We Media Blog

What I Want the MSM People to Know

- We use information differently than you do. We take it in differently – not only the methods by which we get it, but how our brains process it. We, likely, digest it more quickly than you do. We're a little ADD. Some of us are very ADD. We like it this way.

- We love new stuff.

- We love stimulation. We REALLY love it. I could go on and on about this.
- We live and breathe information. We're able to let it go and enjoy non information time, but in our normal lives we need to have it. All. of. the. time.

- Yes, we sometimes feel morally superior to you. Sorry about that.

- We interact with MSM differently. We don't ignore, rather we interact with it. We comment on it, we digg it, we think about it. We NEED YOU STILL! What else would we talk about if not for you?

Here's the important part – it isn't just geeks. We might be the most obvious ones, we are certainly the early adopters of these things, but we are NOT ALONE ANYMORE. (And sometimes this bothers us.) Ask your kids the following questions and you'll see that we're not alone:

- do you have a myspace page? facebook?

- do you look at photos on flickr.com? do you have an account there possibly?

- do you have an ipod? have you ever listened to a podcast?

- have you ever read a blog?

- how often do you visit youtube.com?

- have you ever downloaded an mp3?

The chances are that the answer is yes to the majority of these questions if the person you're talking to is under 30.

Now, just to let you know, a lot of those questions would make us "geeks" laugh. We think that myspace is lame. We don't read blogs, we write them. We make the podcasts that the person you asked listens to. We don't download mp3 files, rather we capture TV programs and upload them as torrents to share with the world. Like I said before, we sorta enjoy feeling superior. (ha ha.)

But if normal people in the younger section of Generation X and most of Generation Y are utilizing certain aspects of these things that we are into and you are not, YOU NEED TO PAY ATTENTION.

The good news: some of us are willing to help you understand what we're about. Please listen. We promise that we will listen to what you have to say too.

There are a lot of really nice people here that could tell you more about this stuff. Why not get out of your circle of suits and break into our circle of geeks? We're geeks – we can't be mean. We have too many years of having been teased to be mean. (Why don't we talk to you? Oh, because of that morally superior thing and because we are geeks and therefore have some wimp in us.)

May 4, 2006 at 8:24 am 1 comment

Day 2

I really wanted to do a write up last night, but I got home after midnight and crashed, so nothing to report.

I enjoyed the Fringe event quite a bit. Ben Metcalfe and Suw Charman, 2 of the best of the London geek crowd, spoke. Ben discussed the BBC's possible inclusion of adverts on its international pages and Suw had a talk entitled "Why Day 1 of We Media Sucked."

(Neil Dixon spoke as well, but I had to leave — will listen to the podcast later!)

But to get to Suw's point about We Media sucking: yes, it did. The morning was especially frightening. After being called out publically for criticizing the MSM representatives' patronizing comments about the developing world, I sat in virtual boredom, catching up on e-mail and getting involved in the forum chat room.

After lunch the chat room crashed – literally – and I stopped paying attention to it.

The subject matter did improve in the 2nd half of the day. The "Digital Assasins" idea was pretty nice: let the people that feel less comfortable with new technology talk to people that can't live without it. I hope that those folks took the opportunity to learn a bit about how we live.

Are we living in different realities? I choose to always have friends like me, that live like I do. But I also have friends that live more in the world that the MSM people live in. One of the things that I love about London is the community that exists around people living like me. What would it be like if I chose all my friends from people that live like this? Would I feel too competitive. I probably would. I need to feel technologically superior to people on a fairly regular basis. (This is probably why I've enjoyed working at Help Desks so much.)

Do I need to be in a relationship with someone that lives this way? I am right now, but he isn't as into as I am. Yeah, he loves TiVo, has a Treo, had a blogspot blog briefly, created a myspace page… but he isn't out there podcasting or anything. I suppose a user is second best after a creater, right?

But, like I said – I do like interacting with the uninitiated. It is fun.

Next post — more on what I want to say/do today.

May 4, 2006 at 7:54 am Leave a comment

So, thoughts on wemedia

Between sessions there are these weird PBS-esque adverts for sponsors' new stuff. So weird. I can barely contain myself.

May 3, 2006 at 11:29 am Leave a comment

1/2 day post

I've been sitting at the We Media event. Mainly I've been playing in the chat room. There are a lot of buzzwords being thrown around. I don't feel like I'm learning anything here. It is more like a "let's talk about new media" and pay a lot of money to do so. (I am a fellowship receipient.)

I want more dialogue!

What is this supposed to be about?

So, I got called out by the panel. How frightening. The perfect sign of how easy it is to complain in a chat room or on a blog! Once the camera was on me I got a bit nervous. I said that they were being patronizing to the developing world. Here's what went down in the chat room:
11:57:19dotBen: Katy
11:57:19AndrewLih: http://www.mediacenterblog.org/events/06/wemedialondon/audio/
11:57:21katy: uh oh.
11:57:23meganknight: shout out!
11:57:25AndrewLih: nonworking
11:57:31billthom_uk: gosh – journalists who will write about anything they want to write… yu mean, like seruous investigations of stuff the powerful don't want to read!
11:57:36Guest 1205: Validation – doesn't this mean we need better participation from media orgs, universities, etc?
11:57:39billthom_uk: oh dear – it's us!
11:57:39kamla: Neha the session is about media in this connected world…so we are lookign at old media and new media
11:57:39meganknight: are you here?
11:57:41Mohamed: quick…duch
11:57:42dotBen: stand up
11:57:47juliet83: she da girl!
11:57:49dotBen: This is called a dotBen moment
11:57:49Kevin Marks: the world service, say it
11:57:49AndrewLih: yay
11:57:52SuwCharman: go katy!
11:57:53meganknight: katy on the big screen!
11:57:53System: User hoder has left the chat
11:57:54Guest 1211: yay
11:57:56billthom_uk: don't do it katie!
11:58:01juliet83: too late…
11:58:03billthom_uk: nice hair!
11:58:07nehavish: oooh katy
11:58:12System: User Guest 1228 has joined the chat
11:58:16Kevin Marks: that was patronising
11:58:26billthom_uk: she can't see her screen, so we can't prompt her
11:58:45Angelo : is this chat taking questions for panelists>
11:58:46Angelo : ?
11:58:49billthom_uk: oh dear – 'this is a conversation' – how sweet of the nice man to encourage her.
11:58:51System: User Guest 1229 has joined the chat
11:58:56dotBen: this is the only thing I'll offer as advice folks… if you should it out here you might (/are) going to be asked to stand up
11:58:58MCWeMedia: if you have a questions for the panelists, I will ask it, yes.
11:59:01System: User Guest 1230 has joined the chat
11:59:02Kevin Marks: 3rd world don't need to go through 20th cnetury media models
11:59:05System: User robinhamman has joined the chat
11:59:06dotBen: so think what you say
11:59:10loopzilla: Go Katy!
11:59:11System: User Guest 1223 has left the chat
11:59:12meganknight: brian rich is reading the chat, he may relay comments and questions
11:59:14Kevin Marks: they can leap to 21st century ones
11:59:14dotBen: hey, I know what I'm talking about!
11:59:18SuwCharman: angelo: yes, we are feeding stuff back
11:59:24System: User Guest 1232 has joined the chat
11:59:25Angelo : thank you for that../. i have questions as soon as i can get a stable working webcast but good to know, thank you.
11:59:27meganknight: and suw
11:59:29juliet83: well done!
11:59:32katy: yucky
11:59:33billthom_uk: ben – are you in the room with them?
11:59:36AndrewLih: WTG Katy
11:59:42katy: changing my name
11:59:44SuwCharman: ben is here
11:59:46katy: to silentgirl
11:59:47Guest 1211: not very convincing
11:59:50dotBen: I might be bill
11:59:55billthom_uk: lovely stuff katy
12:00:00katy: anyone get a screen cap for my mom. l(
12:00:01BeckyH: well done katy
12:00:02meganknight: well done, katy
12:00:03katy:
12:00:08SuwCharman: katy: well done!!
12:00:09robinhamman: I'm having trouble getting the chat to work on a mac book pro running safari. Several others at my table are having problems on macs too – anyone know if an irc client cant work with this chat?
12:00:11Guest 1219: glad she's standing up for her viewpoint
12:00:16Kevin Marks: yay katy
12:00:24dotBen: well done katy
12:00:27janicea: works on firefox on a mac
12:00:34Mohamed: i'm using firefox on my macbook and working fine
12:00:34dotBen: you were very good – I know what it's like!
12:00:37billthom_uk: I'm on a powerbook withh Firefox and chat works fine
12:00:38MCWeMedia: good job katy.
12:00:41System: User Guest 1233 has joined the chat
12:00:41loopzilla: Funny that… it works fine with FIREFOX which has jus updated itself!!
12:00:45Angelo : works fine on g5
12:00:47dotBen: you just had a "dotBen moment"