See below for real-time news gathering, TheKotel, Kodak, and how marketing hasn’t changed.
Real Time News Gathering – Panel moderated by Ryan Osborn, Producer, Today Show
Andy Carvin, Senior strategist, NPR (@acarvin)
Jennifer Preston, Social-Media editor, NYT (@NYT_jenpreston)
Eric Kuhn, Audience Interaction Producer, CNN
Jennifer: We’re all familiar with Twitter lists, and for news organizations they are very valuable. Talking about Ft. Hood, being able to identify the news organizations – small television stations – who were on the ground with valuable news, and present that news to people in real-time (unfiltered!). Then, later in the evening, started to put together stories. Theme of how news is now fluid – shooter profile at 10pm, another story at midnight, but the news was continuous all day.
Andy: Talking about woman leading the Obama caucus in Texas, who could not get into the caucus event due to restrictions from the fire marshal. “She was suddenly acting as a stringer, without ever intending it.” Came to a realization that this was the way to cover voting – harness a crowd as on-the-street reports and editors, to help the journalists make informed decisions on what stories to follow.
Got more and better responses when he would engage with his personal account rather than the NPR account – it’s about the relationship that you manage. The more 1:1 you are able to cultivate, the more people will respond – it doesn’t matter if you’re the person, or the brand.
Eric: “CNN is a huge organization, and I’m very hard pressed to find someone … who isn’t on Twitter. We have 100s and 100s of people in the organization on Twitter to create that personal relationship.” Talking about Octavia Nassar (sp?), the middle eastern editor engaging the community during President’s Obama trip to the area. Then, when the election emerged, Octavia was able to monitor the tweets and realize that Hezebolla (sp, again) did not have support on the grown. “Rolled over to Iran,” she already had the relationships when people were switching their locations over to Tehran.
Echoing Jennifer’s sentiment about Twitter lists as a newsgathering tool. And, he continues to interact with the people on those lists, to be able to follow a story.
Jennifer: “When you’re putting together a list and putting handles on your home page, how do you make sure that person is who they say they are, and will bring value to the users of your website?” The tip I would share with you is to check out their stream, evaluate the judgment they bring to their tweets and the people they are connecting to.
Q from Alex: “One of the most difficult things for orgs to do as they develop a stream is to determine fact from misinformation,” and also the challenge for our panel as editors, “so how do explain as the story is evolving?”
Andy: “We are MONITORING these Twitter accounts, and we want you to monitor them with us.” Allows viewers to PARTICIPATE in news, add depth or debunk. Talking about a photo of a cracked building that emerged in the Haiti coverage, and that folks on Twitter debunked it within 25 minutes (photo was from a quake in Japan 15yrs prior). Helps us sort fact from fiction more quickly.
(Theme: Editors are not infallible, they are now people harnessing the crowd.)
@colbywg – Question about geolocating and Foursquare in news.
Eric: Politicians are beginning to use FourSquare (I read that!). Allows for more transparency, to track what’s happening on the ground.
Jennifer: We used it in Vancouver with a lot of success. But we have to be careful how we use that. We might not want to know. Could be danger! “We have to mindful of what the stories are and what the risks are.”
Andy: Journalists using judgment in check-in, have to avoid exposing elements of the story and the sources.
(SPEED ROUND)
(?) from Easton – How do you get buy-in from on-air personalities?
Jennifer: Show the value of twitter for the journalists.
(?) – How does real-time effect getting the full story?
Andy: Not many circumstances when you CAN get all the facts. It’s a starting point. The big story is a complex story. Earthquake is about buildings, evacuations. (breaking in with a follow-up, cross-chat – “the audience can’t expect the story in real-time” – which is a contradiction, in a way!)
(?) – Has twitter enabled tabloid journalism?
“Only if you let it.”
(?) – Unfiltered comments – no real response on this one
(?) – Are we creating a new digital divide?
“It’s been there for a long time.” Talking about the YouTube debate – people in Charlestown lacked the access/skills to even know about the debate, let alone participate.
“Does civic discourse become balkanized, are we creating apartheid?”
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Social Media + Education – the amazing, fantastic Chris Lehmann, principal of Philadelpha’s Science Leadership Academy (@chrislehmann)
“It’s wonderful to be in NYC because I can talk as fast as I can, I feel like I’m with my people.”
Chris spoke at the Philly #140conf, he is a wonderful speaker, but has so damned much to say!
“My single greatest fear for my children is that school will break them of this habit [the habit of very young children learning new things every day].” Talking about the first graduating class
“The maddening paradox of education, 2010” Students can do things they’ve never been able to do before – talking about digital microscopes, writing the report in real time, publishing – but “none of that matters unless it shows up on the test.” What we can do and what we’re being asked to do are in a disconnect.
Data driven decisions is important – “you’ve got to use good data, and good data ain’t cheap.” Good data on kids is the work they do in classrooms with colleagues and teachers, not the way they perform on one test.
“Know the difference between change and innovation.” Talking about kids desperately reaching for the devices “like oxygen” when they walk out of school. So why are we stopping them from using them inside? Adults want to pretend the technology doesn’t exist, so are we shocked \
“When we passed the notes the teachers collected them, when they pass notes the world sees it.”
“Be humbled by the task.” “Keep asking questions.” “Continue the conversation.” “Speed up to slow down.”
(First standing O of the day, lead by me. That was chill-inducing. Amazing.)
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I was still with heart-racing after Chris Lehmann’s talk, took a while to focus on the politics chat.
Fixing America’s Voting System, One Tweet At a Time
Debra Bowen (@DBowen) – Secretary of State, California
Jacob Soboroff (@jacobsoboroff) – @AMCnews Correspondent and Executive Director of @WhyTuesday, a nonpartisan election reform group
Joe Trippi (@JoeTrippi) – @WhyTuesday advisory board member and has used Twitter to track and encourage participation in election reform from the United States to Zimbabwe.
Nancy Scola (@nancyscola) – associate editor at @techPresident and inspired the Twitter Vote Report with a blog post
Steve Grove (@grove) – Head of News and Politics at YouTube
A lot of densely-packed information here. Big point – why is our voting percentage so low in America? And, why is every precinct and county in a way its own state?
Nancy Scola talking about the RNC, that the biggest protest leader wasn’t on the ground.
Joe Trippi talking about Bradley’s run for gov in CA, how the 1.5 vote differential could have been completely altered by social media. Sealing FlipCams into cereal boxes for Zimbabwe, smuggling them into the country as groceries carried on women’s heads. People taking digital photos and videos of vote totals being posted on the local, precinct level, being used to hold the vote totals accountable on the national level.
The point: create accountability. Really powerful stuff from Joe.
Steve Grove from YouTube. “Elections are the most sacred events in our democracies.” Tweeting your vote is taking ownership of the voting process and documenting your participation. What it means to even bring a camera into a polling place…
(Interesting idea here, that citizen journalists have to learn best practices in the wild. Ties back to the theme of news so far today, that editors are now assisting the aggregation process from thousands of reporters, trying to find the best methodology.)
“Voting is the right by which are other rights are protected, whether you care about gay rights or gun rights.”
Interesting cross-talk between Nancy and Debra, that it’s imperative to have people inside of the process to identify the points where citizens can actually assist/improve. It’s important to find out why people aren’t voting, and see if there is someone LOCALLY empowered to bridge that gap – the secretary of state can’t be in every precinct.
“With 24,000 voting places, someone is going to oversleep and forget the key. … But, the faster we know – our problems are on a small scale.”
(The panels are hard – people each want to get through their speaking points, but they only have slightly more time.)
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The Story Behind TheKotel – Alon Nir, founder (@TheKotel)
People around me promising this will be a good one. Jeff brought him to NYC personally. Developed a web service where people could tweet their prayers to have them inserted into the western wall.
His media coverage began two weeks after he launched the service, and the media coverage was world-wide! He was quickly overcome by the attention, and increased demand for the service. (Will be talking about Prayers, Help, and Change.)
His brother helped him create a way to print prayers from Twitter. He crowd-sourced people to roll the tweets into tiny scrolls. Found an elementary school teacher in Jerusalem to insert the prayers into the wall. Now he has “the world’s first automatic prayer spooler,” a sewing machine rigged to scroll the prayers.
After speaking at #140conf Tel Aviv, he was approached to develop a iPhone app. Asked Twitter for translation help, and received dozens of responses. Now you can send a prayer to the wall directly from your home!
“Just sending a prayer is very meaningful – it gives people hope, belief, and self-confidence.” It can give themselves the strength “to make a change, and find the light at the end of the tunnel.” Also, a “pays forward effect” – people inspired by what Alon is doing to volunteer in their own communities – and bring that spirit to people who don’t pray or use Twitter.
“In the world small changes are happening, which is great, because small changes accumulate.”
(An understated talk from Alon, but very personal to me because his story is so similar to @thatdrew’s from #blamedrewscancer – doing something personal that’s also impactful to the community of the world.)
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Real Men (and Women) Use Twitter – Jeffrey Hayzlett (@jeffreyhayzlett)
“People talk about ROI, return on investment – throw that shit away.” Cheers! When execs talk to him about ROI, he fires back, “I talk to executives about, ‘what’s your return on ignoring?’”
(Interesting ideas while we watch effectively a Kodak commercial – that Kodak Moments were a branded sort of social media experience before media was social at the pace we know it. Capture your moment by having a camera on hand. Now we capture so many more moments, but how do we give them significance? The uniqueness of that Kodak moment has been eroded.)
He’s hitting that exactly – talking about Kodak moments being a chance to record and share emotion. Sharing true emotion builds connection and relationships. “If those moments aren’t shared they lose their power. We think the Kodak moment happens when you share it.”
(It’s a shame this is slanted towards being a Kodak commercial, because Jeffrey has a lot of valuable things to say about how an old-media company became a new-media company, and he clearly believes in his message. The crowd seems dead, here. Continuing walk-outs during this talk. We could have gotten a lot more out of this as a crowd.)
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11:00am Donny Deutsch, TV host & chairman, Deutsch Inc. (@donny_deutsch)
Talking about we all react so explosively to “new media” without bringing the lessons of prior experience with us.
Lesson #1 – Never Forget the Brand. If you have a million eyeballs, it doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t match the value of your brand. (brand as a collection of values).
Lesson #2 – You’ve Got To Give Somebody Something. Buy this iced coffee, vote for me – you have to give them something first. “I’ll make you smile, I’ll teach you something, I’ll entertain you.” Any selling that’s self-serving doesn’t do the job.
Lesson #3 – Architecture. Make sure your brand has the same skin in every place. “It doesn’t smell, doesn’t look like everywhere else,” then you’ve broken a fundamental rule of marketing.
(Very powerful – brands doing print campaigns that don’t marry to web and to social – it’s not just about goodwill, it’s about consistency, trust. Gets to theory of expectancy violation – if you’re going to change, do it with intent, not out of ignorance.)
Lesson #4 – The best use of any social network understands and celebrates humanity. “Any great piece of marketing, media, ‘I want to sell you something,’ understands the human condition, and celebrates it.”
Lesson #5 – It’s very easy for any new media to get too big for it’s britches. There’s early adoption, then late adoption – then everyone wants to climb aboard. Overreaction continues in both directions – for and against. It’s better to understand it’s place – it’s here, it’s not going away, “but it’s got to live and play well with the other children.”