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Friday Finale… Finally For Me

Monday, March 12th, 2012

This is a guest post by Anna Choi.

 

While the end was near for dedicated attendees of Social Media Week New York City, Friday was just the beginning of my experience. There was no time to waste and after debating over the serious line up of various events, I was ready for my first SMWNYC gathering.

 
What Real Time Marketing Really Takes
Emily Steel from the Wall Street Journal led the panel discussion including Beth Waxman-Arteta of JWT, Ryan Davis of Blue State Digital, Bill Wolff of Primetime Programming, and Mike Sommers of Viggle at the Advertising and Marketing Content Hub at JWT. Topics from preparing for and challenge with real time marketing were touched on with much talk about the type transition period social media is fueling.

And what did I take away?

  • HR/human power is essential behind real time social media, real thought processing and relevance is needed to sustain engagement.
  • Every brand could use real time marketing, how it’s executed may differ.
  • Advertising agencies will transition into “brand content” agencies so the meaning of CMO may be defined as editors of content. Simply put, “real time” marketing will be just marketing in the future.
  • People/consumers are looking for substance and authenticity.
  • Filtration of information is diminishing, as communication is becoming more real/raw.
  • Currently real time marketing is a mixture of PR, social media, and brand management.
  • The thing about authenticity is that it’s imperfect sometimes. Mistakes happen.

 
Future of Social Technology
Michoel Ogince of Big Fuel and Jason Kincaid of TechCrunch discussed their predictions/opinions on the future of social networks/technology at the Global Society Content Hub at Big Fuel Headquarters. The conversation circled around the topic of humanization and the complex human behavior that social technology has yet to mirror perfectly. It was great to hear the opposing sides that Michoel and Jason brought especially when Path was brought up. They did agree that this is still the early stage of social technology and that if we think it’s really social right now, we’re wrong.

But the discussion also touched on:

  • Facebook: is it a place to dump a ton of content?
  • Social gaming (Zynga in particular): gamers invest a lot of money and time in the beginning but it dies off, they hit a wall.
  • App Store’s future: currently it’s a challenge to find/access specific apps.
  • Far future: social technology will be penetrated in every aspect to “friending” objects such as your fridge.
  • Advice for entrepreneurs: be driven by passion, don’t cling on to every “success story advice”.
  • There will be “niche networks” for social media/technology in the future.

 
Left Brain Meets Right Brain –The Blueprints for a Sophisticated Social Marketing Campaign (hosted by Shoutlet)
Jason Weaver, the CEO of Shoutlet, led this discussion including David Armano of Edelman Digital, Doug O-Reilly of MWW, Chris Eichman of Rayovac, and Brenda Schmerl of Reader’s Digest. The hour-or-so long conversation revolved around the controversial topic of left brain, right brain, or both. Planning and organizing people who are left-brain dominant among those who are right-brain dominant seemed to be key in finding the balance for a company. There was a debate over people who were both, or a hybrid, and if this category even existed. David Armano walked everyone through what he called a community engagement blueprint when touching on the subject of scenario planning. Improvisation seemed to be a theme for reacting effectively, with the main focus on being able to utilize the strengths of those who are creative and those who are analytical.

My overall impression of Social Media Week NYC was great. (especially since is FREE!) Being a student that is always seeking for more real world information, besides a textbook or some year-old case study, these events left me satisfied. Actually, I take that back, SMW has left me hungry and on the edge of my seat in excitement for what’s next. Being a part of the generation that really digs deep into the data of this social realm is fresh and transformational. I truly can’t wait to see how what’s trending now transitions into traditional.
 

Anna is a quirky senior at Virginia Tech studying Marketing and International Business. She is curious and thirsty for anything related to social media and brands. Anna aspires to work in an environment that’s constantly battling between the trending and traditional. When she’s not geeking over new digital happenings you can find her working on her new healthy lifestyle and obsessing over froyo. Follow her on twitter @achoi12 or dig deeper on her personal blog, achoi12.tumblr.com, or marketing blog, annanciate.tumblr.com.

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Posted in Coverage

Leveraging the Power of Digital and Social Media to Elevate Voices

Friday, March 9th, 2012

This is a guest post by our event partner, The Brooklyn Bureau. Mark Anthony Thomas is the Director of City Limits; a New York City based non-profit investigative journalism organization. The Brooklyn Bureau Launch is an official Social Media Week event.

 
Social media has changed the way we communicate with each other, and we’ve seen the introduction of new tools that were beyond the scope of the human imagination even a decade ago. While we can’t claim that our generation’s innovations are more novel than similar groundbreaking technologies of the past, something about the last few years feels especially transformative.

Now that we’ve convened for Social Media Week— which has seen tremendous growth in its three-year history— and connected the globe, the next question should be: how do we transform it?

In this creative era, we’re simultaneously archiving the world’s history while creating new platforms for expression and teaching technology literacy while beta testing new models. This can be exhausting for even the most tech-savvy to stay attuned to, let alone grasp the pulse of how fast things continue to evolve.

The world we live in is one of great opportunity and great inequity, a place of open democracies and closed societies. While we see new technologies break down the language, educational, and geographic barriers that have inhibited many—what’s next? How does this lead to social progress? What does the strength of our collective voices now mean?

Instead of looking to technology to help us shape our lives, we must understand how we can use technology to shape our societies.

First, we must understand that we are social media. Every voice matters and without a variety of voices, the platforms lack full potential. Social platforms are best used when connecting audiences with the best content and information, and enabling opportunities for organizations and curators to cultivate a following and conversations.

Grassroots organizing through digital tools—understanding that free democracies are built on bottom-up activism—can help employ action to truly leverage social media’s power to stem social transformation.

The Arab Spring and the Occupy movements are the latest in the history of human movements and protests, but social media has made it easier to connect as equally as archiving of history has made it easier to learn from the past.

New York City, with all of its amazing assets and diversity, is still one of America’s least civically engaged cities, providing ample audiences and opportunities for us to truly tap into the city’s underserved communities to elevate voices and make an impact here at home.

Just as urbanists look to New York City as America’s largest city to understand how we tackle our most critical issues, the next few years should challenge us to truly leverage the power of digital and social media to turn the tide on citizen apathy and engaging underserved communities.

City Limits and the Brooklyn Community Foundation are taking a step to do just this in Brooklyn, with the launch of the Brooklyn Bureau. Our new site will provide in-depth coverage and civic commentary in Brooklyn—which if separate would be America’s 5th largest city. This project is one of 19 digital projects jointly funded by the Knight Foundation that address community information needs.

Our event was an invitation to learn more about what we’re doing in Brooklyn, and overall, to serve as a model for leveraging the power of media to increase civic literary. See us in action now.

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Posted in Inspiration

A Student’s Perspective: Social Media Week Ends with a Tribute to A Great Journalist

Friday, February 24th, 2012

Hoda Emam is a student at Columbia’s School of Journalism, and one of ten students providing on the ground coverage of SMWNYC. This is her account, both written and photographic, of “Challenging Conventional Wisdom of Social Media: Socmedia Editors Share Their Latest Ideas.”

In the same room that Anthony Shadid’s work was twice decided as worthy of a Pultizer Prize for International Reporting, Social Media Week attendees gathered to celebrate his life.

When news of his death broke out on February 16, the online community took to various social media platforms to mourn his loss. Anthony Shadid was even trending worldwide on Twitter.

At the Columbia School of Journalism Joseph Pulitzer World Room, guests of the event placed down their smart phones and laptops to stand for a moment of silence. Several of the attendees of Social Media Week approached the podium to express their thoughts.

Professor Ann Cooper, an internationally known journalist and executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists said, “It feels like I have lost a trusted guide to what has happened in the Middle East.”

In April 2011, Anthony Shadid and three of his NY Times colleagues were released from captivity in Libya. Their first public event after their return was at Columbia University. In response to why Shadid covers stories that takes him to dangerous parts of the world, Cooper read a comment that Shadid made during the discussion, “We are taking these risks because these stories wouldn’t be told otherwise.”

Shadid was also a great influence for many aspiring journalists including, Namo Abdullah, a graduate student from Kurdistan. Abdullah’s voice trembled as he reminisced Shadid’s support and inspiration over the two years of their friendship. “If there were no Anthony I wouldn’t have understood even my own country, as good as I do now.”

Liz Heron, the NY Times social media editor, had worked with Shadid and his wife Nada Bakri for a period of time. She took to the podium and commented on Shadid’s passing. “It also makes me realize that you know his brand of foreign correspondence is so vital today, even among all these new different models of foreign correspondence that we are coming up with now,” said Heron. “It’s really complimentary to the kind of social media correspondence that is coming up and it can’t be left behind.”

Shadid, 43, was known for his gifted eye for detail and his contextual writing. He leaves behind Columbia Graduate and NY Times reporter Nada Bakri and their two children.

Before moving into the final panel discussion for Social Media Week attendees were reminded of Shadid’s humble character. His twitter page was displayed showing his title as simply a “Journalist and Writer.” In a time when social media is understood to be a platform to display ones credits and experiences, Shadid’s profile is a model of selflessness.

 
Hoda Emam is currently an Master of Science candidate in Digital Media at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Hoda’s recent experience includes working with ABC News and the United Nations.

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Posted in Coverage

A Student’s Perspective: Chris Kaskie Keynote with SoundCtrl’s Creating Music for the Social Web

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

Nikhita Venugopa is a student at Columbia’s School of Journalism. She is one of ten students providing on the ground coverage of SMWNYC- all from the student’s perspective. She is providing her report from Keynote: Chris Kaskie, President of Pitchfork Media followed by SoundCtrl’s Creating Music for the Social Web.

Day Three of Social Media Weekend began at the Hearst Arts and Culture Hub with the keynote speech by Chris Kaskie, President of Pitchfork Media, a Chicago-based webzine and guide devoted to music criticism and news. Kaskie commented on social media’s role in music today and what Pitchfork hopes to achieve through Twitter and Tumblr.

“When it comes to social media, I find myself spending more time trying to figure out how to use it than actually using it,” he said. Kaskie also highlighted the importance of maintaining Pitchfork’s role as a trusted source for music journalism, regardless of their platform of communication.

“The biggest challenge that Pitchfork faces today is the expanding world of music online,” said Kaskie. It’s increasingly common to see people discover music through peer-to-peer interaction and recommendation. “I’m really bummed that when I die, I have to leave my kids logins to my Cloud account and not record collections,” said Kaskie.

The Internet is filled with opinions and comments on music but Kaskie said he hopes that Pitchfork can provide context to “all the noise,” whether it’s on Spotify or Twitter or Facebook. “To me, it’s very social that we’re interacting with people’s social music experience,” said Kaskie.

After Kaskie’s talk, a panel discussion commenced on social media’s effect on the creative process of the music industry. The panel included Kaskie; Maura Johnston, music editor of the Village Voice; Josh Deutsch, co-founder of Downtown Records; rap-artist Asher Roth and moderated by Jesse Kirshbaum, co-founder of Sound Control. In speaking on the role of social media, Deutsch emphasized maintaining the image of a trusted brand, echoing Kaskie’s keynote speech. The panel discussed the differences between creating an album for a major label and a mixed tape for the web. Asher Roth said social media had rewarded music artists by letting them be free. “It’s a more enjoyable experience to create music for just your fan-base,” he said.

From a journalistic perspective, both Johnston and Kaskie agreed that the music’s format does not affect their critique and commentary. “People can make some of the best music in world in their bedroom. It’s a level playing field,” said Kaskie.

Johnston believed that music is visceral and it’s that feeling determines the strength, regardless of whether it’s online or on an album. “It’s the way it hits you,” she added.

However, in response to what they felt was missing from social media, Kaskie said it lacked an editorial, personalized voice. Johnston also commented on the myopic view that can come from the digital world, referring to Spotify, an online music streaming service. She said social media users often forget that there’s more to music than what you can find online.

All four panelists agreed that while social media was a valuable platform for communication, people should step away from it once in a while and explore a world outside Facebook and Twitter. “Go for a walk. Ride a bike,” said Roth. “It’s going to make you a more interesting person. A better tweeter.”

Nikhita Venugopal grew up in Bangalore, India. She moved to New York in July 2011 to attend Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she is currently pursuing a master’s degree. Nikhita studied Media and Communications, Psychology and Literature in India and has interned at Ogilvy as a copywriter and Macmillan Publishers as an editor. She is interested in writing on subjects like education, science, music, arts, social issues and the general eccentricities of the city. You can can follow her on Twitter at @niks_90.

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Posted in Coverage

Just Added: Dan Abrams, Grant Whitmore, Joining #SMW12

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

We’re excited to announce a new addition to the schedule!

On Monday February 13 from 12-1pm,  Dan Abrams, founder of Abrams Media Network and TV Personality will be interviewed by  Grant Whitmore, VP of Hearst Magazines Digital Media.  Their discussion will be followed by a panel on the Future of Brand Journalism in Social Media.

Space is limited and you won’t want to miss this one so click HERE to register to attend! 

KEYNOTE: DAN ABRAMS

Dan Abrams is the founder of the Abrams Media Network, which includes Mediaite, Geekosystem, Styleite, SportsGrid, The Jane Dough, The Mary Sue, and is co-founder of Gossip Cop. He is also the CEO of Abrams Research.

Dan is currently a legal analyst for ABC and a substitute anchor for “Good Morning America.” Previously, Dan was also the General Manager of MSNBC where he defined the network as “The Place for Politics”. During his tenure, the network saw its most significant ratings and profit gains to date. He also hosted “The Abrams Report”, a nightly legal affairs program, and the acclaimed “Verdict with Dan Abrams”.  He is the current host of Investigation Discovery’s “Chasing Justice With Dan Abrams.”

 

 

 

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Posted in Announcements, Events, News

Reporting on Reporting: The Evolution of Journalism at Mashable’s NextUp NYC

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Matt Wurst is Manager of Digital Communities at 360i. You can follow him on Twitter @mwurst.

If video killed the radio star, is Internet killing the print and video stars? And if so, how should current journalists adapt and current journalism students prepare?

These are questions that newspapers and television networks are grappling with on a daily basis. They were also among the many topics discussed at Mashable’s “NextUp NYC – The Future Journalist” event last night at the 92YTribeca as part of Social Media Week here in New York.

A year ago, TIME magazine predicted that a journalism crisis was approaching “meltdown proportions” and that “some major cities will no longer have a newspaper.” The alarm bells rang even louder when The Rocky Mountain News and Seattle Post-Intelligencer shut down for good and The Philadelphia Daily News and Minneapolis Star-Tribune filed for bankruptcy soon thereafter.

Video coverage of Wednesday’s panel:

But according to last night’s panelists, Sree Sreenivasan (@sreenet), the Columbia Journalism School Dean of Students, and Vadim Lavrusik (@lavrusik), one of Professor Sreenivasan’s Digital Media graduate students, journalism isn’t dying. It’s simply evolving. Even as many traditionalists feared the end of beat reporters, in-depth coverage, investigative reporting and newsmaker/celebrity accountability, the sounds of their struggles are being drowned out by the sound of keyboards clicking, video streams playing, Twitter feeds refreshing and RSS feeds updating.

With upwards of three hundred journalists, PR gurus and social media aficionados filling the lofted space in lower Manhattan, the teacher and his student optimistically agreed that a new era of “tra-digital” journalism, the surface of which has barely been breached, is upon us. They astutely compared where we are now in a digital age to where radio was in 1912 and television was in 1950. (You can view their shared presentation at http://bit.ly/futurej.)

As a veteran of the news industry and well-connected social media insider, Sreenivasan navigated through the multiple uses of new and emerging platforms and how they can apply to the “old world.” (He doesn’t get GoogleWave yet, but who does?)  He emphasized the need for today’s journalists to learn multiple talents while retaining a specialty that distinguishes them from their peers. Working together, Sreenivasan and Lavrusik also explained how to become a multimedia storyteller, “learning and understanding what media is right for what story.”

Some other required qualities and skills for experienced and news journalists alike are to become reliable “pointers,” helping cut through the noisy clutter and sharing good content from across the web. They stressed the value of “community managers” that listen and interact with readers/viewers and don’t simply broadcast their messages in one direction. Additional “best practices” encourage newshounds to think about their own brand and adopt an entrepreneurial spirit.

The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is a top, if not THE top, journalism program in the country. Yet the curriculum taught just a decade ago is already an antiquated relic of a lost era. Faced with advances in technology and expanded use of the Internet, the next generation of journalists is training for professional opportunities in a changing media landscape that might be very different in another ten years down the road. Meanwhile, the journalists of today must reconstruct their skill sets for the growing world of online media.

It is imperative that journalists of today and tomorrow develop a “digital media mindset”—how to think about news stories and packages from an online perspective. Look no further than our hosts for the evening.  Mashable plays an important role in the publication of digital news, trends and technologies. (In fact, Mashable has become such an institution in my own daily diet of fact-gathering that it now holds the fourth spot on my iGoogle home page, batting clean-up behind my Gmail inbox and RSS feeds from CNN and ESPN.)

Throughout the course of the discussion, a number of the journalists in the room were taking notes, some even sticking around as the crowds dispersed to learn more, dig deeper – clear indication of a reporter’s nose for information, if you will. And that, as the professor noted throughout his presentation, is just one of several skills that will never be rendered obsolete, along with the ability to observe, ask questions, process thoughts and write.

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Posted in News

Social Media & the Haiti Disaster: How the Social Boom Has (And Hasn’t) Changed the News Media

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

Izzy Forman is the Digital Publicity Manager at 360i, where she is responsible for leading a team of digital publicists that builds and nurtures relationships with online influencers (bloggers, editors, forum moderators and fan site creators) to advocate for a brand and its products and services.

Monday’s panel on the role of social media in light of the recent Haiti earthquake focused on a number of ways that social media has (and hasn’t) impacted the how the news media functions during times of crisis. The panel did not shy away from the magnitude of the tragedy in Haiti and covered a lot of ground in the session.

The discussion was led by:

Moderator: Andrew Rasiej, founder of the Personal Democracy Forum and senior technology advisor, The Sunlight Foundation

Panelists:

  • Ann Curry, news anchor for NBC’s Today Show | @anncurry
  • Rob Mackey, staff writer The New York Times, The Lede blog | @RobertMackey
  • Erik Parker, journalist who was in Haiti when the earthquake struck and used social networks to send images, video, tweets | @theparkerreport
  • Jason Cone, communications director, Doctors Without Borders | @MSF_USA

From the range of stories told and questions asked throughout the afternoon, here are a few points that helped clarify the evolving relationship between social media and news reporting.

A New Frontier in Crisis Communications

The afternoon began with anecdotes from panelists Jason Cone (Doctors Without Borders) and Ann Curry (NBC News) about how they used Twitter to mobilize aid in the first days after the disaster in Port au Prince.

In the context of Twitter, their story unfolded like this: A Doctors Without Borders’ plane couldn’t land. Curry then saw their complaint via Twitter and tweeted a request to the military to let the doctors land. A reader sent Curry the official handle of the US Air Force via Twitter, who subsequently tweeted at them to let the plane land. Finally, Doctors Without Borders landed in Haiti.

This story illustrates the power of concerned citizens (the reader that tweeted the handle), the massive community created by social media, and the meaning of news spread in real time — but it’s only part of the story.

While the anecdote illustrates some of the most obvious benefits of social media, it also reminded me that, at least in the foreseeable future, traditional methods of crisis communications still apply.  Even though social media informed Curry of the problem and helped her to get the word out, the issue was ultimately resolved when she contacted US Military leaders directly by utilizing her official relationships as a news reporter.

View this session courtesy of LiveStream:

Watch live streaming video from smw_newyork at livestream.com

The Veracity of a Tweet

As news breaks in real-time and journalists report less from far off places, it makes sense that the opportunity to get information via social networks continents away would be compelling. Yet a story Curry shared about getting information from a Haitian humanitarian-turned-citizen-journalist via Twitter provoked questions from other panelists and the audience about the reliability of such reporting methods.

How does a reporter effectively vet an online source in a breaking news crisis? How does a journalist determine if a minute-by-minute eyewitness account contains a hidden agenda? And how can a story be confirmed or denied without cameras on the ground?

The consensus on the panel seemed to be that effective journalists treat their social media sources just like any other sources — they vet the best that they can, and use source info responsibly and cautiously, like they would do if interviewing people at the scene of a crime.

Curry’s embrace of the opportunity to share breaking news, respond to feedback, and receive real-time information directly from people on the ground, via Twitter, seems indicative of her commitment to getting the most accurate, up-to-date information she can deliver. And while the rules governing reporters and their @ sources are not yet ironed out, social media is one of many very useful tools in reporting breaking news.

Ultimately, the concerned, motivated and tweeting citizen-journalists in Haiti were valuable resources that allowed outlets to report stories and provide information that they never would have known about in the days before Twitter.

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Posted in News

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