

Since I’m obsessed with boots, and I really wish I had money to blow on 5 pairs of cool boots, I instantly notice cute hip girl with bitch’n boots.  I’m by myself still and this seems to be an easy way to connect – talk boots.    Tania Westby is a program director for Bridges to Understanding.  They use digital technology and the art of storytelling to empower and unite youthworldwide, enhance cross-cultural understanding and build global citizenship.  Cool stuff.  She came up from Seattle to attend the conference and spend time with a friend in the area.  Jonathan shows up but we are one of the first to arrive.  They are just starting to bring food out.  FOOD.  I’m as good as getting first to the bathroom as I’m getting first in line for food and wine.  Not many choices for the semi-non-meat eater, but out of desparation I down a couple of chicken skewers while Jonathan enjoys some kind of red meat.  Cute young hip girl with cool boots  is now sitting in a booth with cute hip boy.  Perfect.   Chris Terrell, owner of How It Works, joins Jonathan and I for some conversation.  Chris has been non-stop storytelling since he opened his doors many moons ago. 

The room is now getting crowded and I’m enjoying my glass of red wine.  I rarely sit still and I tend to use my hands and body when talking.  Frank walked right into my right elbow which projected half of my glass of red wine onto his white pressed shirt and sports jacket.  I tell him not to move and run for the bar.  I blurt out my emergency story to the bartender who quickly gets me some soda water and a towel.  As I’m wiping down Frank’s chest and apologizing profusely, Frank let’s me know that his wife is very good at getting out stains.  I wonder what kind of story he is going to tell his wife.  At about that time I’m thinking it’s just not going to be a good schmoozefest for me.  I give Jonathan the signal and we slide on out.  The sky is grey and the mist is still misting.  Oddly, about 10 minutes North there is not a cloud in the sky and roads are dry.

We decide we should give Starbucks (or Jonathan) another chance.  We don’t treat ourselves very often to Starbucks, so he really should get the drink he ordered or thought he ordered.  Here we go again, through the Starbucks drive-thru.  We see the Starbucks employee #1 (our morning drive-thru guy) getting into his car.  Jonathan tries to explain what happened to Starbucks drive-thru employee #2, but he is very confused and tells us to drive up to the window.  Jonathan then attempts to articulate his story again.  But he’s not sure what story to stick to.   At this point all he wants is  a green tea soy latte.  Jonathan hands Starbuck’s employee #2 his full drink from the morning but gets scolded at.  Apparently they are not allowed to dump out the old drink or maybe they thought he wanted to re-use the same cup.  Nevertheless Starbucks employee #3 hands Jonathan the green tea soy latte with a smile.  As we are driving I hear the same rants.  OMG…it’s made with cow’s milk again and Jonathan is out-of-luck.  There is no way we are turning around and no way we are doing this a third time.   At this point we are late for Jonathan’s second birthday celebration.  Lane Fernando and the Howling Angels of Sin playing at the La Conner tavern.  Our friend is the bass player, and we are getting to know the other band members.   Now that’s another story to tell.