Two announcements this week I think show how the 2.0 web is going to the next phase – where the “rebels” go mainstream and spell the end of the traditional services.

I wont say much more about MSFT’s purchase of Skype – other than this. It spells the end of telephony as we used to know it. Communications will inexorably shift to the mobile platforms and will make video the centre piece. The Mainstream will be Dick Tracy! And this is my point. Mobile is the new platform and video will become so ubiquitous as to replace voice. The rebels are now the players.

In commerce Visa has just thrown down the gauntlet too.

Visa has just announced that it too will make mobile its future. It will take on PayPal directly.  Here are the features:

Visa expects to launch the digital wallet in the U.S. and Canada in fall 2011.

Key features of the wallet are expected to include:

• Click-to-buy: Shop conveniently and securely by simply entering an email address, alias or online ID and password, instead of a billing address, account number and expiration date. In addition, Visa is exploring dynamic authentication technologies that will bring added layers of security to online purchases.
• Cross-channel payments solution: The wallet consolidates multiple Visa and non-Visa payments accounts and can be used in mobile, eCommerce, social network and retail point-of-sale environments.
• Preference management: A menu that enables consumers to set preferences for how their wallet will work, allowing them to customize and control the features of their personal wallet from privacy settings to designating which account will be accessed based on merchant type or purchase amount.
• Merchant offers: A service that allows consumers to personalize their shopping experience by opting-in to receive money-saving discounts or promotions from participating merchants.

“The widespread adoption of Internet and mobile technology is changing the way people connect and transact across the globe, so we’re focused on delivering locally-tailored payments products and services,” said Saunders. “We are introducing new solutions for eCommerce and mobile devices that provide the same ‘Visa-quality’ experience—convenience, reliability and security—people enjoy when using their Visa cards at a retail location. In doing so, we are accelerating the global shift to digital payments by harnessing our brand, products, network and 50-plus years of payments experience.”

Mobilizing Payments in Emerging Economies

In certain emerging geographic markets with significant mobile penetration, Visa will work with financial institutions and mobile-network operators to provide consumers with a secure, reliable and globally accepted form of payment and the ability to transfer and receive funds, manage financial accounts or top-up wireless air time using their mobile handset. The wide range of features and functions being developed for the digital wallet will allow Visa to pursue a number of strategies to tailor or bundle services to local needs.

• In countries like India and Russia, where card issuance and mobile subscriptions are high, but card usage is relatively low, Visa will help drive account activation and usage by working with financial institutions and mobile operators to link existing card portfolios with mobile devices to give handsets payments functionality.
• In countries within Africa and the Middle East where mobile device usage is high and traditional electronic payments infrastructure is less developed, Visa will work with mobile network operators to link new virtual mobile prepaid Visa accounts to mobile phone numbers to enable cash-in, cash-out, personal payments and mobile payments —including bill payments and wireless airtime top-up. Visa also intends to connect existing “closed loop” mobile money services that today provide basic mobile banking and payments services to unbanked and under-banked consumers to its global, open loop network—VisaNet. The integration will open closed loop systems, and provide consumers and merchants with unprecedented scale, functionality and acceptance beyond their existing local geographic footprints.

Across all emerging geographic markets, Visa’s sophisticated payments technology and significant work in establishing global payments standards will aid in navigating the complexity of the myriad of network operators, handset models and operating systems in use globally, helping to enable millions of new and existing Visa account holders to simply use mobile technology for payments services.

Communications and Commerce now. What next? Education and Healthcare seem next.

Maybe there will have to be a Skype and PayPal in these sectors first. And when the mainstream buy in as we see above the shift will be made. Oh yes and are not books and film there too?

I’ve been thinking a lot about hard problems that need multiple people collaborating to solve. There’s no shortage of them to choose from.

This TED video from Jane McGonigal makes a persuasive case that I need to invest some more time looking at the world of online gaming for insight. Watch the video  and see if you don’t come to a similar conclusion.

Will newspapers all die? Maybe not. I am sure that, in some form, some Newspapers will live on. But for most of us – the Newspaper as a “Paper” for the masses is already dead. Will Paper Books die? Maybe not – I treasure my new Picture Book of my son’s wedding. There are few text filled books I will always treasure. But as a mass market object, books are already dead for many people as the sales of eBooks and Readers show.

The mass market distribution systems that supported newspapers and books will die soon as a result. For traditional papers and books only have to shrink by 15 – 25% to make the economic burden of running the presses and the system too much. Once these systems have gone they will be gone for ever. New systems are emerging.

I can already design and set my new book and have it printed and sent back to me – a market of one!

This is a new system quite separate from the old book distribution and publishing system. New “newspapers” such as Politico and Huffington are here. Some old ones such as the Guardian are moving to the new space. Twitter and Facebook fill in more news for me. My new “news paper” will be edited largely by me for me!

The same process is now going to affect TV. Most of the old infrastructure will die. New structure will emerge quickly. Some old structure will hybridize. The power will shift from them to me!

I have just enjoyed an Apple TV for a week with Netflix.  Now watching content via the web is easy. But the big attraction is not just that getting content online is easy. What I had not known about was how powerful the impact would be of how my habits of watching affects how Netflix adjusts its offering to me. In only a week, it has used its algorithm to begin to offer me content that I might never have noticed that I will almost certainly enjoy. What it is doing is “meaning making” of the almost infinite pool of content that is out there. This has put me in charge – I am now my own programmer. I am my own network CEO. I choose the time and I choose the content knowing that I will enjoy it. I also lose all the rubbish and all the ads.

I am constructing my own TV Network! This is the revolution that extends way beyond the web access issues. The web enables this personal customization for TV as wit will for books and news.

I am happy to pay a subscription for this. I don’t demand that this be free because it is great value for me. I will never go back to appointment TV – no matter who puts it on – a network, a cable company or public TV.

My bet is that within a year, the death of Appointment TV will be sure and a new system will be visible. Look at how TechCrunch see this right now!

• Google unveiled its Google TV platform less than 3 weeks ago. You can’t ignore Google. Hey, they just built a car that drives itself. But Thursday, in a battle that will likely become more frequent between old media and new, ABC, CBS and NBC blocked their programs fromGoogle TV. MTV, Fox and HBO are still available, but that could change. Still, one TechCrunch post declared “I’ve seen the future and it begins on my sofa with Google TV.”
• Steve Jobs bragged this week that Apple has already sold 250,000 new Apple TVs. The first Apple TV shipped in 2007. It had its fans but didn’t take off like the iPod or iPhone. The second generation of Apple TV’s launched just last month. MG Siegler really likes the device, but admitted it’s not yet the killer device in the living room. To get there, he said, would require tv network subscription packages.
• “Watch Instantly” is booming at Netflix. A shocking statistic came out this week. 20% of Internet traffic during peak times in the U.S. is coming from Netflix.
  For more on Netflix’s plans, see Sarah Lacy’s interview with CEO Reed Hastings.
• Hulu Plus will be coming to the Roku box in the fall.
  For some, the Roku box may be the first step towards eliminating cable.
• Boxee announced the new Boxee Box will ship next month, both if you pre-ordered fromAmazon or want to buy one in stores.
• Flurry reported Apple’s iOS Apps are responsible for the recent downward trend in TV ratings. The actual cause may be a bit broader.
• A TechCrunch post Friday suggested the future of TV is HTML5.

At the moment much power remains with the old powers. Netflix and Google are enduring tough negotiations with the producers of content. But why wouldn’t they take up this mantle of being the producer? Why can’t they do an HBO? Certainly today if I was a maker of documentary who cannot get space on conventional TV, I would approach Netflix and Google. Just as cable supplanted the networks, so those who provide access via the web will supplant cable and networks.

So what then for Public TV and the local Public TV stations?

If you are a producer it seems straightforward to me – you too have to approach those who shape access to the web – or add a service to the web yourself!

But that leaves the local TV stations on the beach! It does but like a local book shop, the audience is going somewhere else for the mass content.

So what to do?

Here is Doc Searls’ advice in a recent interview with me at KETC:

I think that an answer is to build the “Local Cloud” – Host the new Forum or Agora or Market. Be the host of the new/old marketplace for sharing through video.

There is not yet a really well functioning local cloud yet for video. This is a huge hole, waiting to be filled. Look at all those who are learning to use video. They are driving to HQ video. Look at the new screens that offer up a much better experience.

Take a look at your new 1080p HD TV screen. You know what the best-looking source is for that? Your new 1080p camcorder. That’s because all the TV stations, and all the cable and satellite services, compress their video, often to the point where grass fields look plaid and detail is just wiggly lines. Camcorders compress video too, but not as much.

My point here is that more and more individuals and small groups are going to be in better and better positions to produce their own video, and won’t be satisfied seeing it compressed to ugliness on YouTube. They’ll want to produce their own movies, their own documentaries, their own creative work, outside the  industrial system that YouTube comprises.

If they want to mash this video up, edit it, do CGI, do the kind of rendering that serious video requires, they won’t have the means at home. And it’s often too hard to do it out in some remote cloud provided by the likes of Amazon (which doesn’t even provide that yet — at least not exactly). They’ll need low-latency fat connections to back-end servers and rendering farms.

Thus we have a big opportunity for KETC and other public TV institutions, to ally with local telco and cable companies, which in most cases have the space, the conditioned power, and the direct connections to the Net’s backbone.

How much time before the Tipping Point? My feeling is 2-3 years tops. In 2-3 years time all your best audience will have made the shift to the web. This may be 30- 40% of the total. There will still be a conventional audience but it cannot pay the bills. Just as when a newspaper or a book publisher loses its best readers, it cannot pay its bills either.

The pace is change is accelerating as each new phase builds on the previous one and adds new platform power to the web. Coming right on the heels of all of this – a new web based system of education and then right after that a new web based health system. All based on the same idea – of putting you in the driver’s seat!

I have cancelled my cable and have been connecting directly to the web for 2 months now. I am not alone.

I am nearly 60 – I am in the slowest group to do this and look at what is going on with the old farts! For the young, the choice has been made.

Why do I use the web?

• What I see is in my control
• There is loads of what I want on the web – mainly documentaries and music
• The pathways there – iTunes, Veoh, YouTube are good enough and getting better. In the US even more choice.
• The better content producers are going there – PBS is a long way along
• No Ads!!!!!!!!!!
• No paying for stuff I dont want
• I would pay for a better experience too

I use a simple mini connector on my MacBook to link to my TV set and use the screen management feature to synch the screens. In 2010 even these simple technical hurdles will go away. A better Apple TV? The new iSlate?

The point is for all who are in TV – the web will be THE channel by 2011.

PS – Radio is going web too (New York Times)

FM tuners are passé. Why include tuner technology to play a few dozen stations when you can harness thousands of radio stations over the Internet?

Unlike standard broadcast radio, Internet radio stations can be heard virtually anywhere (copyright restrictions aside), as long as you have a device that can go on the Web; that can be a PC, a smartphone or a stand-alone receiver.

An Internet radio station may have started out life as a traditional local broadcast outlet, and then management decided that it would be great to let people hear it everywhere. Or an Internet radio station may be nothing more than one person in a basement uploading music or talk to the Web, hoping that someone out there will listen.

Literally thousands of genres of Internet radio exist, from oldies, classical and religious to ultraradical talk, from the right and left. The first trick is finding them, and the next is playing them. Fortunately, with a little information, both tasks are rather easy.

TUNE IN To find an Internet station of a particular genre, start with the basics: a Web search. Type in “60s,” “NPR” or “Catholic” and the words “Internet radio” and you’ll come up with a list and links to those channels.

Another useful source is streamingradioguide.com. The Web site lists more than 14,000 stations that can be searched by genre. While extensive, the list is not complete.

Internet radio hardware and smartphone apps that offer radio transmissions don’t typically accumulate station offerings themselves; rather, they use aggregators, companies that create a selection of channels. On the Web, you can access radio channels directly from those aggregators as well; they include Reciva.com,Radiotime.com, Vtuner.com, 1.fm and Freeradio.tv.

In addition, Apple’s iTunes software (Mac and PC) offers hundreds of Internet radio stations.

So this is the reality – 2010 will be the Tipping Point when Radio and TV move to the web.

Increasingly war today is a matter of winning the “people’s war” Organizations such as Al Qaeda have become masters at using social media to both train people and also to tell their story. Often actions are in effect stage managed such as the Fallujah killing of Blackwater men that was filmed throughout and broadcast immediately.

Until now conventional forces have kept away from learning how to tell their side of the story. Maybe – as with business – their essential bureaucratic nature and need for control – inhibited the use of social media.

But the IDF have decided that they have to get their story out there and are agressively using YouTube and now Twitter. Here is a neat summary with links from Global Dashboard.

Two of my favourite blogs, MountainRunner and Danger Room highlight the IDF’s attempt to win over the blogosphere using Twitter and You Tube. Why? Because according to the head of the IDF’s press team: “The blogosphere and new media are another war zone, we have to be relevant there.”

The YouTube channel was created with the aim of distributing footage of precision airstrikes. Interestingly YouTube took down some of the ‘exclusive footage’ showing the IDF’s operational success in operation Cast Lead against Hamas extremists in the Gaza Strip, but appears to have returned some of the footage due to popular demand.

Elsewhere the Israeli consulate in New York hosted a press conference on Twitter in order to answer the public’s questions regarding the situation in Gaza. How one measures the success of the twitterference is difficult but, as both Matt and Nathan point out, reducing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to tweets of 140 characters or less makes for interesting reading:

‘We hav 2 prtct R ctzens 2, only way fwd through neogtiations, & left Gaza in 05. y Hamas launch missiles not peace?’,

‘we’re not at war with the PAL people. we’re at war with a group declared by the EU& US a terrorist org’.

I think that this is just the beginning

Social Media came of age after the Tsunami. It showed its power to provide vital information very quickly when the official channels could not.

With Gustav a day away from landfall many of the most experienced people in the field are coalescing on a Ning site that will aggregate as much information as possible in one place. Wiki, Twets, RSS feeds from Blogs, Video – everything.

Here is the address of the site

The latest in the ongoing string of research studies on Web 2.0 use in the enterprise comes from McKinsey, whose recently released global survey report Building the Web 2.0 Enterprise is based on a June, 2008 survey of 1,988 executives.

The report packs a lot of food for thought into a small space. Much of the data will be head-nodding material for readers of this blog, but in several areas there are items that jump out. First, though, a quick overview.

This survey focuses on what Web 2.0 technologies are being adopted, on which areas of business they are deployed, on techniques to support adoption, and on the executives’ level of satisfaction with the results. Helpfully, the report provides consistent comparisons to McKinsey’s last report on this topic, the April, 2007 How Businesses are Using Web 2.0. The report is also helpful once again in identifying differences in E20 patterns among regions (e.g. executives in India and Asia-Pac are more than twice as likely as Europeans to cite blogs as a tool of real importance to their companies).

The McKinsey authors focus their commentary on several core messages.

1) There are more executives now reporting dissatisfaction with their E20 investments and programs (although Asia-Pac bucks the trend).

2) There is an emerging gap between some 20% of firms who are satisfied with their experiences, using the tools widely, and achieving positive results, and another 20% of firms going in the other direction – dissatisfied and reducing their use of the tools.

3) While internal uses of E20 like managing knowledge and promoting collaboration are marginally more common, externally-facing uses like improving customer service, acquiring customers, and integrating more effectively with suppliers and partners are almost equally popular.

4) Among the tools themselves, there is an increasing array of choices and some changes already in the popularity of individual tools. Wikis, for example, are much more popular than they were a year ago, while peer-to-peer networks have dropped by 50% or more.

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Turning to the items that jump out I’ll focus on the tools area. One major datapoint is the ascendancy of social networking to the top of the E20 tool list, roughly at the same level of importance as blogs in most regions. (While McKinsey includes “Web Services” as an E20 tool, and it is by far the most important to the surveyed executives, I’m ignoring it here as an apple among oranges.) I suspect that this sudden jump in importance for enterprise social networking is more anticipation than reality, more Facebook fallout than widespread internal deployment. But it’s a first great example of how the public web experience is driving expectations for the enterprise.

The next datapoint of note is the sudden appearance of video sharing as a Web 2.0 tool already surpassing podcasts and closing in on wikis in level of importance. This is clearly a second great example of how public web experiences, in this case YouTube, drive practice in the enterprise.

Another surprise is the low level of importance the executives assigned to rating as a tool. In this case, a technique widely used on many different kinds of public web sites (from Amazon to TripAdvisor to eBay) appears to be falling below the radar for the enterprise.

In one of the bigger “ouches” for fans of socially-generated knowledge, tagging appears to be another casualty in the McKinsey research. Tagging rates even lower than rating in the tool catalog. It would appear from this data that anything that asks the user to thoughtfully execute one more click, or type one more word in an adjacent box is not acceptable in the view of this executive audience. Or perhaps a larger issue is that both rating and tagging require some degree of strategy and an ongoing “harvesting” program in order to capitalize on their enterprise value. The executives’ lack of enthusiasm may be a reflection of their understanding that they are not invested in providing that kind of strategy and oversight at this time.

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We’ve known all along that relatively small numbers of people are interested in tagging, but one of the best things about this tool is that even a small percentage of a knowledge workforce can produce major added value to a content collections of all kinds. You’d think that the easy knowledge ROI offered by tagging should get any exec’s attention.

Overall, the McKinsey survey provides another proof point that use of the E20 technologies is increasing. That it also shows lumpy adoption experience and shifts in tool use is something we should expect from an emerging set of practices. The fact that the data establish that the successful firms are increasingly successful and have been building up a set of best practices for adoption represents a real transformation over the past 12 months.

I think that one of the barriers of conventional Story telling TV is the imposing amount of gear that has to be used to “Get the Quality”.

If you are confronted by a interviewer, a sound man and a camera man with a huge camera on his shoulder – it’s hard to open up.

If the topic of what is on the table is a hard one – then maybe you will not open up. We are for instance finding it hard to get people to talk in St Louis about losing their homes – whereas it was easy to get people to talk about their experience in the war. We are starting to debate how we can reduce the barriers to story and hence to engagement.

This traditional approach – where interviewer is outside the story themselves – is not engaging enough.

Here then is my ideal. Molly Dineen making her brilliant film – The Lie of the Land – Available in full on Google Video.

This film is about the  death throws of farming in England and about the barrier between city folk who think that food comes from the supermarket and the country folk who struggle to produce food for a living when the supermarkets and the government do all they can to break them.

What is so special about the film is Molly’s POV. By working alone with just a small camera – she is part of the story. Her warmth allows the natural dignity of the inarticulate to shine through and to give power to the thoughts of people who could never speak other wise.

There is no barrier between her and the people or the actions in the film.

The film has caused a storm. It seems to be the Silent Spring of our time. The wake-up call.

It is the technology of the mini cam that has allowed her to change the relationship between the film maker and the subject. This brings out the emotional power of the story. It is the technology of the web that is allowing you to see this film whenever you want. The new social web brings us depth and distribution. A great story will travel.

A warning – Molly shows the reality of life and death on the farm. NO shrink wrapped beef here.In so doing she reminds us of the real cost of our food – a cost that goes beyond money.

As my regular readers know, (More Context in the link) I am working with KETC, Channel 9 in St Louis on a project funded by CPB, to see how a Public TV station could use its position as a Trusted Space, rather than simply as a broadcaster, to make a difference in the “economic forest fire” that is the mortgage/housing /credit crisis that is sweeping through America.

It is the hope of CPB that Public Media can do more to serve its country than offer great content alone. It is our collective hope that by learning how to do what we are doing now well, that Public TV and Radio can serve the public by acting as a convener of Trust for the community – so that we can draw on the great and latent power that resides in all local communities to take action themselves to solve the great problems that confront us.

Our hope is that our one station in one city can offer enough experience that in the fall many more can join in the work and that soon we may have a national effort underway.

Here is an update as to how we are starting this work.

First of all – we had to settle on what could be our objective? What could we do that was both possible and legitimate to help? What was the “problem that could be solved and what did we really bring to the table?

What we hear is going on that can be remedied is this. Many people can be helped to stay in their homes. BUT to be helped, they have to act very quickly. Days make a difference. The barriers to these people getting the help that will save their home are these:

* They don’t know where the safe help is. They are surrounded by sharks waiting to feed off them
* They are often frozen by shame and fear.

We can connect them to help that they can trust. We can use our power as story tellers to help break through the shame barrier – we can show that they are not alone and that there is hope. We have decided that we can and that we have to be the “Connector” – connect people that can be helped to the help that can be trusted. We have to connect the help to the help, so that it can be more powerful.

So for those who can be helped, maybe 30% of the total, the issue is Trust. They have to know who they can trust in a situation where they have had all their trust in financial advice destroyed.

So one of our aims is to “reveal” the Nodes of Trust in St Louis. To reveal the hidden network of help. To reveal this network not only to those who need it but to those that who are part of this network of help and trust. We are going to use who we are – the most trusted organization in the City – to use our power of media to reveal a hidden part of our city – the network of Nodes of Trust that exist in St Louis. Over the last 2 weeks we have been convening meetings in our studios of the leaders of these organizations. Many of these people had never met before.

We are going to do our best to connect these people enough to each other that the latent power of this network of Trust becomes manifest and real.

View Larger Map

Just as KPBS used Google Maps to show the extent and the nature of both the fire and the help – so we plan to do the same. With by the way the active help of KPBS and Google Maps. This is our first shot.

Our hope is that the community will help us produce the definitive map of “help” and “Trust” in St Louis. Our hunch is that each community has a map of trust – the Bosnians, the African Americans, the Hispanics etc. Our hunch is that these Nodes of Trust are even more local and less obvious than the ones we start with – they surely include churches, beauty salons, cafes etc. These Nodes of Trust are real. They exist. They are just for now outside of our vision. If we can reveal them and connect them – then what? What can St Louis really do when the full power of this resource is realized?

Surely every city has this latent network of Trust and local power that can be activated and enhanced by a crisis and by a convener who has no ax to grind?

So much of this work is different from Broadcasting – we are drawing on the years of experience in the station of outreach and on our position in the city as being part of the community to work face to face with those who can help to enhance their efforts. Our key local partner in this is the United Way who run a funnel into the network of help via their 21 number.

But even with help available, what about the issues of fear and shame that block people from seeking help?

Here we use our power as story tellers. Fear and shame can be overcome, if we can see that we are not alone and that forces beyond us have been and are in play. Here video and TV have an unparalleled power to tell story and to connect. Here is a link to our YouTube Channel where we will have many many many stories. We will be broadcasting interstitials (one minute items), 6 minute items and long format shows. All that we broadcast will be put up on our blog, on YouTube and Facebook

Is the problem just about people losing their homes? No!

We are starting to see that the real problem is the ripple effect of people losing their homes on the entire fabric of America. As vacant houses destroy the value of the rest of the street, as ruined streets destroy a community, as ruined communities destroy a city, as ruined cities destroy the state – we see that this is like the flood in New Orleans. Cities and then states become socially and then economically gutted.

The tragedy is greater than the loss of a home and the dream for a family. This is a cancer that threatens the nation. As such, being self righteous and blaming others and thinking that the pain can be limited to to the guilty, is to be short sighted.

We have to be the story teller about “The Ripple Effect”. Many think that they are OK. Many think that we should do nothing to help the stupid and the ill informed.

But we are learning that such an attitude is like blaming people who have typhoid. There is a “dis-ease” spreading. The impact of this crisis on the few will affect the many. We cannot stand by and think that we will be OK. This is like America in WWII. For what happens in the “other neighborhood is going to affect us and the whole world. So as Ed Murrow, the spiritual father of Public Service as a broadcaster, told the larger story of the war from the Blitz in London, so we at KETC have to tell the story of the larger Ripple Effect of the housing crisis on our city and state.

Again – here we use our TV channel and all the power of social media. Here we also convene meetings with people who don’t normally meet and we are asking them to work together to understand the full risk and power of the Ripple Effect.

Here we give our voice on TV and on the Beacon to others such as Senator MacAskill to speak to the challenge that confronts us all.

“People are making assumptions that just certain kinds of people are in this position,” McCaskill said. “I think that people’s stereotypes kick in. I don’t think they realize that these distressed homes and families are all over the St. Louis area. From Chesterfield to South County to Warren County and St. Charles, there are homes facing foreclosure.”

McCaskill said the impact of the foreclosure crisis — which analysts predict could reach 3 million nationally — goes well beyond individual homeowners and is undermining the strength of the U.S. economy.

“There is this ripple effect that foreclosures have on the economy that we are focused on. This isn’t about a bailout for any individual. This is about what’s best for our economy so we don’t fall off the table into a full-blown depression,” she said.

“It’s hard for people because they’re used to operating within their lane. Can I pay my bills? And if I can pay my bills, why are we helping anybody who can’t pay their bills? This is not about staying in your lane. This is about our overall economic strength right now as a nation and the things we can do that help the credit markets stabilize, that help the dollar strengthen, that cut out some of the speculation in oil. All of those things need to happen, and this housing bill is just one part of that.”

“What you don’t see in this room are the thousands and thousands and thousands of people who are just like you,” she said to the homeowners in the assemblage. “We estimate up to 20,000 homes in Missouri will face foreclosure before the end of next year. So, imagine if we had 20,000 people in this room what it would look like. You are not in this alone. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of others out there that have the same kind of challenges.”

This is a very long post. I don’t know how to compress our story while it is still being written.

I will post shortly about how we are “Managing” this process – by using social media and total project transparency – but I have a request first.

We need help. In particular we need help from bloggers in St Louis. I know you are out there. You are surely also part of the Nodes of Trust in St Louis. You too are the unseen network of trust in the city. Please some of you contact me so that you too can become visible and that you too can help your city and your state in this time of great need.

So this then is the context for our work.

We are going full tilt to the end of August to learn how to connect people to help. To learn how to help the help become connected so that they can offer more and better help. To learn how to tell the bigger story of the Ripple effect so that those with the power to help at this level can also locate their power and apply it. To be the beta test site for public media so that we can extend this work nationally.

At the end of his speech to congress after Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt said this:

With confidence in our armed forces—with the unbounding determination of our people—we will gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God.

Maybe we can modify this call to hope and to the determination of the people and say:

With confidence in our communities—with the unbounding determination of our people—we will gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God.

We are beavering away getting ready for a launch at the beginning of July.

One of the tools that we are using to enable us all to work with each other across many departments, different places and different organizations is Ning. Ning is not a traditional project management tool but we are finding it very helpful.

Soon we will have not only the project team using it but also folks from several stations, CPB and PBS and a few friends who know a lot more than old Rob about reaching the hard to reach.

I think that this is a new way of running a project – where the client and the next to go can look under the hood while we are still making the car.

In essence the work looks like this:

The Big Idea: – Our research tells us that many can save their homes but are prevented because they do not know where to go for help that they can trust. Many who can be helped are shamed and don’t want to put their hand up or are frozen. They have no one who has empathy who can help them find help.

Many cannot keep their homes. But they too are frozen with fear. This fear may well turn to resentment. Many are not directly affected but will be when many houses in their neighborhood are – at the moment they are stuck as individuals – how can they protect their own street? They need help.

The current problem – Most of the help is hard to find, finds you or is on the web. Most of it is “help” from “Vultures” or the people who “helped” get people into this mess.

What is Public TV’s great Value? – We are the most trusted organization in town.

So what then is the work? – We can’t give people money. We can’t know all the answers. But we can find the help that people can trust and we can fortify the existing networks of trust to give people the best shot of finding help that they can trust.

So I think that our work is to find the 30 – 60 “Nodes of Trust” in St Louis – those people and those organizations that have the trust of each segment and form a trusted bond with them. If we can do this, then we can do “The Work” which is I think to help people find the help.

If we can do this, we will also have found a new relationship with our city. A relationship much more meaningful than bringing quality content. A relationship where we can reveal and strengthen the fabric of community and so equip it to cope with the harsh realities of our time.

Here then is a sequence of what we may see happen – all this work is done by the brilliant Valdis Krebs.

This is where we are now – this may be how your city is – there are institutions but they are not connected and these are only the big ones. In reality there are maybe hundreds of churches, beauty salons, youth centres whatever that are Nodes Of Trust.

Here is what I think we have to do this summer – reveal and connect the key nodes. At first it will be us going out to the and then revealing them to each other and to the public.

We plan to use Google Maps to do this. We will have a layer for each community. The Bosnians will have their map. The African Americans will have their map and so on. Each push pin will have as much data as possible and we will ask the public for more Nodes.

We will connect this network to the best and most trusted help that we can find. We are now digging into what is on offer and who can help in every area. We will use our ability to tell stories in print – see a new post of the Beacon – on Video – on the web and in person.

If we are fortunate – some of these Nodes will start to connect independently of us to each other.

I think this might be all that we can do this summer.

But here is my hope. That as this network becomes more self aware and as we help it find each other – then some kind of life will emerge. Like a nuclear reaction and that we will have been present at the birth of a star:

What could St Louis be capable of – if it now looked like this?

What would be the place of a public TV station – if we could have ben the midwife attending such a birth?

What could America be like if the 300 stations in the country could have this effect in the 300 major cities of the nation?

There is a lot to play for at a time when there is a lot at stake.

Over the next 7 days I will offer up more detail as it becomes available