The inaugural New Media Happy Hour will take place Tuesday, October 10th at 5:00 pm in the Campus Club (Coffman Union). Happening every second Tuesday, the Happy Hour series will be an informal gathering where you can catch up on the latest in new media research at the U, meet potential collaborators, and just enjoy the company of colleagues.
http://www.inms.umn.edu/events/happy_hour/
The 5th season of the Emerging Digerati series got off to a great start this past Monday with presentations by web professionals around the Twin Cities. Our curator this year, Anne Jin Soo Preston, is planning an innovative and enlightening schedule of showcases for this season, featuring new media work at the U and beyond.
http://www.inms.umn.edu/digerati/
Remember to check the Institute for New Media Studies website for updates about events. If you use an iCal compatible calendar system, you can subscribe to the INMS events calendar with the address:
http://www.inms.umn.edu/inms.ics
Thursday evening will feature a short welcome program, reception and poster session. Friday will include paper sessions, a keynote by Susan C. Herring, and a discussion session on collaborative research and digital tools for collaboration. For more details on presentations and schedule, go to:
http://www.inms.umn.edu/events/past/newresearch_2006/
If you haven't already registered for the conference, you may do so at:
http://www.inms.umn.edu/events/past/newresearch_2006/participation.html
The deadline for registration is Wednesday, September 13th. A registration fee of $20, to be collected at the conference, includes all sessions, hors d'oeuvres and drinks Thursday, and lunch on Friday.
Please tell your colleagues - whether faculty, staff or students - about this opportunity to connect and collaborate with new media researchers at the U.
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]]>Terence Banich had been outed as a bad tipper, and he didn't even know it.]]>He popped up on the cheapskate list at BitterWaitress.com, berated by a server at a Chicago restaurant for leaving a $3 tip on a $200 bill.
Informed of his tipping infamy, Banich said if he had left such a measly gratuity, it was a mistake, a misplaced decimal point, and he's sorry for it.
But Banich, a Chicago lawyer, also said he was none too pleased that a waitress had lifted information from his credit card -- his name -- and posted it on the Internet.
Banich had effectively been cybersmeared, and he's far from alone.
Open source software business models have gone from theoretical to profitable over the past half decade-companies like Red Hat, MySQL, JBOSS, and IBM. How will peer production business models prove out in the content space? Learn how pioneering commons-based businesses are creating what Business 2.0 calls the next multi-billion dollar industry.
My notes (not direct quotes):
Clarke: Started with freenet, a peer to peer network for circumventing internet censorship. Started revver, a video distribution service for individuals.
Malango: Works with Magnatune, an online music label based on the open source model. Use non-commercial and share alike Creative Commons licenses.
Wales: Aside from Wikipedia, started Wikia, a for-profit company offering wiki services for interest groups. Commons based model is not so much about for vs. non profit, but about open vs. closed.
Ito: What about funding a commons based businesses?
Malango: Magnatune is self funded because of the passion of founder, John Buckman. The need exists to make the company sustainable.
Clarke: Same funders as Skype. Fund raising has been pretty easy with Ravver vs. other companies.
Wales: Step 1: Become the 20th most popular website in the world. Step 2: Beat the investors off with a stick until you're sure you have the right one.
Ito: Fairly easy to get funded right now, but that's not necessarily a good thing.
Clarke: Revver needed some money to get started, but if you can do it without, it's often a better way.
Ito: Creative Commons does a lot of work to make the licenses easy to use, understand and transmit.
Wales: As more commons based content is created, businesses can support other businesses by providing more content.
Everybody needs a place to fail, but a commercial design project is not that place. Design playgrounds are personal, pressure-free, online environments that encourage free design play and unfettered experimentation. Successful design is a diamond hidden in the mine field of failure, and design playgrounds plunder that mine field. Panelists will share the history and practice of their own design playgrounds, and discuss how these playgrounds have influenced their commercial work.
Panelists include:
My notes (not actual quotes):
Curt: Design is like the stack of spring loaded plates in the cafeteria... the good idea is twenty plates down... the playground is the place to get through the first twenty plates. The playground is a place to fail, learn, keep track of your progress. Shows his playground full of crazy animated gifs. Playground: http://playdamage.org/
Jemma: Worked with Joshua Davis to make scripts for Flash pieces, then exports to Illustrator to continue playing. Says it's great to have the archive of experiments. The more you put up on the site, the more you'll get out of it. Playground: http://www.prate.com/
Dustin: Uses the playground to store projects that don't necessarily make it into production. Doesn't really like a lot of his earlier work on the site, but doesn't take it down, uses that early work as a motivator. Playground: http://www.upsod.com/
Curt also has a list of playgrounds that various designers maintain.
]]>My notes (not direct quotes):
Fried: Out-teach, don't out spend.
Livingstone: Keep it small and personal, don't worry about sponsorship. iStock charges between 1 and 200 dollars for their conferences.
Meyer: Try to teach what you've learned, share solutions.
Zeldman: If you're making a loss, what's the motivation?
Livingstone: It's about building engaged users. More about marketing and community building for iStock.
Zeldman: What about location?
Sherrin: Holds conferences at home in Sydney. Mostly local users showing up. Cheaper venues are better, users as generally satisfied. Universities have wireless networks, etc. and are low cost.
Zeldman: How can you make sure venues understand your needs?
Meyer: Had problems with this in Philadelphia. Was quoted $300 per user for wifi at one venue. Start with vistor and convention bureau website for the city. A conference usually costs about $10,000 (100 people).
Fried: Chicago is great for conferences. Paid $5000 for 60 people at a University of Chicago owned venue.
Ditmore: Do a minimum at the bar for a cheap venue. Get a sponsor for parties, food, etc. Geeks will figure out a solution to technical problems. Give volunteers a free ticket.
Livingstone: Go abroard, if you have attendees all over. Got a great deal in Slovenia. Language barriers, customs are issues.
Zeldman: Who works with sponsors?
Ditmore: Have several levels of sponsorship for Webzine conference. Many sponsors are previous attendees. Be creative in asking for sponsorship. Adobe was first sponsor, they hated the event, but the conference got the money. People enjoy the small conferences more than the big ones.
Sherrin: Many companies will only sponsor if they get stage time.
Fried: You can definitely do it on your own. You don't necessarily need sponsors.
Zeldman: How do you set the price?
Fried: Supply and demand. Raise the price till you stop selling out. The higher the price, the higher the expectations.
Ditmore: Even at $22 for the webzine conference, she still gets people asking for free admission.
Meyer: Stigma attached to making money off of conferences.
Sherrin: Offers scholarships for her conference.
Zeldman: What about speakers?
Ditmore: Try getting new speakers, new topics.
Sherrin: Fame is important, so attendees can justify the cost, but lesser known speakers can often provide insights no one else can.
Fried: People from 37signals speak themselves.
Chris: (of Bar Camp) What about people with day jobs. He puts together grass roots style conferences together for less than $2000.
Zeldman: Who's actually thinking of doing a conference? [80% of audience raises hands.]
On the panel:
To see what all of the conference attendees have been snapping pics of, look at the SXSW 2006 flickr stream.
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