Robert Paterson's Weblog

Star Wars - The Food Rebellion

Brilliat

Canadian Banks - The Brilliance of being Boring

Market Cap of North American Banks

Bank	Market Cap (US$ billion)
J.P. Morgan Chase	$76.9
Wells Fargo	$50.8
Goldman Sachs Group	$43.4
Royal Bank of Canada	$31.2
Bank of America	$25.0
Toronto Dominion	$23.3
Morgan Stanley	$21.4
Bank of Nova Scotia	$21.1
US Bancorp	$19.1
Citigroup	$13.7
CIBC	$12.6
Bank of Montreal	$11.2
Source: TheDeal.co Here is the current market capitalization of the Canadian Banks. Source the Deal.com The value of being boring - all banks should be so boring!

Getting above the clouds at the Sun Dial at the Westin Atlanta

What it is like 72 floors up! I am scared of heights too. (Westin Atlanta)

Lee Rainie of Pew - Convene the Most Important Conversation

Lee Rainie of Pew is one of the most thoughtful and informed people who study the impact of the social web. He spoke last week at the IMA Conference in Atlanta (Slides here). I asked him to sum all of this up in less than 4 minutes. (Here is how he was followed on Twitter)

Lee goes beyond content to context as to where the most value lies for public radio and TV - we now serve Homo Connectus!

• Set the context.

• Convening is the key process - Using vital Issues to get engagement - Be clear about why we are telling stories.
  

• Use our tools for their purposes - Act as Co Creators - Think how can I help people get the information that they need -
  

• How can you be a node in people's social networks - Allow people the capacity to talk back -

• If we can help people have conversations about what is important for them - then this will be important for all of us!

• Not just a one way conversation 

Is this how we working? It's not new advice but it is now more urgent that we follow it I think.

Public Media 2.0 - Jessica Clark of Center for Social Media Speaks

Jessica Clark offers up her views here on the power of social media. I filmed her with my new HD Flip at the IMA Conference in Atlanta.

She makes two vital points I think for the leadership of Public Radio and TV that were amplified later in the week by Vivian Schiller the new President of NPR.

• For the full power of pub media to be felt - NPR and PBS and the stations have to create a real network that includes all

• That this network then engages all of the nation in the conversation that enables us to take back our power and make a difference in our communities

These two big ideas reflect an emerging agreement among many of the more thoughtful at the conference and have their roots in the many conversations at New Realities.

A transformational plan for Public Radio and TV is emerging - Here are the key elements

Sometime when a crisis occurs so does the solution. I think this convergence is happening right now for Public Radio and TV.

Just as States and Universities pull back their support, just as traditional supporters such as the Auto and Finance sector pull back, just as the public pulls back, just as stations cut staff and programming and just as advertising itself starts to fail, I see agreement emerge across the system on a menu of things to do that could transform the system back into being vital and hence supported by the American Public.

Last week I went to THE public media conference The Integrated Media Association's Conference in Atlanta. Here is an annotated list of ideas that had the support of the system.

There are three parts to this "Plan"

1. Become Vital to America - important is not good enough in these time
2. Fully Use the Network Effect to lower costs systemically and to attract Resources beyond Money
3. Speak only with one voice - speak as a "Whole" system

Become Vital

• Become the News Power House that is possible if all the news resources are combined in ONE Network that is offered on ALL platforms. Fill the growing vacuum of news and context as the old system dies.

That PBS, NPR and the Stations Combine to offer a comprehensive news offering that includes TV and Radio and also the participation of local stations and their members

The emergent offering today would be NPR News, Plus Planet Money, Plus Frontline, Plus Bill Moyers plus an expanded News Hour Plus a local addition Plus a local citizen component

• Become the agent for mobilizing the community to cope with the financial crisis. Do what President Obama urges, bring back local control and local action and reduce helplessness.

Replicate what KETC is doing in St Louis to connect the helping forces to each other and to the people and to connect people to help each other - help bring back the social capital of the nation

The emergent offering is the new CPB project to extend KETC's work to 30 markets where the crisis is worst and both TV AND Radio are involved

• Become the main agency for helping American learn how best to use Social Media. There is no scaled trusted force that can help all parts of society - the young, small businesses, NGO's large institutions - to use Social Media well. Pub Media can become that agency

Some stations are already convening their local Social Media communities. These groups could become the seed of this new kind of school where the station acts as the trusted host.

This expands the entire idea of Educational TV and Radio

This opens up a whole new source of revenue

Use the full Network Effect

• Create a Systems Helping Agency (A SWAT Team) taken from the best people in the system to help stations - who are stretched to the limit - use the network effect to do better on the web -and to use the network effect to reduce costs and increase resources. Stations cannot do this without help. The new has to be midwifed. Some call this a "coalition of the willing" - they are right - draw on the best and the most willing people.

Create one web network for all of Public Radio and TV that has national, regional and local features. Support this with a permanent facilitating structure like Visa International did for Visa

Assist regions in reducing costs by consolidating their support functions in a network - there is no valid reason in a network for each station to replicate the back office functions - this has been done in Alaska. Create network utilities that serve the stations who then focus on content and convening

Call on the Geeks of America to come to the aid of the system - A Kind of Peace Corps of Geeks for a more democratic America - there is a well spring of energy that we can tap into of talent that don't want to send money but will offer themselves to help. Just as we can have citizen journalism, we can have citizen resources - bring the members into the network

How to Start? We are ready - Set the Context and Ask for Help

We are ready:

Nearly all these points were made by Vivian Schiller in her historic speech to the IMA Conference. All of these points have also been circulating independently throughout the system. They are not surprises but are quickly becoming an emergent plan

Resistance will be minor. Support is widespread. There is intellectual convergence and readiness and most importantly there is leadership from NPR. The pain is also high. In the last 2 weeks, the financial strains have got a lot worse at Universities and states are announcing a major pull back from support and that it has become clear that the auto and finance sectors are not in a position to help anymore.

Set the Context: Be clear about what the stakes are:

It feels like 1940 in England or December 1941 in America. It's all about survival now and the divisions that had kept us apart can be healed.

Put our highest needs first as our agenda.

Ask them to help us not to put on Lawrence Welk or even Nature or Masterpiece Theatre but to be the agency of understanding and community energy in these terrible time. To be the place where people can find out that is really going on and how they can help each other get through this. To be the agency of realistic Hope. To be the place where they can act to make a difference

Speak with one Voice:

We are talking about a Network that includes NPR, PBS, CPB and all the stations - we have to speak as one for it is the "Whole" and not the parts where the power lies.

What we say and what we do in the next 2 months will determine everything.

The Future of News on NPR and PBS - Getting together

Today the new CEO of NPR, Vivian Schiller, made a very important speech at the IMA meeting in Atlanta where she made it clear that more cooperation of a more formal type could be expected.

I have just posted 3 items that I think show the power of such a move. All three shed light never seen before. All have a different perspective - from these three insights more context emerges.

• Bill Moyers interview with Simon Johnson
• Frontline's new documentary on the crisis
• A film sent by its producer to Planet Money about the root causes - Convening User-Generated content of the highest quality

Schiller's vision is timely and apt - you can see its power just by looking at these 3 examples.

The situation that confronts is is so complex that it is beyond the ken of the most intelligent of any of us.

The typical headline news item only makes us more helpless.

Only a broad and a deep effort to discover meaning can help. I think that the combined efforts of NPR, PBS, the stations and us the public using this new platform can do what no other news organization can do now - help us understand.

I think the new future for news is emerging just as your local paper, TV and Radio station dies and as their news model dies as well.

Deepen your understanding of the financial crisis - Bill Moyers interviews Simon Johnson

In this video, Bill Moyers interview Simon Johnson, former Senior Economist with the IMF.

Here is how the interview begins:

BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal.

The battle is joined as they say — and here's the headline that framed it: "High Noon: Geithner v. The American Oligarchs." The headline is in one of the most informative new sites in the blogosphere called: baselinescenario.com. Here's the quote that grabbed me:

"There comes a time in every economic crisis, or more specifically, in every struggle to recover from a crisis, when someone steps up to the podium to promise the policies that — they say — will deliver you back to growth. The person has political support, a strong track record, and every incentive to enter the history books. But one nagging question remains. Can this person, your new economic strategist, really break with the vested elites that got you into this much trouble?"

And here's the man who asked that question. Simon Johnson is former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. He now teaches global economics and management at MIT's Sloan School of Management and is a senior fellow of the Peterson Institute. He is co-founder of that website I quoted — baselinescenario.com — where he analyzes the global economic and financial crisis.

Welcome, Simon Johnson to the Journal.

SIMON JOHNSON: Nice to be here.

BILL MOYERS: What are you signaling with that headline, "Geithner vs. the American Oligarchs"?

SIMON JOHNSON: I think I'm signaling something a little bit shocking to Americans, and to myself, actually. Which is the situation we find ourselves in at this moment, this week, is very strongly reminiscent of the situations we've seen many times in other places.

But they're places we don't like to think of ourselves as being similar to. They're emerging markets. It's Russia or Indonesia or a Thailand type situation, or Korea. That's not comfortable. America is different. America is special. America is rich. And, yet, we've somehow find ourselves in the grip of the same sort of crisis and the same sort of oligarchs.

BILL MOYERS: Oligarchy is an un-American term, as you know. It means a government by a small number of people. We don't like to think of ourselves that way.

SIMON JOHNSON: It's a way of governing. As you said. It comes from, you know, a system they tried out in Greece and Athens from time to time. And it was actually an antithesis to democracy in that context.

But, exactly what you said, it's a small group with a lot of power. A lot of wealth. They don't necessarily - they're not necessarily always the names, the household names that spring to mind, in this kind of context. But they are the people who could pull the strings. Who have the influence. Who call the shots.

BILL MOYERS: Are you saying that the banking industry trumps the president, the Congress and the American government when it comes to this issue so crucial to the survival of American democracy?

SIMON JOHNSON: I don't know. I hope they don't trump it. But the signs that I see this week, the body language, the words, the op-eds, the testimony, the way they're treated by certain Congressional committees, it makes me feel very worried.

What was it like on the inside during the financial meltdown? Frontline's Excellent Documentary

Riveting material - also hats off to Frontline for making their material available online like this - a standout for all producers

Depression Era Recipes - Good Food on a low budget

Feeling the pinch? Ninety-something Clara Cannucciari can teach you how to survive the lean times. In a series of YouTube videos directed by her great grandson, Clara reminisces about the Great Depression ("I had to quit high school because I couldn't afford socks!"), and provides cooking tips on such Depression-era fare as Pasta with Peas (6:32), Egg Drop Soup (6:52), Poorman's Meal (6:50), Peppers and Eggs (Part 1, 5:41; Part 2, 5:47), Bread (4:08), and Depression Breakfast (6:13).

This is such a lovely site too - oh to have a great grandson to give you a voice. Everything is so well done - lots of love here