Last night nextMedia hosted their Vancouver event, Bands, Brands and Audiences, at the new Vancouver Convention and Exhibition centre. Anyone who had been attendeding the Convergence09 conference during they day and chose to skip the evening event to catch the Canucks game definitely missed out. The event featured keynote presentations from Ethan Kaplan, Vice President of Technology for Warner Bros. Records, and Robert H. Reynolds, Lawyer and Manager for the multi-platinum band The Killers. The evening offered a lot of great insight and like many of these events, likely left attendees with more questions than answers - but at least they're good questions to be asking.

Kaplan's presentation on "What the industry can teach us about technological change" addressed many of the changes the music industry has gone through from the prespective of the record label. Gone are the days of payola and likewise the losing battle with file sharing. Kaplan, as VP of technology, has overseen the implementation of a network of over 120 community sites (all built on drupal!) where artists have a space to interact directly with their fans. According to Kaplan, any social media strategy requires four key factors: Deliberation, Adaptability, a Measured Approach and Determination. Social media, unlike other distribution channels, doesn't seem to work well with an out-of-the-box solution. Bands, like their fans, are unique and produce unique relationships. Kaplan did a great job of illustrating how bands are no longer in a position to prescribe their image to their fans, but their image is now negotiated through the relationship they have with their fans.

This past weekend we were at the 2009 Northern Voice Personal Blogging and Social Media Conference in Vancouver and it was incredible. The speakers and attendees alike came from a diverse set of backgrounds and made for a good mix in the crowd to stimulate conversation. Bloggers, academics, activists, people from industry, representatives from government and people just passionate about social media all came together to share some great ideas. I think everyone came away with a great experience and a lot to think about.

If you're in Vancouver this weekend, keep your eyes open for citizen journalists in action - the bloggers are in town!  Northern Voice, Canada's leading Social Media and Personal Blogging Conference, begins tomorrow at UBC.  Now in its fifth year, there was so much excitement this time around that tickets sold out in just three days!  For those of us lucky enough to be attending, it looks like we're in store for an outstanding weekend

Next Steps

With the Olympic Games barely a year a way, it's time to organize the next steps of the campaign for an independent, alternative media centre before, and during, the 2010 Winter Olympics and Para-olympic Games in Vancouver and Whistler, BC. We aim to create an inclusive, apolitical and collaborative space for grassroots media creators to creative and publish content about sport and culture.

If you are ready to become further involved in this effort, we invite you to a follow-up meeting with the aim of forming some task-oriented committees and creating a board to organize this project over the next year.

Details

February 3rd, Tuesday
6:00pm ~ 7:30pm
at Raincity Studios
1 Alexander, Suite 420 (buzz #420 for access)
Gastown, Vancouver, BC

Agenda notes

At this meeting, Robert Scales will discuss his conversations with the BC Independent (unaccredited) media centre and discuss some conversations with curious collaborators and corporate supporters. He will also preview the "Social Media and the Olympics" panel at the upcoming Northern Voice conference in which noted Olympic scholar Dr. Andy Miah from the UK will share his experience and knowledge (see his essays in "Owning the Olympics"). Dave Olson will offer a few remarks about the Vancouver2010.com web focus group meeting including the IOC's "constraints" and VANOC's evolving web strategy.

In addition, the agenda will include ideation time and input from all participants and an opportunity to offer skills (and superpowers). Along with forming a board and committees, we'll plan next steps and meetings, including a possible event to mark the one year countdown to the Games.

'get in where you fit in'

Come with ideas and leave with follow-up items and projects to lead. To get things started, Robert, Kris and I propose to organize three committees for starters and then break out task forces and sub-committees as needed, ergo:

Robert Scales - Partnerships (sponsorships, fundraising, gov relations, corp outreach)

Kris Krug - Operations (programming, volunteer, facilities, finance, logistics)

Dave Olson - Communications (brand, messaging, media relations, web site, blog etc.)

Please use the Wiki to collaborate on organizational structure ideas and suggest topics to add to the agenda.

Sign-on

If you plan to attend, please register at the Google Group.  Sign up for the Group with a Google ID and we'll approve your request as soon as possible. http://groups.google.ca/group/vancouver-2010-alternative-media 

There is also a Google Wiki Site - confusing? Sure. The Group manages the mailing list and has informal group work space. The Site is more of a Olympic Media resource toolbox. Your account needs to be approved but then you can add/edit content and share resources. Everyone can poke around. Twitter @uncleweed to get added to the Site as a collaborator http://sites.google.com/site/vancouver2010alternativemedia/

Building upon the work done at the Fearless Drupal code sprint last weekend, Kris and I are working with Irwin, Lani, Hendrick, Lorraine and others at Fearless City to gather up unused phones to redistribute to help DTES artists share stories, and tap into life, jobs & family.

We assembled this social media marketing campaign on a accelerated timeline to spread the message while so many people are getting new phone for a holiday gift and will end up with old phones which can be used to make media, document incidents, or provide basic communication. We used a variety of online media publishing and community building tools to create presences for Fearless City, then created the campaign materials using collaborative working tools and online photo tools to make the badge from Kris' sweet punk photo.

Finally, we unleashed the hounds (well Twitter, some blogs, Facebook, and such) to spread the word quickly on a Friday afternoon with a plan to pick up phones on Tuesday, Dec. 23rd on the auto-magic-Flickr-uploading purple Yahoo bikes Kris and Roland are rolling.

A look over kk's Twitter posts for today tells the story of how the plan came together ~ to quote George Peppard's character in the A-Team, "I love it when a plan comes together!"