We create the stories of the connected society

2009 We Media PitchIt! winners SeeClickFix’s Ben Berkowitz and The Extraordinairies Jacob Colker talk with Ely Bonder about where they are now and what they took away from We Media 2009.

Acquisition is part of the solution for “big media” companies to catch up in the era of new media. But they need to go further, including more investments in early-stage ventures.

Dear Arianna, About 2000 years ago the philosopher Seneca said that “the best ideas are common property,” which is an old thought rediscovered as the fresh ethos of the Internet. To be fair, the current state of being on the Web allows me to bring to the same sentence a Roman stoic with the Greek [...]

Czerina Patel is an inspiration. She spreads energy when talking about Yenza, a project about connecting people, building awareness and supporting change. “Yenza means ‘make’ or ‘do’ in Xhosa and Zulu languages”, said Czerina. She returned to work in South Africa -her birthplace- after a radio journalism career in New York. “Czerina explained that believes [...]

I owe you an apology.  Part of my role is to help manage the blog and keep the conversation among those in the WeMedia community going strong.  I dropped the ball in a big way. I haven’t posted since the WeMedia conference at the end of February.  I haven’t followed up on many of the [...]

Originally published on NextBillion.net Two weeks ago I attended the We Media conference in Miami as a We Media Fellow . The conference was exciting and thought-provoking and made me think a lot about the state of the “development through enterprise” community and us entrepreneurs working to fight poverty through innovative, private-sector-lead solutions. I’ll share [...]

An agenda for smart capitalism.

As a part of the Entrepreneur’s Caucus at last week’s WeMedia conference in Miami, I asked Krista Van Tassel to share some insights about how to launch and sustain a successful social enterprise.  Her recommendations were solid gold — which wasn’t really a surprise, since Krista is surrounded by people who are pursuing social ventures [...]

For those who were unable to join the “Storytellers Caucus” at We Media this year, here’s some of what you missed: I started with a brief history of how our traditional ideas of story have proved a remarkable tool for making order out of the chaos of the world and our experiences in it. (PDF) [...]

Highlights from We Media 2009 ConferenceBy Barbara K. Iverson — Conference co-founder Dale Peskin seemed glad that in the conference’s fifth year, he doesn’t have to explain what We Media is anymore. In a phone interview with me prior to the conference, he said that “strong innovation and an agenda that includes the ‘new now’” [...]

Brian Reich from iFOCOS started off the session “Rebooting Democracy” and shared with us how he arrived at the Miami International Airport recently and was struck by the more than 50 pieces of art about freedom and participation.  In this connected age how we share information has changed, but has that brought about change? For [...]

Public media is poised to advance to 2.0, but the medium must change profoundly, said presenters at a 15-member caucus. “The future of public media is digital and participatory,” said moderator Jessica Clark of the American University Center for Social Media. Public media will not necessarily mean public-funded media, she said, so people with new [...]

Thanks to everyone who sent us their outside takes on We Media. This is the first batch we have amassed. If you have a post you’d like us to mention, email us at ping (at) wemedia (dot) com. Internet is Primary Source of News, Sez PollBy Jennifer Saba — This just in from our friends [...]

The first full day of WeMedia presented interesting challenges and opportunities regarding the state of new media, social change, and journalism. Conversations revolved around the future of traditional media, expanding the scope of social media companies to facilitate social change, how to more effectively run a business, how to reach target audiences, and more. As [...]

The We Media Pitch It! awards have been announced. And the $25,000 winners are: Non-Profit – The Extraordinaries Smartphone software that allows someone to use micro amounts of spare time for social good. We deliver volunteer tasks on-demand directly to the phone like a stream of new adventures, that people complete on the phone in [...]