Social Media - Restoring the American Dream?

May 12, 2008 at 6:49 am · Filed under Blogging, Collaboration, Columbus, Energy, Peak Oil, WOSU

When de Tocqeuville came to America he was stunned by how Americans did not wait for the official authorities to fix local problems as they did in France. He saw that Americans usually got together as a community and worked things out for themselves. Most of see now that this response has been lost.

But there are signs that blogging and social media is restoring the original values of America. Here is how “The Other Paper” is describing the work that WOSU is doing to spark the Bloggers in Columbus to life as a real force in the city:

A civic divide is growing in Columbus. For the past decade or so, ordinary people have become less inclined to call their political representatives or drive all the way down to City Hall to personally lobby government officials.

But a community of tech-savvy, affluent white kids say they’re picking up the slack. Columbus’s bloggers believe they’re furthering democracy, improving the economy and advancing humanity—all without missing Grey’s Anatomy.

Ranked as the No. 8 most active blogging community in the nation, an estimated 10 percent of Columbus inhabitants regularly pounded the keyboard in 2007, offering up online commentary themselves or consuming somebody else’s, according to Nielson Media Research.

If you’re among the remaining 90 percent, all this probably seems like a colossal waste of time.

In fact, according to the bloggers themselves, they’re saving the city.

“The need for two-way or conversational media is more vital than ever,” said Jeff Johnson of the Urban Infill blog.

Johnson compared his medium with what he called the “doomsday” style of the mainstream media. Traditional outlets simply report troublesome news, he said. Bloggers, on the other hand, “have a propensity for uncovering solutions,” he said.

When bloggers get together, “We create ideas. We create a vibration that this city is thirsting for.”

There are problems that just cannot be solved by the “authorities”. Will the school system reform itself? How will the mortgage crisis resolve iself? How will the middle class and the working poor cope with higher oil prices? My bet is that these kinds of issues can only be resolved by communities working with each other.

Here is how they are helping with the Mayor’s plan for bringing back streetcars:

“These are the kind of people who will make Columbus great as we move forward,” said Mike Brown, spokesman for Mayor Mike Coleman.

“This audience is important to the mayor, and he is paying attention,” he said.

Nevertheless, the mayor is eager to capture the hearts and minds of the demographic that lean toward blogging, Brown said.

“Many of them are young, creative professionals. He loves the energy.”

One reason Coleman might love the energy is that bloggers have embraced his pet proposal: streetcars. The online community has been more supportive than the public at large for the mayor’s plan, which is now stalled, to run a streetcar line between Downtown and campus.

Many bloggers have put “My blog supports Columbus Streetcars” icons on their websites. RetroMetro’s Paul Bonneville has launched Columbus-streetcars.com, the “unofficial citizen support site for the Columbus Streetcars.”

I think in 2008, the pips will begin to squeak. Higher food and energy costs will begin to fracture how we all live. Where I live on Prince Edward Island in Canada, the average wage is $26,000. Half the people live in rural settings and have to have a car/truck. We have a 6 month heating season. Many are hanging on by their finger nails right now.  I am sure that large parts of America are in the same situation.

I think it will become clear soon that we will have to re-design nearly every aspect of how we live becuase the design we use now assumes affordable energy prices.

Social Software may well be at the heart of how we do this re-design.

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Bloggers and the Mainstream Media

December 7, 2007 at 5:49 am · Filed under Enterprise 2.0, NPR, PBS, Public Media, Relationships, Social Media, WOSU

As I talk to many public TV and Radio stations, I hear the same fear - “If we allow the bloggers in, we will lose the trust of our audience - How can we control them - We have to control them”

The issue is of course Trust - on both sides. So using Open Space, a good invitation, and pizza, WOSU is working to establish the trust that is required. It’s working and their peers are seeing that they are making progress. The Current is THE industry magazine who have just run a lead on this process.

The two parties are formally dating now - next week they decide where to live and how with each other

Current, the industry newspaper for public radio and television, has devoted an extensive article in it’s most recent edition to the first Columbus Social Media Cafe.

For a full size view, go here for the 1st page and here to continue reading the article.

Remember, the next Columbus Social Media Cafe is this Monday, December 10th at 6:30PM at WOSU@COSI.

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Old Media meets New @WOSU and COSI in Columbus

November 12, 2007 at 4:05 pm · Filed under BBC, BBC Manchester, COSI, Enterprise 2.0, Flickr, Hyper Local News, Jeff Jarvis, NPR, Ning, PBS, Public Media, Robin Hammam, Social Computing, Social Media, Social Objects, Twitter, WOSU

This Wednesday, Nov 15th, the guys at WOSU will meet with may of the leading local bloggers in Columbus to see if they can find things to talk about and to do with each other. Here is the invitation:

We at WOSU and COSI have been wondering how we could do more to help our community cope with some challenging issues. We asked ourselves:

What if we — your local public broadcaster and science museum — and those of you who are the local blogging experts got together and learned how to use Social Media to bring back that great American tradition of the community taking charge of its own problems?

Here’s what we’re wondering:

Could we use social media and our many talents and resources to breakthrough the bureaucratic barriers that seem to block so much local reform?

Could we gain enough support and understanding to shift our education system so that our children are equipped to face the sometime harsh realities of the world?

Could we start to make sense of what our aging population, our health care system and even our food system may mean to us?

What other issues should we be discussing with an eye toward change?

Many local bloggers have deep subject knowledge and are also part of existing communities that also care and know a lot.

We have a big megaphone—radio and web site—and some great resources—a centrally located facility with cutting-edge technology (studios and a mediaLab) that we could add to the mix.

Can you imagine what we might be able to do together?

Interested? We would like to invite you to the first meeting of the Columbus Social Media Cafe — a “Town Hall” Open Space Meeting — on Thursday, November 15 at 6:30 pm, to see if we can find an agenda that we can all get excited about and to see what will emerge if we get together.

The meeting is at WOSU@COSI inside COSI at 333 West Broad Street in downtown Columbus.

Tim Eby, retiring Chair of NPR, will be blogging here - see the picture above - and he will be Twittering here. Scott will be vidoing some of the participants and WOSU will put the clips up on their site soon.

There will be pictures here on Flickr

This is a look at part of the amazing space at COSI.

The hope is that this may be the beginning of a new approach to Hyper Local Coverage - where the bloggers and the public TV/Radio - can combine their talents and efforts.

Many thanks to Robin Hammam at the BBC and to Jeff Jarvis for inspiring this efort.

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