Random Thoughts

This was posted as a comment, but it should be a post on its own.

Posted by Bill Gannon (bgannon at yahoo-inc dot com) at March 12, 2004 01:10 PM.

Random thoughts I’m just barely vain enough to share:

Nomenclature: So API wants to be known – so I was told on a break yesterday as “The Media Center.” Cool. Great. But whose values, views, needs, problems and issues has predominated here?

A question for all of us: What did we learn? How much of our experience and problems did we share? What’s the takeaways? How can we help The Media Center do a better job next time?

True that: A bad sign of this or any conference – I am completely caught up on my e-mail (and Vin Crosby’s latest article at OJR and more) and I’m not some blackberry boy here – I am usually the last to boot-up and read e-mail. A shame, really.

Constructive criticism: The UN general assembly style and set-up – which seemed so promising at registration (“I’m on Morphos!”) turned out to be meaningless. MEANINGLESS! Our colleague from Wired was dead on when she suggested the format ill served a group of our size and diversity given our media, backgrounds and problems we are all seeking to explore and resolve. The alternative is obvious here – an opening and closing big session with smaller breakouts panels and groups. Or use the teams to brainstorm ideas and seek to solve specific problems.

I missed cranky smart Jeff Jarvis here. I don’t agree with him on everything (and I sure wish Newhouse web sites were better) but he brings value to every “conversation” he participates in. And Vin Crosby and industrious Jon Dube and a few of the other usual suspects…

For a conference about news – content – technology – and change, etc., we have left far too many important topics out of the conversation. And right now we’re re-hashing (no new ideas or breakout discussion comments yet) our ideas and comments from yesterday rather than use this valuable time to explore RSS, FOAF, mobile issues, the semantic web and the role of search in news, the role of social networks in future content models,

And I disagree that Jeff Greenfield got us off to a good start. It was far too rooted in the now (meaning 18 months ago) and not enough in the future. He focused too much on a single tool and important topic and left way too much else along side the road.