Reminding Myself: Panopticon

Out of curiosity, would anyone be interested in a longer, in depth exploration of the “democratized panopticon” concept I haphazardly mentioned in my last post?

In this case, interested means “I’m going to do it no matter what, but would appreciate people to bounce ideas off of / discuss with, outside of my standard (and beloved and trusted) usual circle”.

Current thought is to start with the initial Panopticon concept, and then talk about technology reshaping it, how society has adapted, a few specific examples, and what it means for key elements of present (and future) human identity and interaction.

I needed a new project anyway.

Some notes re: #TOideaUP

• You don’t NEED to share an idea, but you’ll probably have more fun if you do.
• We might all chip in and order pizza.  I know, it’s rebellious.
• Respect the privacy requests of the person talking.  If they ask ‘don’t tweet this’, you’ll be expected to respect that.  Similarly, if they ask ‘don’t blog this’, it probably means they’re working on something, and don’t want you to ruin it by spilling the beans.
• Take criticism well. (Which doesn’t mean just accept it, feel free to respond and discuss, and make sure everyone understands each other.)
• Give constructive criticism (which means - there is some action to be taken based on what you say, other than being discouraged)
• Approach things from your own skill set (The value of workshopping ideas in a diverse group is that I don’t know how a developer would consider my concepts - if you do, please share, expand my point of view)
• Make friends. (This is my general rule for all situations, but it boils down to: be kind, listen, treat others fairly, take turns, and don’t be a dick.  If you enter every social situation with a ‘make friends’ mindset, life is awesome.)

It’s tomorrow! 6pm, at Jet Cooper (20 Maud St, Toronto, ON)  Further details are available in this post, and you can email me at joncrowley@gmail.com, or find me on twitter @joncrowley

This is what my notes look like: New Models for Online Journalism edition.

[This is how I develop ideas - piles of vaguely sentence structured notes, that are thrown into a folder, and revisited when time allows.  I’m posting this in part to get input from the handful of people who read this, and in part because I’d like to see if anyone can add that extra x factor.]

5 person teams: editor / writer (2), developer, videographer / editor, designer. Publishing on a dual schedule: ongoing socmed updates from dedicated accounts, and weekly complete, collaborative stories.

Each complete story will include text / article, research / background, infographics, interactive elements, and video. All presented as part of the whole, focused on opinion / interpretation as well as vanilla reporting.

Not paginated, organized in an online intuitive manner. Scroll down, expanding images / sections (not pop ups or diff windows). Offered in several formats, including mobile / as part of an app. Yes, will require a custom CMS. Also, offer video / print optimized versions. Not a full experience, but allows printing / podcasting as promo tools.

Redesign and publish a monthly or quarterly print version with DVD extras / video as a prestige option.

Go deep. Analysis of a story, rather than ‘just the facts”. Pure facts are important, but analysis has value. Explanation has value. Presentation has value.

Interest / Audience maintained between releases (stories) by including them in the process. Tweet / tumble updates, new info, schedule, teasers. Don’t let the scoop mentality keep you silent, if value is in the analysis, then breaking it in a tweet is still breaking it.

Scalable: 5 person teams can be added as audience / revenue grows. Stagger releases, or segment by content.

The key is multimedia content as a starting point. Defined by the online medium, rather than letting the content treat the web as a newspaper replacement or a tv replacement.

Massively collaborative: nothing is an addition. Design and video are as key as the written article. Building to the whole. Does this require tandem videojournos, designjournos, devjournos, etc? Probably. Welcome to 2K9, media is inherently multidisciplinary.

Fragmentable, sharable, remixable. Possible to open every segment in a copyable, accessible way (presuming CC licensing) let it act as promotion for saleable elements (mobile app, print collections, expanded behind the scenes access, archive access).

Create extra content, behind the scenes footage, expanded versions, edit history on articles for subscribers. This is the hard part: journos do not like being questioned, but web authority is more like scientific authority. It’s based on being able to withstand scrutiny, not a license to avoid it.

Model could work for hard or soft news. Imagine applied to TMZ ouvre, investigative, driven celeb content with background like recent film gross, media penetration, arrest history, relevance by google searches, etc.

All very raw, but definite value here.