The Power To Change The World

“With the traditional media losing its monopoly on information, opinion and storytelling, all sectors of society now have the power through media and communications to make themselves heard. How can we use this new power to make the world a better place? Session Chair: Andrew Nachison, Co-Founder, iFOCOS”

• J. Sebastian Traeger, CEO, Razoo
• Jim Brady, Executive Editor, Washingtonpost.Newsweek.Interactive
• Katrin Verclas, MobileActive
• Jean Marc Coicaud, Director, United Nations University
• The Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., CEO, Hip Hop Caucus
• Darya Shaikh, Executive Director, OneVoice

To help live blog this session I’ll be using CoverItLive

I wanted to use CoverItLive – but for some reason the <iframe> code isn’t working on this wordpress blog. So you’ll just get my regular updates.

Starting Now

• The moral case for media hasn’t gotten enough attention: It will be a social and experience driver in the we media culture: Andrew
• Our impact: We try to get people more informed – so they can make the changes they want to make in the world. In the areas we cover – there are a wide range of thoughts about what the right thing is.
• What is One Voice?: A movement of Israelis and Palestinians that are engaged in conversation – the thesis to reveal the consensus that peace is what people really want. It is their right and responsibility to be part of the solution.
• OneVoice started at the collapse of the Camp David negotiations – how do you rebuild trust in communities? How can we be creative to work and caste a wide net to solve these issues? Started very grassroots: face-to-face.
• It’s not management of the conflict – or dialogs. OneVoice is trying to actually solve the conflict by giving people grassroots ability to find each other who want to work for peace. We now have a negotiations process. Micro-impacts are good, but macro impacts are what we are going for.
• Now for Katrin: Mobile Active’s goals and experience – A community of people using mobile technology to achieve global change – practitioners on the ground. We are dealing with people who want to make the world a better place and the most ubiquitous device in human history – and we want to connect them.
• All kinds of issues: Health, environment, etc. It’s about finding ways for people who are working on the same issues to talk with each other. That people have their cell phones on them all the time allows for instant communication.
• Challenge: One of the things mobile phones can do – connect physical and digital world. Barcodes: Take a picture of barcode and it directs you to a website. Some German papers have QR codes – you get directed to additional information.
• Define NGO: Non governmental organization – they are part of this global landscape of civil society. They work to do good in the world.
• So — United Nations University comes into play: We are a distributed university that focuses on three issues – development, environment and security – and we wouldn’t be able to work on these issues without new media. Our work is to put together international teams of researchers in different backgrounds – and we encounter the problems which are the very thing of todays and tomorrow’s communication. It’s challenging – our aim is to true produce internationalized knowledge – but most knowledge today remains very nationalized.
• Hip Hop Caucus: How do you motivate people? Media is life and death – it has the ability to move the masses. The oppressed are now able to create their own media – it is a need, and media can answer that need.
• With internet we can tell that story. The revolution may not be televised – but it will be uploaded.
• The bloggers can put stories out there and force the mainstream media has to pick it up. Even when I leave here today and go back to D.C. I will be arrested for talking on a mic at a conference.
• Are you talking about “wemedia” or “the media”? Answer: The Media – when it is controlled by a few people. WeMedia is when groups of people create their own media and that will continue through newsletters, YouTube, etc. But I want to stress: I don’t think that “the media” is bad, period. Because they can tell the story – the problem is when they only tell one side of the story. WeMedia emerges to answer that.

How CAN WeMedia be used to build a better world? “Can” — I want to be more declarative — how “should” media be used to make the world better?

• Mobile Active: Tells story of Indian women who was murdered – and tv station used SMS messages in real time (received hundreds of thousands) – and it turned into an indictment of the Indian justice system. The television station made its channel available which in turn became a larger story. It shifts the paradigm of traditional media.

For Jim: A big part of WeMedia is about stories that aren’t covered – but technology has changed that and there are new ways for stories to be called. Let’s take that further, it’s hard to report and tell every story – yet there are lots of voices telling their own stories. Could the Washington Post instead of reporting on HipHop Caucas, could they partner?

• First a comment: Another example – four months ago the post wrote a story about the lowest educationally performing state – this morning his wife’s cousin is taking pictures of the students and will go back every year to document their growth. Sometimes it’s easy to focus on small success. In terms of partnerships – we do all the time partner with people that we normally wouldn’t partner with. We partner with lots of people through blogs. We are always interested in relationships that are different from what we would have done 10 years ago. Our relationship with not wanting to support activist cases makes it more difficult, but we are interested.

Question/Comment from: RTC marketing relationship in D.C. – question: OnFaith is a unique environment – one problem with WeMedia is that it is preaching to the choir – and OnFaith has created a unique environment where people from different faiths answer it – so you come into contact with unique people.

Leonard Witt: This is to the Washington Post: Are you losing a gigantic opportunity here?

• Well, we don’t have endless resources. We can’t chase every opportunity to partner and embrace this whole new medium. We’ve embraced a lot of them, but there are all sorts of missed opportunities. It takes people to organize these things. They aren’t instant.

Final thought from audience: Final thought: WeMedia is nonpartisan and neutral. “How should we be using media” but the question is – is it enough to connect people – or do we have to connect them in the right way, keeping the right changes in perspective with editorial control.