Public Media Camp – Day 1
Posted by: Nina Keim on: October 17, 2009
The first day of Public Media Camp was full of interesting sessions hosted and attended by even more interesting people. It was the first day of my first unconference and I was – to be honest – a bit skeptical in the beginning of what to expect. Having survived the first day without any problems, I am now absolutely convinced of the concept. Here are some of my impression of day one:
Please Tag Yourself: Starting at 10 AM this morning, all participants were asked to introduce themselves by name, affiliation and three tags that characterize them. It took about 45 minutes to get through all participants, but it is definitely a perfect way of getting to know some interesting details about new people. My tags were: “public communication” – “social-issue documentaries” – “public diplomacy.”
Collaborative Schedule: For a German like me, not having a prepared schedule of sessions left me a bit out in the open. But throughout the presentation round, topics were introduced and sessions proposed. So shortly after the opening session, the schedule for day 1 was ready. As it is common for an unconference, posteds were used to keep track of proposed sessions. I like being able to influence the schedule. It gives the whole event a personal, collaborative note and interest in the sessions is guaranteed. Only introverts might face a problem here. You really have to raise your voice and participate, otherwise you might not find your personal interest represented in the sessions.
Things I learned today (bullet-point style):
- Favorite quote characterizing the core idea of an unconference: “Why isn’t there a sign of where the bathrooms are – it’s because you didn’t put one up yet.”
- Drupal is a distributed open Web development network
- The role of citizen journalists is yet to be defined. There appears to be a big culture clash between NPR/PBS professional journalists and the citizen journalists.
- Sadly, many public media projects only use Google Analytics to measure their media’s impact. Especially if you are aiming for social change, there need to be other methods implemented to measure and track impact.
- Collaboration is such a great thing. I wish the concept of public media would be as popular in Germany as well.
