Attending SXSW Interactive Conference

I've decided at the last moment to make the trip out to the SXSW Interactive Conference in Austin, TX. I've attended the film and interactive conference back in 2001, but this time I'm going to be focusing exclusively on connecting and learning with the Interactive participants.

I think that we're near a tipping point with the citizen journalism movement, and I want to come out and see what insights I can gain and provide to others.

Below is the pitch that I've been sending out to various conference participants. It's essentially three different pitches with increasing levels of detail. My hope would be that if they are interested in the hook, then they'll read the other two pitches.

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I'm coming out the SXSW Interactive Conference and I would like to meet with you for 15-20 minutes sometime between Friday and Thursday morning to give you a heads-up with how I plan on:

* Coordinating decentralized journalism
* Combining the objective with the subjective
* Combining the alternative with the mainstream press
* Combining professional with non-professional journalism
* Incorporating deception detection algorithms into journalism
* Using non-linear visualization techniques
* And how wikis, blogs, and online social networks tie it all
together.

We can increase the level of transparency of any potential meeting from these three stages:
* Private -> Ask First -> Blogable

Below is more context.

Thanks,
-Kent Bye.
Director, The Echo Chamber
MetaThought Productions

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I've been working on a documentary on the pre-war failings of the mainstream media since November 2002. I interviewed over 40 journalists, media critics, journalism professors, and other political figures this past summer and I have a lot of insight what's wrong with the media and how to fix it.

I'm in the process of open sourcing the text of my interviews and working with some sharp Drupal developers to develop some modules to implement my vision for a New Media Ecosystem.

Here's a flowchart that gives more details:
http://www.echochamberproject.com/blog/archives/000101.html

Rebecca MacKinnon and David Weinberger linked to this flowchart during the recent Whose News? conference.

I'm ready to start putting these new media theories into practice, and I'm coming to the SXSW conference to gain some more insights and input as well as do some networking and get the word out on where I'm at and where I'm going.

I recently listened into the Media Center webinar about business models, and I have some insights into some of this puzzle piece based upon my ecosystem model, but I certainly don't have a view of the entire puzzle.

I would love to have a private 15-20 minute meeting with you sometime between Friday and before Thursday morning.

Below is another pitch that gives more detailed context.

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I'd love to meet privately with you and anyone else who you think might be interested in a meeting to go over what I've learned from the process of producing an investigative documentary on the failures of the mainstream media.

I have a lot of insight for how to defy traditional media logic and implement more critical thinking skills, insights from mass communication theories, distributed collaboration, and trust to the journalistic process.

I can also give more details for how I envision collaboratively producing my documentary by developing the open source software that will provide a launching pad for other hyperlocal and national citizen journalist efforts.

A very sharp Drupal Developer named Moshe Weitzman is working with me for free because he believes in my vision, and he knows that the software tools that we're in the process of developing are going to automatically facilitate the collaborative process of decentralized journalism.

We've already been brainstorming how to use annotation modules, node moderation, and other Drupal plug-ins to start creating the infrastructure that can handle an ecosystem of distributed researchers, analysts, and narrative content developers.

HOW CAN WE TRAIN CITIZEN JOURNALISTS?
This is a question that I hear over and over and over again with how to train journalistic principles to the next wave of citizen journalists.

I have some answers.

If people read through the 45 interviews that we conducted with journalists, media critics, professors and think tank scholars, then they'll have an intuitive sense as to what the media does right and what they fail to do.

If I'm able to get enough logistical and institutional support, then I want to release these 45 interviews as podcasts so that people can listen to them. I'm even open to releasing the interview footage to be remixed after the film has been released.

Also, by participating in the production of this film through an online Community of Practice, then the volunteers will have all the tools they need to start aggregating the collective intelligence of our society on other issues by doing their own independent investigative projects.

I have lots of ideas for how to put these new media theories into practice. I look forward to the possibility of meeting with you and others to give my full vision.

Let me know if you want to get together at SXSW.

I get in on Friday morning and leave on Thursday morning.

Thanks,
-Kent Bye.
Director, The Echo Chamber
MetaThought Productions