ONA 2005: Journalism 2015 with Jeff Jarvis

Interestingly, I have been at the ONA 2005 conference yesterday and today and was listening to the conversations that have been engaged in the presentations and the hallways. Interestingly enough, Rafat Ali from paidcontent.org posted a provocative post on his blog. Taking a snippet of his post:

This is perhaps the most exciting time to be an online journalist, at the most exciting time in the media sphere. Yet, at ONA, where was the passion? Where was the excitement about working in the most innovative time in the history of media? In its place what I see is self-doubt, existential crisis, a siege mentality. The media companies, yes, they're threatened, but for them, the bottomline matters, and in most cases, growing. But it is the people who work in those media companies, these journalists, who feel the most direct effect of things like blogs, the blogs beating them up, and generally, the increasing attention competition they have from all other forms of media.

Interesting to me is that this is how the mainstream media is working through the understanding of the new medium. After spending time in the corporate world, the consulting realm (both large and small) and the start-up realm, what I see is a group of media players in New York working though their ownthought process. They are searching for a way to engage this new space (where the majority of men and young women find their news online) without losing the battle in the other spaces.

In conversations I have had in the past 36 hours, I have learned that most companies are now ready to engage the concept of blogging and "citizen journalism" - but they face the challenge of their own internal processes (e.g. Standards and Practices) as well as the risk adversion they have with legal issues or PR impact (see CBS's black eye with Dan Rather and Memogate). One thing I think the members of the Web 2.0 community and the fast-bandwidth entrepreneurs either inherantly understand is being smaller and nimbler can often bring you to the front very quickly, but the larger, more established can build the solutions from the experiences of the risker ventures to bring about what will fit within the existing mindset. While this offers new startups a chance to create something that can be acquired and businesses built and sold, hopefully companies will engage and inbue their companies with the innovation that will be required to move to the next level of journalism in 2015.

Minor aside: panelist just said "AI is us" - remember that the best handwriting system created for handhelds was not an automated system learning all variations of handwriting, it was us learning the handheld's "handwriting" (Graffiti) to make Palm take off.

Tags: web 2.0 mainstream media citizen journalism

End of Faith at Pop!Tech

Listening to Sam Harris at Pop!Tech here in Maine - and loving his discussion on the incompatible differences between different books different religions believe were written by God.

Paraphrasing Sam's thoughts:

Interesting poll result: 22% of people in the US are convinced that Jesus will swoop down from the sky and save the world in the next 50 years. Another 22% believe it will probably happen in the next 50 years.

Great quote: "Land of Israel was promised to the Jews in G-d's role of the omnipotent, all-seeing, real estate broker..."

We do not respect other persons beliefs (when it comes to things other than religion) - we evaluate their reasons. In religion, we are admonished to respect their belief, but we would never hear that in discussions of history, business, etcera. The only time we allow for this is when we turn to matters of faith.

I am advocating a kind of "conversational intolerance" - we challenge bad ideas, especially when they are given some form of ascendance.

Interesting thought - has the Republican party figured out the fact that, in order to pass beyond the rational filters that we utilize to engage in discourse, that tying the memes to religion allows people to maintain their stance on issues that do not survive scientific scrutiny.

Continuing the paraphrasing of Sam's thoughts:

People who believe things strongly - and then people who engage in discourse.

Discussing suicide bombers: where are the Tibetian death cults that are creating suicide bombers? Martardom and jihad are essential in Islam, which create the culture of these suicide groups. He is discussing the conditioning that created the mental state of the bombers in Hamburg - how at the mosque they would talk about the pleasures that await the martars would have at the end of their work.

Books are engines of intolance - always able to refresh fundamentalism from the book. Doors leading out of fundamentalism do not originate from the inside - they have to come from the outside.

Problem with religious moderation - limits the solutions to be generated to address fundamentalism in the modern realm. The only way to invoke the power of ritual is to use religious language. How can we modify this?

We hold a disproportionate leverage in the spread of ideas in the world. Our discourse here at popTech is to jettison dogma in the discourse of ideas. Religion - it is impossible to eliminate such attachment to dogma.

First *real* Yom Kippur in New York City

You know - after so many years of being a relative of so many New Yorkers, I finally got a chance to see what it was like to be in New York for Yom Kippur. Last year, I was in London - and the experience was not the same - I felt quite dislocated in some way.

This year, I took it upon myself to go to a Yom Kippur service at B'Nai Jeshurun - the second oldest New York congregation. This congregation is over 180 years old - and has a vibrancy and energy that I woul dnever have anticipated. Last year, I did go to the oldest congregation with my modern orthodox friend - but BJ (as it is affectionately called) was much more accessible and connectable. I spent the 25 hours fasting - one of the worst experiences since I have been far too addicted to my Italian stovetop espresso maker - but the closing service had me so emotional - I was at a loss for words.

New York is quite an intriguing place - and I have to say, BJ is one of those dimensions that bring intriguing color for the local resident.