Robert Paterson's Weblog

What I think is really at stake if CPB and Pub Media is Defunded

On the surface the attack on Pub Media is based on the idea that the state should not be in the broadcasting business and that this is especially true if the broadcaster is aligned to one point of view.

There is a point to this. Imagine my fellow Pub Media fans if Fox was to now get government funding - you too might go nuts!

But I think that the reason for this attack now is deeper than that.

And I think that the attack is based on the most human of responses. When something new and true and so dangerous arrives on the scene - we laugh at it. But as the new and the true and so the threat to the status quo gets its feet, the power people in the status quo get an insight. 

They can tell at a cellular level that this new thing could be their doom. And their response?

Please let me explain what I think that THEY see and why THEY have started the Inquisition to root out Pub Media.

In the last 5 years, Public Radio and Public TV have started to find a new role for themselves and it is this new role that scares THEM.

This role of course is a Public Service Media organization that gives people who have no voice a voice in the issues that concern them.

CPB is funding a number of experiments that are having results in this key area of informing more than the news cycle and giving people a say. None of this is done in commercial media.

For instance NPR is running a project called Argo - that has picked a number of issues that mean a lot to us the public and created nodes that roll up into a national network - so for instance WBUR in Boston is hosting a local/national conversation about health and healthcare. Or KPBS in San Diego is convening a discussion about the issues of being a military base Town. Or KPCC in southern CA is doing this on Immigration. 

All of this is largely web based - so the stations are also learning how to expand their horizon beyond the "air" and broadcasting.

There are 12 stations involved and the point is to find out how best to do this - to become a rich centre of information outside the news cycle that can be both local and a national resource. Where the public can find the best information and the best conversation about things that concern them. AND SO be truly informed and SO have a real say.

The new is full of music labels complaining. Not only about piracy but of the tight grip just a few large outlets have on what gets played and the costs of getting air. Well guess which media outlet gives the Indie labels the best opportunity for air at the least cost? NPR Music! Here is how the Hollywood Reporter ran this story.  This idea came directly out of the work done back in 2005/6 by all the stations to find a starting point for offering the music audience a place based on their taste and their time rather than simply playing what the station wanted. The music audience and the musician's interests are well served here. Both sides win. This does not happen on commercial media where the interests of the station those that own it rule.

CPB has also backed TV stations like KETC in St Louis who have been exploring how to put the public onto TV and how to offer the public a safe place to have the conversations that are otherwise impossible in America today.

Now known as the Nine Network for Public Media, KETC has a media school, the Nine Academy,  that is turning out hundreds of citizen videographers,. Giving the people the tools to have a voice of their own. 

In 2009 KETC hosted a national project involving more than 30 markets worst hit by the housing crisis to learn how each local TV and Radio stations could work together to offer people help that they could trust. In each market the stations worked to bring together w ide ranges of resources into local networks of trusted help. This is all but impossible for a commercial station. 

In 2010 KETC has been experimenting in how to host a year long "Conversation" about an explosive topic that normally collapses into rhetoric - Immigration. Most of the content is local and much of it made by grads of KETC's school. KETC is learning how to offer people a civil place to hod string views and how to switch the power from the station to the people. Impossible for a commercial station. 

This year KETC is co managing a project that will also be nation and is highly controversial - On how we might improve our schools. 

What THEY fear the most is that this kind of new role for Public Radio and TV may end up with 

• You being better informed - you will have escaped the sound bite world and in music the play list that THEY want
• You will be better engaged - because you will have the real opportunity to have your voice heard and you will have learned the skills to do this well 
• You and your local community will have more power to change things

THIS is what THEY fear.

We may feel that we could and should have made more progress - but THEY can see it.

They care not about Morning Edition, Car Talk or Masterpiece Theatre.

They do care that you may become more informed and more empowered. Public Media is on track to pull this of and so must be stopped. 

I don't see this as a Left or Right Issue. It is do you want to be part of the solution or be passive?

And who are THEY? Follow the money.

Social Business - How do you get there really

Harold nails this for me. I have been struggling to understand the blockage that keeps so many from understanding.

Might it be that we are so used to dealing with "problems" that have known and rational "answers"? That is what school is. "Robert" 2 x 2 what is the answer?" This is how we learned what a "Problem" was. We also knew that there was a Known answer or a Known Algorithm that would produce the answer, We also knew that the best people knew the answers and the algorithms. They were at the top of the class and now are at the top of the organizations. They "Know".

But as we all explore the shift from machine to network, we may know the theory but actually how this plays out in practice cannot be known in advance. Just as Columbus could "Know" that if he sailed west he would find land but he could not know when or what it would be like or how to get there in detail.

Columbus had to explore and feel his way there.

Crossing America in 1805 was to truly explore. Off go Lewis and Clark into the truly unknown and unknowable. They could only explore and use trial and error. They did know that the Pacific was west, as Columbus knew that some kind of land was west. But that was all. They did know to take the "right" people with them. They selected the best back woods men. They also had a special person - "Sacagawea". She was an Indian woman with a baby.

What did she bring? They knew that they would be in Indian country all the way. She had two powerful things to add to the strength of the party. She knew many languages and the culture - she could connect the explorers to the locals and vice versa.

But maybe even more important, she was a woman and she had a baby.

This sent out a signal to the system that this party was NOT a war party. For without that, even if they had had a male Indian who could be the cultural connector, they would have all been killed before the meeting!

So what do traditional organizations need to "cross the chasm"?

I think that they need to stop thinking that is is a problem that can be resolved by finding a known answer. That the top person can know.

The top person can give herself a break. She cannot know but she can fund the expedition as Queen Isabella did.

So there is the theory - here are some examples from recent history that I know a lot about because I have lived them.

When I worked with NPR back in 2005 the question was "How will social media affect us and what should we do?"

The great thing then was that No One could know the answer to that question. And if by chance one of us did, no one else would just accept that answer.

So what we did was to set up a process of discovery where it was agreed at the outset that no one knew.

We then set off, nearly 1,000 people, on a number of test journeys where groups "Played" with creating stories about what the future might be.

After 6 months a number of pictures of the future emerged that were consistent. All that you now see as being normal for the new media was nailed by these people back in 2006. It was all novel then and no one had done any of this. But this 1,000 people had invented the key principles and had invented stories about how this all worked in the day to day lives of people. They had discovered the world of social media as it might apply to radio.

I thought, wrongly, that most would then rush off and enact them. But this did not happen. Fear still held many back.

But ALL now had a common picture of what was important. A picture that ALL had co created. So while fear may have stopped many from changing, no one doubted the principles of what they had discovered.

The results? There is no doubt in my mind that, while NPR may now have the political fight of its life on its hands, it knows better than any other traditional media organization how to use Social Media. It has also delivered on them as no other media organization has.

Why? In the project we included over 250 NPR staff so the sense of having discovered the truth was well spread. Most of the key facilitators for the project were the senior executives and members of the board too - so there was no need to "sell" up or down. The majority of NPR had done the exploring themselves and could trust their own experience.

The other organization that has really "got it" is KETC - Now the Nine Network for Social Media - Jack Galmiche, the President was an active player in the NPR project and when he got his new job running KETC in St Louis, he also had the experience of creating the future and so the courage to go for it in TV.

KETC has been through many voyages of discovery. All the staff now have experienced the new. Many are now highly adept. They have discovered this for themselves. No one taught them!

KETC is now the acknowledged leader in the use if social media to augment TV.

KETC is now also a viral infector of the public system.

As KETC trail-blazes, it has worked with other stations. In the Facing the Mortgage Crisis project with about 60 across the nation. They too "experienced the new". The best of them then went for it too and now a critical mass of stations have enough practical exploration under their belt to go for it.

They are about to launch a new nation wide project that will cause the infection to spread further.

I think that this idea of a voyage of discovery is much more helpful that the idea of problem solving.

So selfishly how do you do this? Is there a book or a formula? Is there a snappy consultant who will show you how to do this?

No, I think that what has been shown to work best is to hire a "Sacawagea".

The issue is culture and fear of the unknown. There are no snappy answers. As John Seely Brown says in Harolds post - you have to "Marinate" in the situation.

So if you want to be successful, please think of hiring someone who knows the other native people out there and the new culture. Who is a native of the world that you aspire to go to. Who is less of a guide than a trusted friend. Who you can talk to quietly in the evening around the fire and have her hear you out. Someone who risks as much as you do on the journey - or even more than you. Someone who is safe and who helps you feel safe as you take risks.

I think a know a few of these people!

Amplify’d from www.jarche.com

Social business is about a shift in how we do work, moving from hierarchies to networks. The highest value work today is the more complex stuff, or the type of work that cannot be automated or outsourced. It’s work that requires creativity and passion. Doing complex work in networks means that information, knowledge and power no longer flow up and down. They flow in all directions. As John Seely Brown said, you can only understand complex systems by marinating in them. This requires social learning. Complex work is not linear. Social business is giving up centralized control and harnessing the power of networks. It is as radical as was Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management in 1911. The potential of social business is organizational survival. Enterprises must be able to share knowledge quicker than before.  This requires a shift toward something like a starfish framework that not only allows for independent action but also distributes knowledge through all the parts. Social learning is how organizational knowledge gets distributed. Social businesses can learn quicker. The main barriers to social business are cultural. People in charge of most organizations today got there by doing things the traditional way of the MBA mindset. They feel they do not need to change and few are willing to give up power and authority, even if it is for the good of the organization. Read more at www.jarche.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bmrhb

via Amplify.com

There is still hope - On the Bus to Washington #KETC

 

Many here feel as I did - that they are alone - how wonderful to see them!

What an indictment of the media as it is!

More at KETC here

Putting the Public into Public TV

 

Most of us have video camera's now. Few of us can tell a good story on Video. If we are to have a great source of community, we have to help people get really good at video story telling. Hence The Nine Academy. 

Reinventing Public TV?

 

Nearly all in public TV and Radio know that we still have to do a lot more to find out what will be a more vital model. There are all sorts of experiments going on. Such as at KCET that is stepping aside from PBS - Here is a post by Doc Searls on this and a good series of comments that follow.

This promo is about what KETC in St Louis is trying. 

But it is no flash in the pan but the result of 4 years of hard slogging by Jack Galmiche, his team and his trusty "get it done", Amy Shaw. They have crawled, tottered, and now are walking toward a model for public TV that has both the old - great content as TV and also the new - a trusted space where the community can work together to do important things.

Crawling - It all started in 2006 with a simple enough test - we used the showing of the then new series The War by Ken Burns - to see if we could use this show as a Social Object that would teach us how to attract people in the community to tell their stories. Here Bill Ives tells the story of this first chapter of our story. 

Tottering - Our next project was to see if we could find a way to create a safe enough space for the community to get together to help each other get through the Mortgage Crisis. We first tried this at home in St Louis and then were given the chance by CPB to include 60 other stations across the nation. Here Bill tell the story.

Walking - We are now about half way through the next project on Immigration that the promo describes above. Here we have taken a topic that few can agree on and we are trying to find out if we can create a space where people can hear each other and so we hope find a way forward. This is not just about using new media - it is about using new media to have a better social outcome. Bill tells more about us here.  He adds more about how I am using a novel search engine, Darwin Awareness, to find a way though the noise of the web and here about how I hope to use it to see what impact we finally make ourselves. 

When we started we knew that while we had to master the new tools - this was not really about the tools - but about if we could shift our culture. This has been more challenging and painful than I ever imagined. Change is easy on paper and when it involves some one else. But I and the the folks at KETC have found that the work demands that we all have to give up a lot of whom we were and that hardly a day passes when we are not wracked by doubt.

We have a lot still to do. A metaphor that we use is Columbus. We know that land lies to the west. We know that it should be close. We have seen the odd gull and floating logs. But we have not seen land yet and have no idea what it will be like when we get there. Will it be the Indies? Will there be a pot of gold there? Meanwhile, we keep sailing on our course and have to put our hope in the big idea.

Of course when we get to land, that is only the beginning! Then we have to find out how to live there.

Like Columbus, even if we get there and it is fine, we can't stay there alone. We need people who are up for a New World to join us.

Do you want to find a better future of Public TV? If you do, you can help us by joining in and being part of this.

 

Good Listening vs Talking well

This Fast Company article from 1995 describes how a native American wisdom council gets taken into the corporate world. Interesting stuff. I read it with some anxiety as I fear the real wisdom behind the practice could easily be lost by corporations co-opting the ritual.

So the best bit for me were the principles underlying the process, described at the end. I'll highlight a couple of them. The first is:

Good decisions begin with listening. The Western give-and-take meeting emphasizes talking rather than listening. Businesspeople come into a meeting prepared to give their presentations -- not to listen to the contributions of others. And the debate format encourages people to begin formulating their responses while the other side is speaking, rather than listening and reserving judgment. The first element of a council ceremony, on the other hand, is careful listening.

When I've worked with "no interruption" rules, I'm often amazed at the difference this simple intervention makes. Something special can happen about the way people give attention - a quality that I think is evoked, not taught by "active listening" courses. By stopping interruption, I think we help participants to develop the capacity to suspend judgement and enquire more deeply.

The second principle I wanted to pick up is this:

A slower process yields better decisions. Rather than looking for the fastest answer to a pressing problem, the council process accepts the need for careful, in-depth reflection. With the understanding that implementation is faster, easier, and more successful if it comes after all implications of an issue have been thrashed out, the process doesn't address the question of action until the latter stages of the discussion. "By the time you get around to talking about action," notes Eric Vogt, "the whole council has had a chance to speak and feels engaged in the results."

I've written a lot in the past about the danger of "action theatre" and about the power games that get played out about demanding action. If we force action on a group we risk shallow commitment, passive aggression and end up with little real engagement. Taking time to reflect offers the chance of something more substantial. Chris Corrigan calls it "wise action" which is a succinct way of putting it.

via johnniemoore.com

Many of the comments on KETC"s site on Immigration have made the point that we should, have less conversation and have more action items. "Tell us what to do" seems to be the main thrust.

But isn't the "Do" the problem? If I come from one POV and you another then if I tell you what to do - you will tell be to take a hike. No one is listening. We all seem so captured by what we want to say that we cannot hear what some one else is talking.

How can we make progress if we cannot listen?

Posted via email from Rob's posterous

Jay Rosen on what ails the media today #ketc

Is there a problem with how the media works today and is this connected to why our political system seems so blocked?

There is a problem at the heart of Journalism today. The News System is not designed to advance conversation.

Journalism instead feeds on “Conflict”. News is Conflict. And of course  Conflict is news.  But in many cases, the other side of the reported “Conflict” is phony.

Look at all the phony statements in the Immigration story that have been given credence by the media!

News as it is today is not designed to build knowledge but only to tell us what happened recently. Worse, Journalists position themselves as being above the conflict as the neutral arbiter between the poles. I call this “The View from Nowhere”. Of course good debates and worthwhile conversation demands moderation. Of course there is a role for a neutral broker. But the good moderator ensures that the quality of the questions is high.This is not what Journalism does today.

So it can be no surprise that our political system then feeds into this. If you want to be in the News, you play the poles. The “Real” is opposed often to the “Fake”. So in the case of climate change, the fake is still given legitimacy. In Immigration a legitimate question is “Do immigrants lower wages” but if there is an answer to that question that is true, the untrue answer may be given equal weight. No wonder people are emotionally aroused and unsure.

So this view of the world as being all about conflict, much of it illegitimate, and all about the extremes on either side of the conflict informs our political process. So our media and our politics tend toward entropy and ritualized conflict.

Journalists do not want to make helping the nation move to a solution part of their work. They see that as “politics” and avoid it. So we end up getting stuck and we lose trust in both our media and our political system.

So what would be a better way for us?

It will help if we can see that the “View from Nowhere” is a liability.

It is the Pontius Pilate position enabling the media to wash its hands from the ethical choice that confronts it.

The View from Nowhere was thought to build trust. In reality it destroys it.

To build trust, you have to tell us where you are coming from. Not who you voted for, or your personal ideology. But what brings you to this topic? What then are you trying to accomplish? What does success then look like to you? What is your goal?

Don’t be  God or a Martian looking down upon us mere mortals. Be part of what is going on. Articulate where you are coming from and be clear about what you desire as an outcome.

So then Jay what is your advice for us at KETC?

via explorehomeland.org

This is how Jay opens his interview at KETC's Homeland Site - Our site on Immigration. He and Doc Searls and Euan Semple have been advising us as to how best to improve our work to offer up an alternative to the polarization of conventional media.

His advice as to what to do is on the site - please follow the link

Posted via email from Rob's posterous

Euan Semple - How can you best create a conversation on the web?

I interviewed Euan last week and asked him how we at KETC - or any TV station for that matter - could do a better job at having real conversations with our community. Our concern is that the media mostly seems to inflame or leave us helpless - the larger context then is what could we do to help people who do have differences find a common pathway.

Here is a opening snip of my synthesized precis of his response. 

 

Engagement can only take place between equals. It can only take place between humans and never with an institution.

The media relies on a large power difference. The media is jealous of its power and allows no equals. The media see people as marketing segments to be manipulated.

Within the powerful institutions of the media, journalists see themselves as “professionals” who are above us as well. To fit into their profession, they deliberately obscure their own humanity. They are aloof, omniscient, even pompous.

They seek perfection in an imperfect world. In this context, things are right or they are wrong. People are good or bad. They make the judgment.

We, the public, respond to this use of power as children often do to over protective parents. We act out. We feel helpless. We get angry. We blame.

So long as they hold onto this power and there can be no conversation. Without a conversation, there can be no engagement. With no engagement, there can be no learning. With no learning there can be no progress. All there can be is anger and so more polarization.

This then is the context for our politics.

With anger and polarization, we are stuck. We cannot see a pathway to any solution. We can only widen the breach or deepen the wounds.

He then goes onto to talk about what would work better and what we or YOU can do in particular.

 

Posted via email from Rob's posterous

What would a more personal and human media look like? #KETC

Maybe it would look a bit like what we put out yesterday on our site on Immigration

• It may be how we look at the news of the day - seeking the paradoxes rather than taking sides - offering up our own bewilderment rather than Olympian certainty 

• It may be how we can humanize a story such as Muntazar and his family who gave up everything to come to America - in watching and listening to him, we can find a glimpse of what this may be like if we had to leave home for America

• It is how we can put a human face on why people risk everything to come here from Mexico - why might you risk your life and separation from your family?

• It is how maybe we talk about fear and loss - what might our fear cause us to lose that makes America the great nation that it is

• Maybe it is also that we know how hard it is to become more human and we admit our frailty and seek the advice of people like Euan Semple - seek it and take it to heart.

How are we doing? I know we are making progress but we are not all the way there yet. If you care about having a better media - a media that can take us away from name calling and help us find a path to resolution - please drop by and offer us YOUR advice.

Posted via email from Rob's posterous

KETC - A Revolution in the making

KETC/Channel 9 to become Nine Network of Public Media

CPB President Pat Harrison will be in St. Louis on Oct. 12 as KETC/Channel 9 unveils its new brand identity as the Nine Network of Public Media, the station announced today (Oct. 5). It's part of the celebration for the opening of its new digital facility, the Nine Center for Public Engagement. There'll be six interactive demonstration stations in the new building: nineVoices, a website where community members post videos with solutions to local problems; Homeland, an immigration initiative; nineAcademy, digital video storytelling; the Public Insight Network, a site where participants serve as resources for pubmedia news gatherers; and interactive experiences with Nine on Twitter and Facebook. The staff of KETC's news partner St. Louis Beacon, located in the new center, will also be there to discuss their work as a nonprofit online publication (Current, March 30, 2009).

 

via currentpublicmedia.blogspot.com

What you call yourself drives what you do - what you do drives who you are.

KETC has left the bondage of broadcasting, been through the Red Sea, across the desert and is in sight of the Promised Land of a new model based on being a Network that serves the wider needs of its community.

It is very special and such a privilege for me to be part of this.

It was about 4 years that Jack Galmiche arrived at the station which was then in deep crisis. All this has happened since then.

What a journey this has been for all of them there and for me - imagine what it is like to work with an organization that wants to do what they have done.

A special thank you to Amy Shaw who is Aaron to Jack's Moses.

Posted via email from Rob's posterous