One of my favorite things about Media Center events is that I get to play host and make lots of introductions.

So, at the We Media conference last week, I decide to sneak off for some caffeine at the Starbucks in the AP lobby (nice setup, right?). Waiting for the elevator, I see two of our speakers, NY Times columnist Nick Kristof and Weblogs Inc. Chairman Jason Calacanis, sitting across from each other, deeply into their laptops.

I take the opportunity to say "hi" to Nick, who pretends to remember me in the nicest way possible (we’d met a couple of times when both of us were living in Tokyo). I call over to Jason, "Hey Jason, I don’t know if you know Nick Kristof. Nick, this is Jason Calacanis." Then my elevator arrives, I jump in, and here’s the fun part: As the doors are closing, I see them shaking hands, brown head and blond head leaning into each other, and I hear Jason say, "So what do you do, Nick?"

I don’t hear Nick’s response, but I would lay money down that he doesn’t know who Jason is either.

At The Media Center, we hear and talk about these two guys all the time, guys who are tremendously respected and well known in their respective fields, guys so famous that Doesn’t Everyone Know Them? I guess not, because they didn’t know each other.

And I introduced them. Cool…

Tristan Louis was one of our live-bloggers, but he had technical issues so his posts went here.
Anyway, for the record, this is what he blogged:

I’m attending the WeMedia conference today and will be live-blogging in this entry. Watch the site for constant updates as I will keep adding to this entry.

It seems there are two clear camps here: the new media adopters and the traditional crowd. They can easily be identified based on whether they have laptops in front of them or not. It creates an immediate delineation line as the blog crowd obviously has a backchannel to use whereas the traditional media crowd does not. That’s another facet of WeMedia: always connected, enhanced knowledge through immediate sharing of data.

Read more

Thanks everyone for your patience as we worked feverishly to capture, process, tag and upload and upload … and upload nearly eight (8!!!) hours of audio from Wednesday’s We Media conference. The following sessions are now ready for downloading!

Read more

We Inc.
Originally uploaded by MC We Media.

From left to right: Moderator Jason McCabe Calacanis, Co-Founder & Chairman, Weblogs, Inc.; Scott Rafer, Chairman, Wireless Ink; Craig Forman, VP & GM, Yahoo! Jennifer Feikin, Director of Google Video, Google
Andrew Heyward, President, CBS News.
To download the MP3 of the session, click here. Photo by Richard Drew – AP

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading provider of comprehensive online products and services to consumers and businesses worldwide. Yahoo! is the No. 1 Internet brand globally and the most trafficked Internet destination worldwide. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Yahoo!’s global network includes 25 world properties and is available in 13 languages.

Yahoo! aims to be the best place for consumers to find, use, share and expand their knowledge, and the highest value partner for advertisers and publishers communicating with those consumers. Yahoo!’s open content platform helps publishers syndicate and distribute all types of media content via RSS feeds on My Yahoo!, the Internet’s most popular personalized start page. The Yahoo! Publisher Network offers new revenue opportunities for publishers and advertisers – creating an ecosystem that connects businesses with the right online audience.

The NewsMarket, Inc. (www.thenewsmarket.com/) is the only web-based, on-demand platform that enables news producers and journalists to browse, preview and download broadcast-standard video clips free-of-charge from organizations including UNICEF, Pfizer, BMW, Roche, Yahoo!., Motorola, General Motors, Intel, Google, adidas and the American Red Cross. These content creators pay The NewsMarket to ensure that their stock footage and B-roll is made easily available to the news media for inclusion in news and feature programs. By creating an on-demand digital platform, The NewsMarket is transforming how the world’s news media access video content from third parties. More than 5,000 news organizations in 140 countries today source video clips from www.thenewsmarket.com

The Company is headquartered in New York and has operations in Europe and Asia. It is privately held by management and investors including venture capital firms such as Apax Partners and Softbank and media organizations such as Hearst Corp.

MEDIA SPONSORS

Digital Media Wire is a news organization, publisher and events company serving the digital media industry since May 2000. We publish a well-respected free daily email newsletter and an industry directory(www.digitalentertainmentdirectory.com) and produce six annual conferences in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and New York City featuring the leading minds in digital media: www.digitalmusicforum.com, www.gamesandmobile.com, www.digitalmediaconference.com, www.televisionconference.com, www.digitalentertainmentawards.com and www.digitalcommercesummit.com. For more information, please visit www.digitalmediawire.com or call 323-822-0936.

Guidewire Group is a global research firm focusing exclusively on emerging technology companies and markets. The company’s online media, reports, and executive events bring the right people together at the right time with the right information to accelerate market development and business opportunity for entrepreneurs and those who support them. Chris Shipley hosts Guidewire Group’s next conference, BlogOn 2005 Social Media Summit, in New York this October. For more information, visit www.guidewiregroup.com.

Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide is a global communications firm built upon the best brand-building heritage. In this age of complex, networked marketing, our strengths in consumer marketing, corporate communications, social marketing, health, public affairs, technology, entertainment and our new 360 degree Digital Influence offering fuel innovative and creative solutions for the most important brands: our clients.

LinkedIn is the world’s largest and most effective business network. On LinkedIn, more than 3.6 million professionals find jobs, people and service providers through their existing network of business relationships. LinkedIn offers four premium services. Hiring managers posting jobs on LinkedIn Jobs receive candidates recommended by fellow employees or other trusted contacts.

The Producers Guild of America New Media Council is the premier industry resource and representative body for producers of New Media entertainment. The PGA New Media Council represents the interests of producers of Digital Animation, Digital Visual Effects, Videogames, Mobile Entertainment, DVD, CD Rom, Broadband, Interactive Television, and integrated story telling. Given this mandate, we are here to provide our members, and the PGA members at large, with networking, educational and employment opportunities. To find out more about our schedule of events, check back often by going to www.pganewmedia.org.

PR Newswire provides electronic distribution, targeting, measurement, translation and broadcast services on behalf of corporate, government, association, labor, non-profit, and other customers worldwide. Using PR Newswire, these organizations reach critical audiences including the news media, the investment community, government decision-makers, and the general public with their up-to-the-minute, full-text news developments.

Red Herring is the global weekly magazine and digital news source that technology entrepreneurs, investors and industry observers read to stay ahead of the curve and to be better informed about the global marketplace. Red Herring covers technology, innovation, financial strategies, important personalities and trends globally that are transforming the world of business with unique insight, opinion and forward-looking analysis. Readers turn to Red Herring and Red Herring.com for knowledge to make strategic decisions, build companies and create a competitive advantage for their businesses. Red Herring is available by mail, digital subscription, Web, email newsletters and RSS feeds. Many of the magazine’s articles, research and event information can be found online at www.redherring.com.

We Media fosters collaboration through conversations, connections and shared knowledge. We’ve organized conversations with individuals and organizations who are using the Internet as a collective force of unprecedented power. We’ve created a setting for you to talk to them and to each other – a day for learning, and sharing, ideas and opportunities.

No ordinary conference, We Media is about how we
create a better-informed society by collaborating with
each other. Arrange meetings in advance or during scheduled meet-ups at the conference

Engagement by all attendees is encouraged. We rely on attendees to set a course for We Next.

7:15a – Registration; Bagels with bloggers

8:30a – We Media 2.0, Presented by The Media Center – Dale Peskin, Andrew Nachison

9:00a – We News – Tom Curley, Richard Sambrook, Farai Chideya, Larry Kramer, Merrill Brown

10a – 15-minute meet-ups / AP Tours

10:15a – Keynote – Al Gore

11a – We Inc. Executive forum – Jason McCabe Calacanis, Jennifer Feikin, Craig Forman, Andrew Heyward, Scott Rafer

Noon – Mid-day meet-ups / AP news center tour

1:15 – Three Sessions:
Media Gawking – Jessica Coen, Ellen Kampinsky
We Invest – Brad Feld, Paul Ginocchio, Susan Mernit
Culture, Politics & Buzz – Dominik von Jan, Farai Chideya, Patrick Phillips, Jay Rosen, Rick Ducey, Brad Burnham, John Gerzema

2p – Three Sessions:
Citizen Journalism – Susan DeFife, Dan Gillmor
We Marketing – Fernando Espuelas, John H. Bell
Activism & Democracy – Rebecca MacKinnon, Nicholas D. Kristof, J.B. Holston, Lex Alexander, Henry Copeland, Steve Rubel
Marcus Xiang, Brian Reich, Seth Green

2:45p – Afternoon stretch

3p – In Us We Trust – Craig Newmark, Richard Edelman, Watts Wacker, Karen Stephenson

4p – Collaboration Cafe with Speakers

5:30p – Cocktails

6:30p – Adjourn

We News: Farai Chideya, Tom Curley, Larry Kramer, and Richard Sambrook
Originally uploaded by MC We Media.

From left to right during the We News panel at The Media Center’s We Media event at AP headquarters in NY:
Farai Chideya, Editor & Founder, Pop and Politics; Tom Curley, President & CEO, The Associated Press; Richard Sambrook, Director, BBC Global News Division; Larry Kramer, President, CBS Digital Media. Merrill Brown, Principal, MMB Media LLC, Moderated the event.
To download the session, click here. Photo by Richard Drew – AP

Why should we be optimistic that these sytems of work are going to work, or are going to change human nature?

Panelists differed on their views some saying that we may still have ‘further to slide’ before we start to reform ourselves, others thinking that we’ve reached that point already.

Wacker – 3 things going on, conspiring in this country –
1. plutocracy – putting money in the hands of a few who control
2. conservative manifesto – one country will dominate
3. dominionist religious component – women are second to men.

These three things will have the potential to create the perfect storm that will create the fall that will result in a participative democracy that is not centered in this country.

The panelists continued with the issue of the public lost of trust in corporations.

Wacker then got into the ability everyday people have to create their own reality. The present environment makes it difficult for people to figure out who they trust. This needs to be changed. People need to find a common context with corporations.

What does the next Craigslist look like? Newmark said most of what they’re about is classifieds. If something is wrong, you can flag it for removal and if more people agree, the item disappeared. People are overwhelmingly trustworthy; there is only a small percentage of ‘bad guys.’ Wacker said we have a different list from who we solicit trust from.

Read more

Dale Peskin introduced the day’s last session explaining that the panel was formed to talk about collaboration and the social and business changes that it is causing. Panelists were asked to give their perspectives on ‘trust systems.’

Wacker – trust and ethics are going to be dominant in the next generation. ‘Institutional crisis is pandemic.’ The real key is culture, who’s definition is what we pay our reverential hommage to, what we respect. In the world of ‘we’, it’s very easy to shut off anything you don’t want to listen to. How do we create mediation in a world of complexity and paradox? We need to distinguish between ‘true’ stories and ‘truth’ stories.

Read more

Lots of laughs and interesting conversation went on between conference participants during the short break between session. Business cards were exchanged and future rendez-vous dates were established as all headed upstairs to start the days final session, In Us We Trust.

In Us We Trust
Participants: Craig Newmark, Customer Service Rep & Founder, craigslist
Richard Edelman, President & CEO, Edelman PR
Watts Wacker, CEO, Futurist
Karen Stephenson, President, Netform
Moderator: Dale Peskin, Co-Director, The Media Center
To download the MP3 of the session, click here.

Tag: wemedia

Activism & Democracy
Participants:
Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times Columnist
Marcus Xiang, CEO, PDX.CN
Brian Reich, Director, Mindshare Interactive Campaigns
Seth Green, Executive Director, Americans for Informed Democracy
Moderator: Rebecca MacKinnon, Co-Founder, Global Voices
To download the MP3 of the session, click here.

Tag: wemedia

Culture, Politics & Buzz
Participants: Dominik von Jan, Director, NextNextBigThing
John Gerzema, Chief Insights Officer, Young and Rubicam Brands
Moderator: Farai Chideya, Editor & Founder, Pop and Politics
To download the MP3 of the session, click here.

Tag: wemedia

We Invest
To download the MP3 of the session, click here.
Audio begins during intro of Rick Ducey, Executive VP, BIA Financial
Other panelists are:
Brad Burnham, Partner, Union Square Ventures
Paul Ginocchio, Media Analyst, Deutsche Bank
Brad Feld, Managing Director, Mobius Venture Capital
Moderator: Susan Mernit, Senior VP, 5ive

Tag: wemedia