SXSW 2009? Turn Your Old Media Empire into a New Media Paradise August 12, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : , Magazine, Social Media Events, Storytelling, SXSW, Teaching, Trends ; add a commentQuestion mark is because we proposed the talk, but it’s up to the people to decide whether they’d like us to present…
The form we filled out had lots more info on it, but here’s what the site says:
Turn Your Old Media Empire into a New Media Paradise
Companies that have been at forefront of the publishing revolution, before the days of the internet, have recently found themselves behind the eight ball. While they struggle with their digital strategy, smaller leaner companies have been capturing their traditional audience on the web. However, many of these companies forget that the ability to create compelling engaging content is their greatest asset. Instead of placing their focus on pages views, they should be placing it on the pages themselves. This presentation will show how we used Drupal and other open source technologies to to transform a couple of 100 year old magazines into fresh and relevant web 2.0 destinations - from both a technical and philosophical perspective.
The whole deal is, Content is King, but media companies are withholding their content from their audience, because they don’t want to cannibalize their print business (or insert traditional medium here). Eric (@xentek) and myself (@liberatr) are proposing this topic, so vote, comment, or otherwise show us some love.
Other Drupal-Related Sessions
Another Local’s Session
Luck is where Preparation Meets Opportunity: CMU’s Randy Pausch July 12, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : , Career, Disney, floridacreatives, Love, Storytelling, Teaching, Tech, Trends, Video ; 1 comment so farSo many great things in this video - it’s an hour and fifteen minutes, but you really should watch this.
Not only did Randy achieve his childhood dreams, but he has taken his process for doing so and boiled it down to this talk, which we can now pass on to others. This guy is dying, yet he is so positive. I love it and I love this talk. Thanks @supaben34 for bringing up my day (actually, my whole year).
Some key points:
- The Head Fake: we don’t send kids to sports to learn about football.
- To achieve your dreams, you have to get over the brick walls. The brick walls are there to weed out the people who don’t want to achieve their dreams.
- Even if you are denied at first, you can still reach your dreams through karma and more brick-wall-jumping.
- Carnegie Mellon’s ETC is freaking awesome. So awesome, they’re spreading their labs to other continents, and five companies have letters open guaranteeing to hire their students.
- There are some great examples of interdisciplinary stuff - putting left- and right-brained people on the same teams.
- It’s nice to have metrics telling you how well you work with others.
- Always put others before yourself.
- If you are patient, everyone will impress you. Just keep waiting.
- I am going to have to check out the Alice project, like a lot
BlogOrlando, Pleasure Island’s Last Hurrah July 9, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : , BlogOrlando, Boing Boing, Disney, News, Orlando, OrlandoScene, Storytelling ; 3 commentsThe dates for BlogOrlando have been announced. Held at Rollins College from Sept 25-27th, with the main event being held on Saturday the 27th (not Friday like previous years). If you haven’t been to BlogOrlando yet, it’s a really fantastic introduction to the world of blogging, and there should be lots of fun surprises this year. Last year there were some great discussions, and a few keynote presentations by folks like Shel Israel and Chris Huer (google their names).
Josh Hallet, the man behind the unconference, says registration should be open soon. You should be able to take care of that at BlogOrlando.com
If you didn’t notice it yet, the very last weekend Pleasure Island will exist is the same weekend as BlogOrlando - as of Sept 27th (I’m assuming it will be open that day) the attractions will all be closed in favor of something more “family friendly”. Considering the number of cameras and recording devices that seem to follow BlogOrlando participants wherever we go, wouldn’t it be nice to have a big blogger party out there at the Island?
Save the Adventurer’s Club! Kungaloosh!
Hunter S. Thompson Film: Gonzo June 7, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : , Beer, Film, News, Orlando Weekly, Quotes, Storytelling, Video ; 2 commentsThe man who invented Gonzo journalism is a guy who I’ve really been meaning to check out on a deeper level for quite some time. I love the film versions of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Where the Buffalo Roam
, but I’ve had little exposure to Thompson’s work outside of that.
I actually share a birthday with him - we were born 45 years apart, and he ended up living to be 68.
One of my favorite things about Gonzo Otaku is Flying Dog’s Gonzo Porter - a seasonal beer dedicated to Hunter, featuring the artwork of Ralph Steadman (he does all the art for Flying Dog), with a dog-portrait of the author, clutching his signature cigarette holder and wearing sunglasses. Apparently H.S.T. was a friend of the brewers. He is quoted on their site as saying:
“Good People Drink Good Beer”
So far the closest opening for the film is 4th of July in Atlanta, at Midtown Art Cinemas 8 (an eight-screen art-house? Que?)
In other Gonzo trivia, I would classify local Orlando Weekly columnist Billy Manes as a disciple of that style of journalism, if you’ve never read his weekly back-page column, Blister, you don’t know what you’re getting in to.
Hopefully I’ll have a chance to see the film some time soon, until then, do some LSD, smoke, drink, go for a drive, and don’t forget to bring your lawyer with you!
Muder We Wrote at Rollins College April 26, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : , bloggingfringe, Games, Orlando, OrlandoScene, Reviews, Rollins, Storytelling, Theatre, Trends ; add a commentWhere does one begin? I often find that when writing these theatre reviews, it’s a good idea to gather my thoughts, think about what I want to say and in what order; I don’t have time for that, I’m going back to see the last showing in an hour!
I first learned about this production through a friend who helped to workshop the format for this improvised 90-minute board-game inspired murder mystery… she and several other students, under the direction of David Charles, PhD. - Assistant Professor of Theatre and Dance at Rollins College. The whole play is improvised, so there are bound to be some times during such a long show where the scenes may be stronger or weaker - to counteract that, “Dr. David” and his class developed dozens of devices to help them create a sustainable story throughout the length of the show.
We begin at the stately home of a Mr. Phil Reynolds, a successful lawyer with a deceased rich wife. His business partner Toni and spouse Gene the artist will be guests at tonights party, along with his child Bobby and sibling Toni, servant Pat, and lifelong friend Dr. Chris. An unexpected guest arrives, and, inevitably, there is a murder! Some classic (yet improvised) scenes are played on the stage of the Annie Russell Theatre, which has been masterfully converted to the perfect setting for these 8 unlikely murderers or murderesses to play out their little drama. You’ll laugh, you’ll scratch your head, and above all you’ll have fun.
I’ve got so much more to tell, but no time to tell it… we continue our recap when I return from the last showing of Murder We Wrote tonight!
**** Continued ****
As the play begins, you see a man sitting at a bar, and as he turns to the audience, he gives us the look the look that says “Are you ready for this?”. At all three showings, David’s entrance gave us a laugh. This audience was ready to have fun. The story is set up as an “exploration of the human psyche” where “a seemingly random series of events” may yield “murderous results”, and the setup for the game begins. Three decks of cards are passed out to the audience and shuffled, then used to select a victim, a murder weapon, a location and… the murderer. The recited banter during this section kept us paying attention, instead of looking down at our “ballots” where we would later guess whodunnit. Only the Assistant Director and the killer know all the details of the crime before the final moments of the play when a confession is yanked out of the murder him or herself.
Once the setup is done, we the audience have also suggested a song title, a nervous habit, an annoying catch phrase, and several other ways for the players to use to make us feel as much like the writers of the story as the people on and off stage. Just before, however, is perhaps the most exciting part: the character cards are shuffled, and 7 of the 8 roles are completely randomized by members of the audience. All the parts are non-gender specific, including the married couple, and relationships between siblings and children. Even the order of entrance for the characters is ever-changing, decided by the backstage team of a dozen or more people who are constantly feeding the actors suggestions, props, cues, even their catchphrases, and reconciling any plot holes during intermission. There are countless challenges for the lighting and sound team as well, and opportunities for them to drive the story as much as anyone down at the stage level.
The most rewarding parts of the show come in the second act, where the details of the murder are spoon-fed to us at fixed intervals (or as much as can be with an improvised show). We already know the victim before we take the intermission and make our guesses, and immediately after, the location of the murder is revealed. I don’t know to give credit to one person for this, or the whole team of students, along with Dr. David who playtested and researched this last summer, but there is some expert game design at work here.
Then someone suggests “we should split up and search the house”, and each of the 8 characters takes one of the doors leading to various wings and levels of the house, only to frantically burst out of the door in a ballet of “who am I on stage with, and what do we do now?”, the inner workings of which I know is my job to keep a secret, but congratulations to J. Hannah White, the lighting designer for her brilliant stroke on that one. There’s also a more traditional improv game set up in the coat closet, at the bar, and up on the balcony, where the players pass lines to each other like a hot potato that is always unpredictable and fun. It’s these sort of moments that make us forget we’re watching the story being written in real-time.
Last but not least, all the cast re-assemble in the main hall to try and figure out for themselves who the murderer is. Things at this point can get rather tense, and apparently, a wrestling match broke out during this scene on Friday between actor Seth and Dr. David. The atmosphere teeters on melodramatic as actors are eliminated, concealed weapons are pulled, dead bodies lie on the couch and revealing letters are read… or none of these things happen and they just wing it, it’s really different every night.
What’s that? Sorry you missed it? I feel sorry for your too. This show could run every night down on International Drive if the team were so inclined. I don’t remember how much of Sleuths Dinner Theatre is improvised, maybe I’ll have to go back and do some post-game research. So far, the closest things I’ve seen to this level of story plus improvisation in such a long form are The Adventurer’s Club at Pleasure Island, which I would consider a distant script-heavy cousin of Muder We Wrote (all the endings are decided, most of the jokes and songs are repeated, but the cast is always changing), and SAK Comedy Lab’s The Early Show, which plays every other Friday at Midnight, and is completely improvised with no backstage magic, just the performers left to their own devices.
What makes these other productions around town the same or different from this show? In Murder, we the audience are all following this global discovery as we ourselves and the rest of the actors and around-stage hands and minds try to figure out the story. In regular improv or something more scripted, we either have a better or worse idea of where the ending is. We have an idea of how we think it could happen, and the several dozen people actually driving do as well, but there’s no way to know until the last possible moment when the killer reveals his or her secret and we have a collective pay-off. There’s lots more to say about what’s happening here and how they pulled off the format, but then this would be getting into research paper territory, and I’d need to start giving examples from other historic or contemporary works, and… well, we’re only blogging here!
I’ve never taken a theatre class in my life, and I graduated from UCF 4 years ago (almost to the day), but my biggest takeaway from this was a desire to enroll at Rollins under Dr. David Charles. You can tell everyone involved on this play was having such a great time, and the fact that people were coming back to watch a second, third, or even more showings is a testament to the fun and intrigue of this production, and the charm exuded by David and his cast. Congratulations to Megan Borkes, Ana Eligio, Joseph Bromfield, Chelsea Dygan, Erica Leas, Seth Strutman, Emily Smith, Roberto Pineda, Michael Neil Mastry, Danny Tuegel, Liz Weisstein, and Rob Yoho, along with all the other cast and crew, on an excellent run.
Giving the client what they need, not what they ask for April 10, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : , Books, Cervo, Design, Freelance, Markteting, Programming, Restaurants, Reviews, Storytelling, Teaching, Trends, Web Sites ; 2 commentsJust now I was buying a new domain name because of a misprint in my AXIS interview - it’s probably a common mistake, so it was worth the $7.
Anyway, there was an ad for some wannabe-posh restaurant on I-Drive - “Bola”. link
OK, seriously, who has a flash website that plays music? With late-90’s slideshows?
I also love that when I link to the “blog” - check out the design they chose for that. All of the posts on said blog have this huge text right below the title and right next to the very stale and infrequent date of the posts - “No Responses”.

Way to go on the authenticity, D*****bags! It’s not the designer’s fault, there was a breakdown in communications. Somebody has also dropped the ball on doing a follow-up with the client once the dist settled.
If you really want to create a compelling experience on a website these days, I think the only option is to use video. If your restaurant is so “high-end”, hire a damn video crew to come out once in a while and throw THAT on your site - or maybe even your non-blog.
Check out some of the stuff MindComet is doing, for example. They don’t mess around. I can’t say I always love every site they put out, but they know their strengths. I definitely appreciate the need for experienced marketing folks working along side talented designers and developers. I don’t slight the person who created this project, they just had too many things to think about all at once.
I’ve recently been re-reading a book by one of my role models - Hillman Curtis. It’s called MTIV: Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer.
I actually had “New Media Developer” printed on my business cards for a while, and people would ask “What does that mean?” I’m sad to say I didn’t have a story for them at the time, but now I think I’d have a thing or two to say about it.
In MTIV (Making the Invisible Visible), Hillman, who is a world-renowned designer with clients like Adobe and bestselling bands on his client list, tells you how he gets his work done. In fact, all of his books are like that - he goes through his creative process. He’s got some steps, he identifies the goals at each step, and he gives lots of anecdotal support. He’s clearly been working at a very high level for a long time.
People who have read this book and really understand it would have never designed that site for BOLA - at least not in the last 18 months or so.


Here’s lesson 1 (implied) from the book for me: separate the technical requirements of the project from telling the story. As a team of one, when I go into the job, I always know I am going to have to turn around and implement these ideas once I get back to my text editor, so most times when I’m in a meeting with a client, my brain is already downloading Drupal modules and clicking checkboxes. At my new job, this isn’t so much of a problem, because my role during those meetings is to translate what the editorial folks or the PMs are asking of me into technical requirements, identify sticky points, and give them an estimate of how long this new awesome feature will take.
However, even at a job I had for a couple of weeks managing an online store for a print shop, I not only had to put my propeller hat on, but my marketing/customer/business hat on, and normally the propeller hat gets priority. That means I’m donating 40% at best to thinking “is this even a good idea, does this communicate the message, will visitors understand the story?”
Then a few weeks later, I’ve started writing code, laying out the homepage, or what have you, and it hits me - THIS SUCKS! Did I design this? Then I remind myself I’m “not a designer” (which is bollocks because I’m always calling myself a “front end guy”), and I come to terms with the reality of the situation. We’re not communicating effectively here, we’re masturbating and pretending the result was a web page.
How do we fix it? Drive back to Sanford, tell the client “I’m sorry Mike, I had my head up my ass when I designed this… will you pay me to fix my own mistakes?” Nobody is going to go for that! Sure, you can give them a spiel about ROI and conversions, and maybe wrapped in the warm fuzzy blanket of “SEO”, which might as well be voodoo and divination to most clients, you might even be able to convince them to spend 30% of the original budget doing what you really should have done in the first place, in 15% of the time, without your trusty subcontractors, in your spare time, just so you feel good about work that you’d already written off as “finished”.
No, you can’t fix it. Clients don’t go for maintenance contracts any longer. Most of them don’t even want to pay you for hosting, let alone support.
The ONLY solution is to do it right the first time. That means making checklists, getting your freelancer buddy support system to consult and make sure you’re not leaving any huge gaps (oh, you do have some sort of a peer support system, right?), and above all, making sure you understand what the client needs.
I’m only feeling the slightest bit hippocritical right now, and if you’ve worked with me in the past, and you’re quietly thinking I’m full of shit as you read this, consider this my formal apology for underdelivering. In most situations during my “freelance” (”slacker”) career, I didn’t put 110% to anything work-related, and it wasn’t until my “Tabula Rasa” day (Jan 17th, 2006), that I had even decided to push myself to improve, and it looks like it’s taken about 2 years and 3 months.
So, FullSail grads, budding New Media Designers and Developers, and folks that have been doing this “since the early days”, and are planning on making a concerted effort to create stunning work, every single time, even if it’s for half of your rent money, here are a couple of tips:
- It might take 27+ months to feel as though you’ve arrived
- You MUST make sacrifices in your personal life for professional improvement
- Freelance is not a hobby, it’s making a living. Mom and Dad can’t pay the bills forever
- Go buy a copy of MTIV
, you’ll thank me later
- Keep your head out of your text editor (or photoshop) while you’re asking the client how you can work together to effectively communicate the story of his/her business
- Don’t use flash slide shows with music on every page
Video Uploads to Flickr April 9, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : , BarCamp, Events, Facebook, Film, Flickr, MySpace, Orlando, photos, Podcasts, Reviews, Storytelling, Tech, Trends, Viddler, Video, Web Services ; add a commentMy First Video on Flickr fit the new requirements perfectly: less than 90 seconds, and less than 150MB. That’s fantastic, and the streaming in good, embed codes, tagging, fits right into my flickr photo/video stream, awesome.
The videos on Flickr are going to make YouTube obsolete, or rather, the MySpace to Flickr’s metaphorical Facebook. The content in each place is different. I don’t go to MySpace or YouTube expecting quality, art, or intellectual content of the least kind. However, I know some real life people on Facebook, and some really serious photographers on Flickr.
By creating a constraint like this, the “90-second short film” will gain a place on the internet. I wouldn’t doubt if the next set of consumer-level cameras have an option to limit video clips to 90 seconds to allow for easy Flickr uploading.
…and it is SO easy. The same exact experience as working with a photo - I haven’t tried geotagging, but I bet it works. Now if they can get Viddler-style deep tagging working just like Notes on photos, I’ll be a very happy man.
David is a total goofball, now you can see it at 30FPS. Thanks Flickr!
What every small town local bookstore should do April 1, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : , Books, Branding, Contributors, Film, HowTo, Love, Markteting, open source, OrlandoScene, Shopping, Storytelling, Teaching, Travel, Trends, Video ; 2 commentsI jsut finished reading Rent Girl by Michelle Tea. It’s a neat little book - half novella and half graphic novel. There are some beautiful illustrations by Laurenn McCubbin in there that were a big reason for my picking up the book in the first place - it just drew you right in, you wanted to know what was up with this young girl from Boston and why she was into being a hooker in the first place - and the back of the book says something about her quitting, but still needing to pay the bills? I’m there.
However Michelle Tea and this book are not the subject of this blog. At least, not directly.
I picked up this indy book at an indy book shop - I was on vacation, visiting Tempe, Arizona, walking to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, hiking the Grand Canyon, getting yummy sandwiches from the co-op and drinking local beer. And next to the Trader Joe’s in the adobe-colored shopping center (really, they all were) was this little book store, Changing Hands.
Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe Arizona, corner of McClintock and Guadalupe. There was a café, I think, and there was a section up front with fun games - the kinds of stuff you’d see on the bookshelves of Barnes and Noble next year once they hit critical mass. Like all indy book shops, there was a table near the customer service desk with eye-catching books, new arrivals, and the ever-present signed-or-to-be-signed books. And here was Rent Girl. I had spent my time there checking out art books - graphic novels, collections of illustrations, and a couple of re-printed sketchbooks. I always love looking at stuff like that, but I don’t ever know what I would do with it. Then there was this illustrated storybook, but with naked girls and lesbianism and drug dealing.
I only read a few pages on the plane, it was too naughty. I actually couldn’t wrap my head around this book until recently, somehow I feel that by absorbing some women’s media I can try to understand the industry a bit better - things aimed at guys are too easy to understand, low hanging fruit - women’s music, film and books are another beast.
But I digress. I want to plant a seed at Changing Hands in Tempe and Urban Think in Orlando and the Bookmine in Jacksonville, and all the other places where you feel proud buying a naughty graphic novel. This advice isn’t exactly ground-shaking, but I think it makes sense:
Every small town book shop should:
- Print their own books.
- Teach classes about how to print your own books.
- Sell said hand-made and self-published books.
- Sell books by local authors on the internet.
- Show and sell art on the walls.
- Have free and open wi-fi.
- Record video/audio podcasts with visiting authors.
- Have a space in-store and online for customers to have a conversation, either about books or what happened on last night’s LOST.
- Be a place where you want to come to read a book.
- Be a place where you would hang out with your friends.
- Be the first place you want to visit when you get off of work.
- Have space for local groups to hold meetings.
In London I saw a store that only sells Chess and Bridge supplies. They’ve got the largest selection of that stuff you’ve ever seen - no big box store could compete. And on the same block is a store that only sells Flutes. I’m told there’s a store on the other side of the river that only sells French Horns. Granted, in a big city there is a need for places that specialized, but I think even a small town book store can take some tips from these places.
I saw another place that was a grocery, bookstore, gift shop and restaurant all in one. They wouldn’t let me take pictures in there, it was so unique. They press their own olive oil.
In a certain way, Stardust Video & Coffee here in Orlando has achieved so much of what’s on my list, but the utility of the store, renting movies, was not lucrative enough for them, so they opened up to being more cafe-and-performance-space than video rental space. They’ve recently added a second stage with a strict “no dry-humping” policy, and they also sell hard liquor in addition to their amazing selection of beers, decent wine, tea, coffee, baked goods and original food.
I suppose if there was a local printer, they could achieve something similar without needing to do the actual printing themselves, but I guess that’s part of the point of the bookstore, yes?
As a “video and coffee” establishment, I don’t see where Stardust is the last word on video other than the selection, but I always felt like I wasn’t smart enough to rent there, that the right to rent a film was reserved for someone with a more cultured taste than I. However, the Thursday night Broken Speech Poetry Slam or the local rock shows they have are completely accessible, and I’ve played drums on stage at Stardust many times. Maybe that’s just partly attributed to my training as a musician, but why do I feel I’m below the film?
I guess I’m trying to encourage these book shops to become the Third Place that we are all craving here in Orlando right now. In the land of corporate coffee, the local coffee shop has evolved, mostly in order to survive. I think the local bookstore has a few more steps to take before they’re all grown up.
Which bookstores have you noticed fitting into their niche?
…continued…
This is an old meme I found via Tara Hunt and Pinko Marketing. I’ve been trying to describe local media (or at least the goals of the media I’ve been trying to produce) and what’s supposed to be for sale at Petentials and similar sites. The point isn’t to sell 24,000 of an item priced $1 but 1,000 of an item priced $24, let’s say.
Boutique (from my mac dictionary): French, literally ‘small shop,’ via Latin from Greek apothēkē ‘storehouse.’ Compare with bodega .
Some people are getting my reference to boutique mixed up with luxury brands. Personally, I wouldn’t be caught dead with Louis Vuitton bag and I’m sure most Boutiquers wouldn’t be either. The difference, as the diagram suggests (and there are many more differences than I quickly plotted in this image) is the motivations for buying. I said, “Bought for connection†because, as Sanford commented in the previous posts comment section:
“People go out of their way to purchase certain goods - like moleskine notebooks - or buy cheese from specific vendors because it broadcasts something about who they are. This statement can be personal/internal, shared with a small audience…â€
The “small shop” concept is the feeling I got at Villandry in London - it was right in the heart of downtown, near the international embassy district, but instead of being generic, they were hyper-specialized. It was the kind of place you’d bring your aunts and uncles who were visiting town, to show off the awesome places that can grown up in your backyard, and they’d sit back and go “I would never buy anything in here, but I’m in awe of the place.” That’s how I feel at Stardust, that’s likely how some folks feel in the front room at Dandelion Communitea, or the co-op area at Infusion Tea in College Park. What does it all mean? How did these people come to create this art, or this custom stationery, or eco-friendly teacups, or press their own olive oil? Why are there hundreds of movies I’ve never heard of, and how in the hell can they organize them by country and director instead of genre? Who does that?
Boutiques do that. The perfect local bookstore would do that.
Take a look at people who use open source software, you’ll find the same aesthetic. Hand-made, personalized, specific, and powerful in the hands of a well-informed user, but you don’t need to be the guy who wrote it to use it or change it. You think there should be a French translation? That’s up to you. A sixth checkbox? Hack it in, contribute it to the repository. Make this the best tool for you, and therefore the best tool for folks who know where to look.
I could go on all night. Maybe I’ll go on this weekend at BarCamp. But I don’t title it “indy bookstore”. What is it?
BarCampOrlando Downtown April 5th and 6th, 10AM - 6PM
Posted by Ryan in : , BarCamp, Coworking, Events, floridacreatives, Graphics, Links, mashups, Music, open source, Orlando, OrlandoScene, phone, PodCamp, Podcasts, Programming, SEO, Social Media Events, Social Networking, Standards, Storytelling, Teaching, Tech, Trends, Video, Web Services ; add a commentBarCamp Orlando is a weekend for all types of creative folks to come together and share with each other. The event is dubbed an “unconference”, a format which derives power from the people instead of the event organizers or the presenters. Everyone has an equal opportunity to get on stage and speak, teach or lead a discussion, playing off of the idea that at any given conference, the people in the audience have more knowledge collectively than the presenter(s) on stage.
This second installment of BarCamp will be held over 2 days, Saturday and Sunday, April 5th and 6th, in downtown Orlando at the Wall Street complex, from 10AM - 6PM each day. Registration is free, and a registration promises a shirt and lunch on the sponsors of BarCamp, businesses who are passionate about the technology and media communities of Central Florida.
Saturday is the designated “Dev Day”, playing host to everything from web programming to robot building and video game development and everything in between. iPhone hackers, guys with soldering irons, the latest technologies, and plenty that haven’t been realized yet. Every 30 minutes, both venues will have a different talk going on, so if you’re feeling lost in the jargon, apply the “rule of 2 feet” and check out what’s happening in the other room!
Sunday is dubbed “Media Day”, and is the place for storytellers, journalists, writers, designers, filmmakers, musicians, 2D and 3D artists, podcasters, bloggers and social networkers to show off their work, share their tricks or talk about the state of the industry. From 12 to 1 we will be talking about the “Past, Present and Future of Media in Central Florida”, hoping to give our community a sense of our story, and where we’re headed.
Registration is free, and the event runs from 10AM - 6PM both days with a lunch break at 1PM. The event will be housed in Slingapour’s and One-Eyed-Jack’s, with Wall St Cantina acting as our “hallway”. There will be projectors and microphones, chairs and a space to speak. All you have to do is write your name on the whiteboard and you get 20-25 minutes to share your passions with a group of energetic, engaged geeks and creatives. I would not use the words “captive audience” to describe the BarCamp crowd, because they all want to get involved.
Visit www.barcamporlando.org today and register for Dev Day, Media Day or both days. Wall Street Plaza is at 18 Wall Street Plaza, Orlando, FL 32801 - barcamporlando.org/where has a map to the venue and information about parking.
BarCampMiami Audio: Podcasting is not about Tools March 3, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : , BarCamp, Events, floridacreatives, miami, Podcasts, Social Media Events, Storytelling, Teaching, Tech, Trends ; add a comment
Download BarCampMiami Audio: Podcasting is not about Tools
Had a great talk of about 35 minutes. I will link to folks’ blogs and stuff in a few minutes, but I just realised I hadn’t posted this yet. Flash player coming soon too.
Some talking points:
- What’s your interest in this podcast session? I’ve been podcasting for two years.
- Can we make podcasting more accessible? Understand how your audience consumes media.
- How did you get into creating podcasts? I wanted to record conversations.
- Why can’t everyone be famous? Sometimes being a celebrity helps, you need an audience.
- The subject matter of your podcast is intrinsically bonded to your audience. You can’t force it on them.
- What happens if you do something outside your niche? Don’t create any more channels.
- Podcasts are personal. For audiences and producers. Producers and hosts are members of the community.
- Syndication to larger sites as well as smaller sites can help you grow your audience.
- Doing an “informal” podcast is the same as a formal one - “once you start, you can’t stop!”
- Can we use podcasts to bridge the barriers of language and culture? Visuals, video with subtitles.
- Why video gets more play and advertising than audio - because of engagement.
- How people consume media in suburban vs. urban areas.
- How do I make money? Monetization must be in the plan from day 1.
- Using services like Revver to reward the sharer, creator and host.
Links mentioned in this podcast:












