My views on WeMakeTheMedia event – after the hangover

If you’re here to just find out what happened at the WeMakeTheMedia conference yesterday in Portland you’ll find plenty of information in the links at the bottom of the page. If you want to read about the views of an experienced old and new media journalist and publisher, read on here and then read more from my fellow journalists on my list at the bottom of this post. Actually, one of the better accounts of what happened at the event can be found at reporting1blog.wordpress.com.

I ended up at the WeMakeTheMedia conference yesterday (Saturday, Nov. 21) through a series of professional connections I’ve made over the last several months, starting with meeting Chris Miller. Without those connections, I would have never heard of this event and would not have had the good fortune to show up.

This just strengthens my belief in the power of networking with other professionals. However, I must make clear that it’s more than just traditional networking to meet people who may connect you with other people who can help you and whom you can help. Logic and my experience dictate that networking with others who love the same profession as do you, puts you in contact with others who are like you in many ways. I haven’t met another journo whom I have helped or who has helped me who didn’t become a friend or at least a friendly acquaintance. In other words: it’s more than business, it’s sharing a mutual love no matter what the medium or whether you consider yourself an old media person or a new media person. It seems natural to me that one would have an affinity for others with common interests. But as you will see by reading this and other missives about the conference, just because we have a common love doesn’t mean we won’t disagree, vehemently at times.

OK, enough of my philosophizing about journalist/media networks. I’ve worked in the media for more than 20 years now and I still can’t help going home to my first love, philosophy — the subject in which I hold my sole bachelor’s degree. I just couldn’t grow a thick enough beard, so becoming a journalist seemed like a better career choice than philosophy professor.

After that long tangent, here are some of my random (no order intended) thoughts about my experience of the WeMakeTheMedia conference that about 130 other interested parties and I attended Saturday at the University of Oregon building in downtown Portland from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Social media technology division

Something that became more obvious to me throughout the day was the disparateness of the technological know-how and comfort with technological communication tools such as social media and computers in general. This was most evidenced by the presence of a backdoor conversation via Twitter that ran in parallel to the main oral conversation in the rooms. I estimate that more than half of the attendees, especially in the beginning, were not tuned in to that second conversation. It might have been helpful to project the Twitter stream — everyone used the hashtag #wmtm for the main sessions — on the wall throughout the day. I’ve been at other conferences that did that. That would have better connected both channels of thought. The “legacy” journalists would have seen what the “new media” journalists were saying in response to the auditory discussion. It might have also served to improve the quality of the online conversation as well. You can read the transcript online if you’re interested.

Working together

One thing that became apparent to me early in the day was that everyone was there for a slightly and sometimes not-so-slightly different reason. Yes, there was overlap in a lot of the agendas, but I was amazed at times that we all could work together and in the end, most of us could vote on many of the proposals that were brought forth. Joe Smith, one of the organizers and the MC at the event, put it well when he said he was proud that we could all work together as well as we did considering that journalists are a bunch of untrusting skeptics; (I was paraphrasing him there). I have to second that. It was a miracle that we were able to boil down so many ideas into some possible and doable solutions in a matter of about seven hours. However, there was quite a bit of dissention in the group and while there were about 130 attendees present at the beginning of the day, by the time we were voting, there were only about 80 of us left. I guess it wasn’t going their way or they had better things to do. It could have gone many ways based on the number of opinions in the room.

Involvement in more than one follow-up work group

I understand why we had to split into smaller breakout groups during the conference and I understand why we again had to separate into smaller work groups to set up follow-up steps toward the goals set at the conference. I hope, however, that all the work groups have some sort of common communication going forward because I’d personally like to be involved in more than one of the groups. I’m sure there are others out there like me, too. I know there are Google Groups that were started, but the operative phrase is that there are groups. There is more than one and I have no idea which one is the central place where most people will communicate. That would make follow-up conversations more fruitful.

What’s next?

I hope a decent number of people carry forward the torch of saving good journalism in Oregon and possibly beyond. I intend to be one of them. The event was frustrating, enlightening and hopeful — all at the same time. I’m glad I was able to attend and I’m glad the meeting happened. Now it’s up to us to carry on and adapt together. I believe that somehow we will be successful. Old media will adapt or die as it is right now and new media will join what is left of the old media in what will become just the media. I’m looking forward to the big coming together that will inevitably occur.

That’s just a quick blitz of ideas I had right after the event. I’ll blog and tweet about more of them in the near future as I digest all the information from the day-long meeting and the follow up conversations that happened in bars, coffee shops, newsrooms and online. With most of my time currently spent making the media, I have to be judicious in how much time I spend talking about the media. I’m sure I’m not alone. That made the fact that all those journalists made the time to gather and talk about the future that much more amazing. They were all busy working as journalists or spending all their time trying to get a job in journalism as soon as possible. I feel for the latter group a lot. I’ve been there many times before. I’ll be there again, no doubt.

I’m not the only one who attended and later shared my views about what happened at this historic event. Here’s a list of others who have written about it online:

http://reporting1blog.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/we-make-the-media/

http://www.ravenwald.com/jenblog/2009/11/we-make-media-conference.shtml

http://civics21.org/2009/11/we-make-media-initial-thoughts.html

http://360convos.blogspot.com/2009/11/building-new-model-may-require.html

http://www.blueoregon.com/2009/11/without-a-net-walking-the-tightrope-of-understand-race.html

http://www.stillanewspaperman.com/2009/11/21/we-make-the-media-in-portland/

http://omaried.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/what-i-think-happened-at-wmtm-we-make-the-media-conference/

http://nozzlmedia.com/2009/11/the-futures-plural-of-journalism/

http://abrahamhyatt.com/2009/11/we-made-the-media-what-went-right-%e2%80%94-and-wrong/

http://www.electrotainment.com/2009/11/crazy-talk-for-november-22-20009-will.html

http://oregonmediacentral.com/2009/11/we-make-the-media-but-whos-we

There are probably more places where people have written about this online, so if you know of others, please let me know so I can make my list as comprehensive as possible.

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