Press Release: iFOCOS announces new projects and memberships

Companies and individuals are invited to join and participate in the We Media community.
iFOCOS today announced a series of action and educational programs to spur global innovation in media. The media action tank also announced key leadership and advisory appointments as well as support from partners and foundations across a a variety of sectors.

Additionally, iFOCOS has formed a new membership structure to help stimulate and facilitate the global We Media community.
The Associated Press, the world’s largest news gathering organization, has joined iFOCOS as a Global Partner. WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive and Denmark’s Center for Journalism Education have become corporate members.

In addition to its new corporate members, iFOCOS has also confirmed support from the McCormick Tribune Foundation and the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation. iFOCOS has also established a relationship with the Integrated Media Systems Center, a next-generation media technology lab at the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering.

The iFOCOS Advisory Board includes craigslist founder Craig Newmark, interactive media pioneer Merrill Brown, as well as executives from Reuters, Qualcomm and other companies.

A world-class Board of Directors has been named. It includes Jennifer Carroll, an executive at Gannett who has spearheaded efforts to reinvent all of that company’s newsrooms; Alan M. Webber, founder of Fast Company magazine; Scott Fox, chairman and CEO of Globalview Partners,
an investment firm; and William C. Weiss, chairman and CEO of The Promar Group, a global business innovation consultancy.

iFOCOS is about action. iFOCOS projects for 2007 include new research into how people experience media and a new educational program to spur innovative approaches to communications, product development and investment in a connected world.

These are the projects planned for 2007 – and we hope you’ll find ways to inform, lead or contribute to them:

• We Media Miami
• Random Acts of Media, a global, collaborative and transparent research project to document and analyze how media is experienced in ordinary, every-day life.
• Media Change Seminars: Seminars and briefings for companies, boards and project teams on a new model for innovation to integrate business objectives and social responsibilities in the connected society
• Search Working Group – An open consortium of content creators and technology companies explore a next-generation vision for making sense of the world’s information.
• Soft Power Working Group and Symposium: This new symposium will aim to reframe and invigorate thinking about media, policy and civic activism.
• iFOCOS Members Network: Corporate and individual members will connect, seek collaborators and inspire each other through iFOCOS ad self-organized projects and meetups.

To schedule iFOCOS briefings, seminars or other activities for your organization, contact:
andrew AT ifocos.org

To learn more about iFOCOS, its educational programs and corporate and individual memberships, go to: www.ifocos.org/join