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The Official Site that will support the Anniversary is now up and available. You can find it here
It has a schedule starting on April 7, media and press kits, backgrounders etc.
The Q and A is very important and it will help guide every aspect of your visit. I quote it in full below
Continue reading "Vimy Ridge 90th Anniversary - Official Support Site is Now Up" »
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The next time you find yourself on a plane, sitting next to someone who
cannot resist chattering to you endlessly, I urge you to quietly pull
your laptop out of your bag, carefully open the screen (ensuring the
irritating person next to you can see it), and hit this link:
http://www.thecleverest.com
Thanks Gabe
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Ignorance is surely a form of bliss. Before September of 2005 I knew nothing about and I knew no one in public radio. Like all people who are both ignorant and disconnected, I did not care except in some weak and intellectual way about public broadcasting in America. All I knew was that I quite like WGBH TV, which is on our cable feed on PEI, and that I was getting tired of their never ending appeals to my guilt to support it.
But then I got a call from Jackie Nixon and my life changed.
As I traveled the country and met so many people, I fell in love. I fell in love with an idea. The idea is that public radio could become a vital force for the renewal of society and of democracy in America. I fell in love also with a community. I had no idea that such a wonderful and vibrant group of people existed as do in Public radio.
That's my problem. When I knew nothing and no one, I did not care. But now I do. Like any true friend I worry about my friend. Will she make the right decisions. Will she be OK?
I fear that I have become the archetypal "Jewish Mother" often
fretting and carping. So I ask your indulgence. My fretting and carping
is a product of my own lack of control. You do what you do. I sit in
another country and worry.
But while I worry and I fret, I also am seeing signs that give me hope. I wonder if I had been looking in the wrong place for the first moves that would start to unlock the system?
Isaac Asimov gives me a hint.
His premise is that system change is impossible at the centre. In his great book Foundation published in 1951, he tells the story of Hari Seldon who, knowing that the system was in terminal decline, sets out to establish a place for Renewal far away from the centre.
Silly me! Naively I had thought that change would begin in Washington.
But now I wonder. What about the edge of the public radio system?
What could we learn from the edge? What if I was to talk more to those that lived out there? Whom could I call that could shed more light on the central blocks for progress - making a shift in relationships between stations and in speaking directly with the listeners?
So I called Todd Mundt in Des Moines. As he talked to me about Iowa, I could not help but to think of all of you.
Judge for yourself. Here is Todd in Trusted Space Media talking about the new role for local stations, about the challenge of inter station rivalry and the challenge of being radically transparent with listeners.
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YouTube and the web are not only changing the Music Business but - as Jeff so clearly states - it will change Politics.
Much of the discussion about the 2008 campaign has been about the gigantic budget required. $100 million gets you a seat at the table. Many estimate that $200 million will be the minimum required to take you into the last lap.
But doesn't a huge amount of this money get spent on TV? So, as with Music - if politicians can go direct?.... Does it not have the potential to change the landscape?
At the moment few really know how to link the social web to a candidate. As I see it, this will take more than a good consultant. It will take the right candidate who is willing to truly open up.
When Radical Transparency meets the Long Tail in PR via Social Software in politics - watchout.
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In Media - Join Todd Mundt and I as we talk about how to implement Radical Transparency in both Planning and Action in Iowa as Todd and Cindy work with their community to make Iowa Public radio more relevant to the lives of Iowans.
In Science - Join Dr Russ Kerr and I as we talk about why a world renowned scientist has left his lab and his wife's family in Florida to come to PEI. Find out what it has been like for him and his family as they make their way not only at work but as a family in such a different place.
Lifestyle - Join my sister Diana and I as we explore the life as a Courtesan as a healthy model for equal relationships between men and women. This week we talk bout seeing Education and the mind differently and we look at sex as a transcendent experience
Food and Farming - Join John MacQuarrie and I as we explore a vital transformative path for farmers who work and who get paid primarily as restorers of the biosphere
Health - Join Gord McNeilly and I as we explore health as coming from being accepted and supported in a community versus taking a pill.
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PEI's tourism appears to be in terminal decline.
I have done my best to explain why our current model is dying in terms that may end the debate I hope about simply applying more ad funds to a dead idea.
How can we renew Tourism so that it not only pays the bills but sustains our society and our landscape?
I hope that what I suggest may make sense to you.
I have checked my thoughts out with an old friend JP Arsenault who is more grounded than I will ever be and who has the job of solving this challenging question for real. So you get a chance to hear my dreams and his considered opinion.
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Wow - this is harder than I thought. When I blog, it is like a sketch. I read about something or another post catches my eye and I react immediately. The words just pour out - like an artist sketching.
BUT with many of the articles that I write for Trusted Space, I am finding that the process is more like painting a miniature. 
It still has to be small and compact. But it is a complete picture.
Here for example is a picture by Hilliard of Sir Francis Drake. Look at all the detail and how it is all there in a tiny space. Well that is what I find I am up against. For me, whose tendency is to overwrite, it is a hard adjustment to make.
So sorry that I am so slow. I have 8 pieces still in inventory.
Please be patient with me. Especially if you are one of my victims. I will get faster as I get more used to this new style.
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As the validity of the participative and time and schedule free model (Have it your Way!) as shown my My Space and YouTube becomes more clear, so has my thinking. My Space and YouTube are becoming vitally important amplifiers for traditional broadcast product.
Here Fox is now opening a door to amplify its product - TO AMPLIFY IT AND TO MAKE IT MORE POPULAR NOT TO REPLACE BROADCAST - in MY Space. (Thanks Terry for the spot)
What if there was a Public radio site connected to these "Worlds" that listed all the Public radio programs available? What if I as a listener could find for the first time a Global Directory of Programs and then listen when I wanted? Wasn't this a major learning from New Realities?
Would such a project be so big or so difficult? Looks like a perfect group project to me. But what about all our other priorities? This is the central priority - finding the optimal relationship with the listener in the new media world. The new relationship transcends the programming. 24 has not changed. What Murdoch is doing is changing the relationships with the viewer and with the Fox Stations.
He is doing what we feared in Eat my Lunch. He is taking the initiative in the key area - the customer and station relationship to content in an interactive and direct new media world.
So why are we not out there? I think that we are still stuck in our own fears.
Oh but then I would lose my local audience? Then Bypass would arrive.
Would you lose your local audience? I think that for now, most people will still wish to listen from air. So only the early adopters would move and not for all their listening. I doubt that fans of 24 will switch from their 42 inch plasma screen for all their viewing of Jack. BUT, it would be nice to catch up with episodes that you missed and such access will build new audiences. It would be nice to find one place where I could find out about all my favorite shows.
Will you lose your local audience? If all you do is act as a repeater for the programmers - yes over time you will and this is going to happen anyway. A direct. online, anytime habit will become the norm. You cannot stop this trend. It's like the automobile did away with the horse. It's coming and sooner than you fear.
Will you lose your local audience? Not I think if you become deeply valuable to them. By this I mean move away from a funding model based on scarcity - "If you don't contribute, you wont get Morning Edition." If you create an authentic attachment with your community based on truly serving them your local audience will grow.
Next week in Trusted Space Media I will be talking to Todd Mundt about what Iowa is doing in this regard.
Will you lose your local audience? Yes you will if you don't play here. If you don't try participative and time shifting and direct, you will know nothing when it moves from being important to vital - I think sometime in 2007/8.
Please try an expedition here - do something small and with some friends - try it and learn.
As Roosevelt said, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
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I am quietly optimistic now after years of despair about the state of our education system. Could it ever be renewed so that it could meet the real needs of its kids and of society. Now I know that it can and I found this hope right in front of me burning quietly in a small rural school here at home on PEI.
Please check out what is happening at a small K1-9 school on PEI - I think that this is the most important story I have yet written about
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More trouble from Washington via Reuters
Remember that election last November? You know, the one that signaled the need for change. Well, apparently that change doesn’t include taking a more enlightened approach to legislation involving new technology. Earlier this month a bipartisan group of Senators lead by Diane Feinstein (D-CA) introduced a bill that would create a variety of new restrictions for both Internet broadcasters and listeners.
Bill S.256, also known as the “Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music Act” (PERFORM), would, among other things, require that Internet broadcasters protect their audio streams with DRM technology. Apparently the RIAA has convinced Feinstein that unencrypted audio streams are contributing to the global piracy problem.
In a world where just about every song ever recorded is available from any number of online sources, it’s hard to believe that a significant number of listeners are sitting around waiting for their favorite song to play on some Internet station so they can record the stream, cut the song out of the stream, tag it, then transfer it to their iPod. No, something tells me that people who don’t want to pay for songs have more efficient ways of stealing music.
It’s unfathomable that lawmakers would spend time attempting to cripple a new industry that is still in its infancy. Worse yet, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this bill. It was introduced last year and ultimately failed. The fact that it’s been reintroduced is a testament to the RIAA’s persistence as a lobbying group.
It’s conceivable that, if passed, the law would eliminate a large number of existing Internet broadcasters. If the cost of investing in proprietary DRM streaming systems doesn’t run broadcasters out of business, the new royalty and licensing fees just might. Keep in mind that Internet broadcasters are already paying the same licensing fees that terrestrial broadcasters pay, as well as additional fees that terrestrial broadcasters don’t pay.
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