Blogs and Jobs

April 14, 2008 at 11:34 am · Filed under Andy Carvin, Blogging, David Weinberger, Doc Searls, Jeff Jarvis, Paid Work, Seth Godin

Jeff at NPR with Andy Carvin, me and David Weinberger taken by Doc Searls

Jeff Jarvis writes today about the value of his blog - He says that it has got him all his work over the last few years. The same is true for me. NPR, all my work in New Media, Blackwater, Education - all my paying gigs have come through this medium.

Our money comes largely as a side effect: Here is Seth on that -

At a seminar at the local library, someone asked, “how do I make a lot of money blogging?”

My guess is that at least week’s seminar, the one on growing orchids, no one raised his hand and said, “how do I make a lot of money growing orchids?”

Sure, people make money growing orchids. Some people probably get rich growing orchids. Not many though. And my guess is that the people who do make money gardening probably didn’t set out to do so.

Blogging is much the same way. The best bloggers make money, but mostly as a side effect, not as a direct result of setting out to use a blog to make a profit. It’s just too long a ramp up time, too frustrating and too uncertain to be the best path to make a living.

If it makes you happy (and your readers happy) it’s a great place to start. Step by step you get better at it, and then you discover the ancillary benefits. But the benefits kick in best when you don’t set out to achieve them.

What about you?

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Bottom Up at NPR - Get My Vote - Platforms vs Programs

March 12, 2008 at 11:21 am · Filed under Andy Carvin, Get My Vote, NPR, Platforms

NPR are on a roll. Recently NPR Music, now politics. Here is a new “world”that is not simply site. It is a new platform called “Get My Vote“. Here you can add your views on what would get youir vote and you can check out and talk about other’s all under the brand of NPR.

If you look at the Cloud, you can also get a feel for how a national agenda might emerge. Imagine a politician partcipating here - could be municipal, state or national. This is what I mean by a platform. This has the potential to become a force for democracy. If not in its present form with a few tweaks it will.

This door way into the “World of Politics” is a bit like WOW. You enter as an unknown with few powers. But if you work hard here - you could become a somebody.

I think that this represents a breakthrough in thinking away from the NewsRoom knows best and the NewsRoom defines what is important and what is quality.

This is a platform and not merely content. As such it has the potential to grow and to become ever more complex and hence interesting.

Platforms will be the future of the social web.

Well done Andy and the gang:

As the name suggests, the project is based around a basic premise: what will it take for political candidates to get my vote? Every person has their own reasons for selecting a particular candidate, their own litmus tests, and we’re asking the public to articulate this in the form of open letters to the candidates. Using Get My Vote, you can upload your own commentary - audio, video or text - and talk about what issues or concerns will drive you to the ballot box. NPR is then planning to incorporate these commentaries into our shows throughout the rest of the election cycle.

We’ve also designed the project in such a way that local stations - both NPR and PBS stations - can create their own Get My Vote initiatives on their websites by embedding Get My Vote widgets. That way, a station can localize the project. A station in Arizona, for example, might create a local version of Get My Vote focusing on immigration perspectives, while a station in Massachusetts might challenge users talk about what it would take for local mayoral candidates to get their vote. So while most users might end up talking about the presidential candidates, I’m hoping it’s used for state and local races as well.

On the Get My Vote homepage, you’ll see that we’re using a tag cloud prominently. These tags are submitted by users when they upload their commentaries. For example, a commentary from an Iraq war vet about healthcare for vets might include tags like “Iraq,” “healthcare” and “Walter Reed.” The more often a particular tag is used by commentators, the larger it appears in the tag cloud. That way, you can get a sense of what topics and ideas are being referenced most often by commentators. Clicking any tag also will show you all commentaries associated with that word or phrase.

We’ve also ensured that the commentaries are embeddable on other websites and social networks - a first for an NPR project. There’s an embed code available for commentaries that you can grab and place in your website. You can also click an option to post on another blog or network, giving you a list of more than 20 sites where you can upload your own Get My Vote commentary, or someone else’s.

The site is now in public beta. This means that anyone can now access the site, upload their own commentaries and explore the site in general, but we’re still working out a few bugs and other minor fixes. We’re hoping that if you have any problems with the site you’ll alert us through the contact form. Over the next few weeks we’ll continue to tweak the site, and soon after that, we expect some of our shows to begin using it on air.

So when you get a chance, please visit npr.org/getmyvote, upload your own commentary and please let us know what you think. Our team is really eager to hear what you have to say. -andy

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Twitter & Public Radio and Public Life

January 28, 2008 at 6:20 am · Filed under Andy Carvin, Election 2008, Les Siegel, Politics, Social Media, Twitter

The Bryant Park Project (Twitter feed here)now has an inner core of over 200 “Diners” - this in a week. As Twitter gains a hold, BPP are also looking at how Twitter affects the political process. Here is the Twitter reality of the Primaries as compiled by Laura C <!– –>

I’m scrounging around for legitimate Twitter feeds from the presidential candidates. So far, my list looks like this:

Ron Paul, @RonPaul2008, with 822 followers
John Edwards, @johnedwards, with 4,282 followers
Barack Obama, @BarackObama, with 6,654 followers
Hillary Clinton, @hillaryclinton, with 197 followers

What do make of the Obama/Clinton result here?

What could Twitter do to bring younger voters back?

How might Twitter affect politics?

Update - Here is Lee Siegel talking about how BPP is using social media - Lee talks about how the “Cup Cake” is a refuge. Don’t understand - check the link

Update - Here is Andy Carvin with more on the Diner

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Twitter and a New Kind of News

January 27, 2008 at 7:32 am · Filed under Andy Carvin, Business Model, Community, Grooming, NPR, Public Insight Journalism, Public Media, Social Computing, Social Media, Twitter, User Revolution, Wisdom of Crowds, iTouch

This is a slice of time last night on my Twitter. I am watching TV but I have my iTouch in my lap. When the ads come on, I mute the set and go back to my Twitter feed. here I have a real friend - not a Fake Friend - Andy Carvin covering the South Carolina Primary. I also have a Twitter friend worrying about how to cope with teen boys - her son is out late.

As Andy twittered his coverage, others that I know, pitched in too.

This was not strangers talking to strangers but Friends Talking to Friends - much much much much warmer.

Add the back channel of a parent asking for help about how to cope with your teens being out late and this is an entirely new Media Experience.

I am inside a system - inside a system that is deeply human and that I feel a part of.

BPPDiner - the Twitter inner circle for Bryant Park Project is also adding this warmth to the show. Already we are seeing program ideas being discussed in real time with the listener. Over the weekend even contact is still there between the crew and each other and their inner group.

My intuition is shouting out that somehting that I don’t fully understand yet is happening that will turn out to be momentous.

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Public Radio and TV - More than a Mashup

January 16, 2008 at 8:17 am · Filed under Andy Carvin, CPB, Emergent, NPR, NPR Music, PBS, Public Media, Relationships, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Objects, TV, Trusted Space, Web 2.0, Wisdom of Crowds

Wouldn’t it be something if Public TV and Radio got together to cover the election? Would it be great if the local stations got together with the big producers to cover the election?

Well it’s more than a dream now - CPB is funding just such a Mashup - The beginning I think of the key new force in public media - a Real Network of Many to Many.

Many of us had had a problem wit the term “Network” in Radio and TV. What it really means is one powerful producer using a system to distribute its product. Of course a real network is a diverse multi node system that where many nodes add value to the whole.

This is what is being “born” in Public radio and TV. Our hope a year ago was that the Election would be a powerful enough incentive to help the current large players to grit their teeth and really share and work with each other. This is working.

Here is Andy Carvin with the story.

Earlier today, NPR and its partners announced that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is awarding more than $1.3 million dollars to a consortium of public media organizations to expand our coverage of election 2008 across multiple platforms. The consortium, led by NPR and including American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio, Capitol News Connection, KQED, PBS, PRX, PRI/Public Interactive and The NewsHour, will work together to produce election-related content and interactive tools available to the entire public broadcasting system.

“By pooling content produced locally and nationally — for radio, television, and online — we will discover new ways of doing business to better serve the public,” said NPR CEO Ken Stern in a note that went out today to the public radio system. “We are pleased to have succeeded in coming together to deliver on the commitments made at the 2007 Annual Meeting.”

“This grant underscores CPB’s support of innovative projects that move public radio and television into the digital future so they can help individuals better connect with their communities wherever they are,” added Pat Harrison, CPB President and CEO. “This ambitious project will provide us with new ways of looking at how we serve the public on existing and emerging media platforms.”

The basic premise of the project was built around a simple reality - many public broadcasters were planning to create on air content and interactive modules for their websites, but we didn’t have a structure in place to work together during the election cycle. Around a year ago, NPR and PBS began conversations around editorial partnerships for the election, including the creation of an interactive map that would work on both of our websites, as well as on the TV show NewsHour. While that conversation was taking place, I co-organized a group discussion at the February 2007 Integrated Media Association conference for public broadcasters to talk about the Election 2008 social media plans and how those activities might be replicable across the system.

The conversation kicked into high gear at NPR’s annual meeting last April, where you may recall I blogged about some of the ideas that were brewing among those of us present at the event. We organized breakout conversation in which we laid out what was at stake and how we might collaborate. It didn’t take long to realize that we had an opportunity that might quickly slip through our fingers if we couldn’t get our act together. We needed to pull together a SWAT team and get to work……….

Now with NPR Music - we are seeing a real network emerging. With a real network, there will come the network effects for all concerned.

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Andy Carvin advises an unusual Client - Has Good Advice for us all

December 18, 2007 at 4:23 pm · Filed under Al Qaeda, Andy Carvin, Social Media

This is so cool that I had to quote Andy in full - My read of the client is that they are very sophisticated in the use of Social Media and could teach the US Military a lot if they chose to listen to an expert practitioner. The Roman Army was never too proud to learn and to take on technology from their opponents.

According to Al Jazeera and a number of other news sources, the latest video from Osama bin Laden’s wingman, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, came with a brief note that Zawahiri would like to take questions from the public and answer them in his next propaganda video. The Al Qaeda-associated websites that first published the video said that Zawahiri would conduct an “open interview” in which user questions could be submitted over the Net. However, they didn’t go into too much detail as to how those questions would actually be collected or selected.

Just in case Dr. Zawahiri is reading this blog, I thought I’d offer some friendly suggestions, from one Web 2.0 enthusiast to another.

1. Accept tough questions. If all of the questions you answer are along the lines of, “What’s it like to be the coolest surgeon-turned-terrorist?” “What’s your favorite hidout?” or “Diamonds or pearls?” you’ll quickly lose credibility among bloggers.

2. Be sure to vet the people asking the questions. You may have heard that CNN and YouTube recently had a debate in which some of the people whose videos were used had connections with various political campaigns. CNN is still taking a tongue-lashing from the blogosphere, and Anderson Cooper even had to issue an apology. So when you select questions, be sure to note publicly if they have any potential conflicts of interest, such as, “This question comes from David, who as an undergrad attended a rally against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and once sent Yassir Arafat a birthday card.” There’s nothing worse than having anyone question your professional integrity.

3. Consider using open source. I’m sure you must be a big fan of Digg, so perhaps you’ve come across Pligg, an open source content management system that lets you do Digg-liking social news polling. The online community is a sucker for anyone who embraces open source, so that’ll go a long way in getting coverage on sites like Techcrunch, Boing Boing or maybe even Slashdot. Speaking of Slashdot…

4. Be prepared for the Slashdot effect. If you’re gonna ask the public to contribute questions, be prepared for the traffic. If your server goes down for even a few minutes, you’ll never hear the end of it, and it’ll be the last time Osama lets you pull a stunt like this. And who wants to go back to the old-school way of coming up with your own questions when all the cool kids are doing otherwise?

5. Trust your users. If the public rates a question particularly highly, you ignore it at your own risk. There’s nothing worse than participating in a social news project only to find out that the editors have completely ignored the community’s preferences and gone with a question they wanted to use.

6. Consider tagging. One failing of the YouTube debate was that users had to go to YouTube to submit their questions. 10questions.com, on the other hand, let users go to a variety of uploading tools and then “tag” that content with a keyword, so it could be aggregated easily. For example, if you told users to upload their question to whatever site they chose (including their own blog) and tag it AskDrZawahiri or AskATerrorist, you’d go a long way in terms of winning kudos from folks who are skeptical of anything YouTube does.

7. Remember to have fun with it. You’re bound to get lots of questions like “How could a person trained to do no harm adopt a philosophy that seeks to do as much harm to innocent people as is humanly possible?” or “What do you expect to gain from killing so many of your fellow Muslims?” Try mixing it up a bit and consider questions like, “So Ayman - what’s the story with your forehead?” You know you’re bound to have that question rise through the voting ranks like a softball question for Ron Paul, so why not embrace it? You know we’re all dying to know.

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The History of Social Media

December 14, 2007 at 7:56 am · Filed under Andy Carvin, Blogging, Enterprise 2.0, NPR, Social Media

Andy Carvin will be on air on Morning Edition talking about the history of Blogging and its impact on society. In preparation he asked for help on identifying milestones.

Here is the list that he is currently considering - he and I both agreed on the first - unusual one -  What do you think?

1st Century BCE: Julius Caesar writes De Bello Gallico, raising the bar for military bloggers more than 2,000 years later.

1690: Benjamin Harris of Boston publishes the first independent newspaper in North America, presaging the golden age of late-18th century American pamphleteers. The four-page broadside left the final page blank so readers could add their own comments and news stories before passing it on to another person. The paper was a flop.

1776: Thomas Paine, unofficial blogger-in-chief of the American Revolution, publishes the influential pamphlet Common Sense.

1945: The Atlantic Monthly publishes Vannevar Bush’s As We May Think, which examines the future of knowledge and prophesies the development of the Internet, desktop computing and personal publishing, among other innovations.

1984: The creation of Listserv, the first email discussion group software.

1986: The launch of Cleveland Freenet, one of the first “community networks” through which residents could post community updates and discuss local issues.

2003: Iranian Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi launches his own blog, well before many U.S. politicians catch on to the idea.

2003: In one of the first major audio blogging experiments, public radio host Christopher Lydon publishes mp3 files on a website, using an RSS feed developed by Dave Winer so people could subscribe to them. That same year, Winer would organize Bloggercon, one of the first national gatherings of bloggers.

2004: Ben Hammersley, in an article for the UK Guardian newspaper, described the audio blogging technique used by Lydon, Winer and others as “podcasting,” creating a whole new industry without even knowing it.

2004: Videographer Steve Garfield launches his video blog, a blog containing video clips, and declares 2004 “The Year of the Video Blog,” more than a year prior to the birth of YouTube.

February 2004: The launch of Flickr, a photo-sharing community that helps popularize photo blogging.

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