Thanks so much for being a part of PubCampNC (@pubcampnc) in-person; and remotely; and via live stream. North Carolina’s first-ever PublicMediaCamp, a one-of-a-kind unconference hosted by UNC-TV (@unctv) and MCNC (@mcnc), seeks to strengthen the state’s public media engagement through ongoing collaborations with the public: i.e., you.

This collaborative environment begins with content creation and sharing. Content creation and sharing is not only the cornerstone of public media, but also an essential part of the PublicMediaCamp experience. To begin, we want to let you know the many ways you can contribute and let your voice be heard before, during, and after PubCampNC:

PubCamp NC| Where Everything is on the Record | All presentations and sessions at PubCampNC are on the record; blogging, podcasting, live tweeting, and presentation-sharing are all strongly encouraged using the Twitter hashtag #pubcampnc. As such, you are encouraged to bring your laptops, tablets, smartphones or any other connected device and plan to connect, collaborate, and engage throughout the day.

PubCampNC Blog | (http://www.publicmediacamp.org)
As part of the national PubCamp blogging experience, PubCampNC is currently participating in posts at publicmediacamp.org. This site is used to begin conversations, where you can then comment on posts and link to them in your own blogs, tweets, and other social media presences.

PubCampNC Wiki | (http://wiki.publicmediacamp.org/PubCampNC)
In conjunction with the broader PubCamp wiki, PubCampNC has set up a local camp wiki—a collaborative space where PubCampers can edit pages and plan their own camps. Think of it as an active repository for the work we’ll be doing on August 20. From the PubCampNC wiki you can “Join the Workspace,” and add your session comments, session notes, share and embed presentations, and start your own PubCamp.

PubCampNC on Slideshare | (http://www.slideshare.net/group/publicmediacamp)
In addition to being a part of the in-person conversation, during PubCampNC your organizers will be focused on content creation and publishing, detailing who attended, what happened, and what emerged. This is crucial, as content is the key form of social currency that will be exchanged between PubCampNC and other local camps. In order to add content to the body of knowledge around PubCamp, we’ll leverage media-sharing sites like Slideshare and its playlists to distribute information on the wiki and blog. To get involved, create an account at http://www.slideshare.net and join the PublicMediaCamp group (URL listed above).

PubCampNC Google Group | (http://groups.google.com/group/public-media-camp)
As much as we encourage the use if social media for content sharing in PubCampNC, e-mail remains a primary channel of communication for most people online. As a result, e-mail discussion lists such as Google Groups are very effective tools to connect our local community during and after Camp. As North Carolina’s PubCampers, we encourage you to join the national group (see URL above).

PubCampNC on Twitter | (https://twitter.com/pubcampnc)
Share your content, comments and questions with the Twitter community via the hashtag #pubcampnc. Got a little extra space in your tweet? Add the hashtag #pubcamp and let a national audience of PubCampers know what you’re up to. And follow PubCampNC now (and from now on) at @pubcampnc.

As mentioned, PubCampNC adopts an unconference format, during which there is no audience, only participants. In addition to being a partner in content creation, be prepared to take an active role in making the conference what you want it to be—both online and off.

On Friday, you’ll be putting the “public” back in public media. And we can’t wait.

Thanks again.

Want to start the discussion early?  Join us for a pre-camp happy hour at the Scottish Arms!  6 p.m. on Friday, August 13th.

Location – The Scottish Arms

PubCampSTL is just around the corner!  So far, we have about 100 people registered, and we can all look forward to a day of community, public media, and talking about how we can collaborate to make St. Louis a better place!  In preparation for PubCamp, consider the following questions:

1. The biggest issue facing St. Louis is…
2. My one hope for the St. Louis region is…
3. If public media could do one thing for me and my community, it would be…
4. I’d be really interested in working with public media on…

When you check in on Saturday morning, we’ll give you a post-it note so you can write your responses down and post them so the whole group can see what everyone’s saying.

See you Saturday!!

Based on the insights of Kivi Leroux Miller (@kivilm), a leading source of information and guidance for nonprofits with limited resources, @unctv, host of PubCampNC has put together a little Prezi on “The New Realities of Public Media.” What do you think?

On Friday, August 20, 2010, UNC-TV will partner with MCNC to host North Carolina’s first-ever PublicMediaCamp (PubCampNC). PublicMediaCampNC will take place at 10 AM-4 PM from MCNC’s Research Triangle Park’s facility [3021 E. Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2889]. [map this] Event check-in will begin at 9 AM.

For general registration:
http://members.unc-tv.org/unctv_pmc

For remote registration:
http://members.unc-tv.org/pmc_remote

Join us!

PublicMediaCampOPB has been rescheduled for Tuesday, September 21, 5:30-9pm

Calling all technology enthusiasts, journalists, students and media makers! Bring your ideas, your wish lists and your “what ifs” and join us for brainstorming and discussion about how public media and the community can better support each other.

When: Tuesday, September 21, 5:30-9pm; light dinner provided

Where: Oregon Public Broadcasting, 7140 SW Macadam Avenue, Portland, OR 97219

Registration: Online at http://pubcampopb.eventbrite.com/

Thanks to our sponsors — OPB, CPB and  NPR — it’s all free, though advance registration is required.

On August 14^th, 2010, St. Louis will host its first PublicMediaCamp.  KETC/Channel 9 is partnering with St. Louis Public Radio and the St. Louis Beacon for the first PubCamp in the “Gateway to the West.”  The focus of PubCampSTL is the community—how can public media and the St. Louis community collaborate to find creative solutions to important issues in our region?

Attendees will be a mixture of community members and public media staffers—everyone brings a unique, diverse perspective to the day and we’re eager to talk about tangible ways we can work together to make St. Louis an even better place to live.

So, as PubCampSTL approaches, I ask you to consider this question: What is the biggest issue facing the St. Louis region today?

On Friday, August 20, 2010, UNC-TV will partner with MCNC to host North Carolina’s first-ever PublicMediaCamp (PubCampNC). PublicMediaCampNC will take place at 10 AM-4 PM from MCNC’s Research Triangle Park’s facility [3021 E. Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2889]. [map this] Event check-in will begin at 9 AM.

Based on the national PublicMediaCamp (PubCamp) initiative and incorporating the theme of “strengthening public media’s relationship with the public through the creation of collaborative projects,” PubCampNC will employ an unconference format: allowing participants to plan their own conference sessions and schedule throughout the day of the event.

To introduce the event to our participants, we’ve been using a short Prezi to kick off North Carolina’s first-ever interactive media unconference. Enjoy!

The web is swelling with user-generated content. Wikipedia entries are being updated by people not on the payroll. The biggest fans post directly on Facebook Fan Pages. People send unsolicited photos as email attachments, and video on YouTube as responses. And many staff members don’t know what to make of any of it.

If this sounds familiar you are not alone. Managers, communications professionals, government relations experts, designers, producers, photographers and many others are facing new challenges – the audience is responding with their own versions of “your” narrative. Many want to celebrate a connectedness to organizations and institutions, corporations, movements. Others want to point out failings, while others only seek to detract from the official channels, to rebel against a perceived conspiracy of media control. How can anyone harness this environment into an advantage?

In a truly constituent- and customer-focused business model all — detractors and celebrants — are embraced, and channels of communication opened to them. This is more than a full-time job to do it well. It is not just public relations. It is the merging of media production, customer/donor relations, outreach, and recruitment. The teams of people attempting to conquer this new environment are working collaboratively, giving up traditional control for a new sense of shared involvement.

Last fall a YouTube video began circulating central Ohio. It was the week prior to Ohio State vs. Navy – the first time in a very long time Ohio State was to play against one of the U.S. Military’s teams. There was a desire on campus from members of the administration to “ask” fans to be more civil to the Navy team and its fans. A noble desire. Then a video, produced by a former student, surfaced. It was amateur, not very subtle, and had little of the design, branding, or sophistication normally associated with the media my unit produces. It was basically a Powerpoint slideshow set to an Ohio State Marching Band soundtrack. It did deliver the message, though: Rise to your feet and cheer for the Navy team as they take the field. It struck a chord. We linked to the video from our website, YouTube channel, Facebook page, and referenced it in e-mail newsletters. The local television stations wrongly referenced it as an Ohio State YouTube video.

Hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube later, I would have to say that this raw video accomplished what my unit would have failed miserably in attempting. Our initiative never got off the ground. The amateur video delivered a message only one fan to another fan could deliver. The moment the “institution” opened its proverbial mouth on the subject, we would have stuttered, or at best embarrassed ourselves.

I relate this story to show how corporate and institutional communications are changing. Amateur has a place in our strategic plans – even when we don’t know what quality, messages, or quantity we will get. Does this replace everything? Can we rely solely on user-generated content? I hope not. But the need to incorporate, embrace, and promote the amateur must be the job of the expert in this new paradigm.

Ted Hattemer is the director of new media at The Ohio State University and will be presenting at PubCampOhio on Saturday, May 8.  Click here for more information on this free unconference.

For my parents generation the television and two daily newspapers were the sources for  the news.  In the mornings while getting ready for school we’d listen to AM radio – WCCO.  The biggest change in a generation was the advent of television news, which at the time was essentially the radio news being read by someone that could be seen.

In 1982 the Star and the Tribune merged into the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and that same year a new, color-print newspaper showed up in town.  New didn’t necessarily mean better, but there’s no denying that USA Today’s color banners and full-page weather map captured our attention.

Cable news arrived not long after and within a matter of a few years our choices for news expanded rapidly.   New technology offered stock tickers at the bottom of the TV screen, graphics for such things logos and weather maps became more dazzling than ever before.  Media itself became better at using the medium to capture our attention.

And the fact is, we consumed this new level of high-gloss media with tremendous gusto.  When just a few years earlier we’d wait for the morning paper to see how our stocks fared, by the 90’s we could watch the market in real time right from our living rooms.

Tremendous competition for our attention – and associated advertising revenue raised the stakes for media companies.   The voices grew louder and headlines more and more sensational to the point that the “news” became “noise”.  No longer could we just turn on the news, now we had to improve our ability to filter it or be run over by it.

Local news outlets joined us on-line and offered their content for free but lost revenue by negating the need to pick the paper off of our front stoops.  Craig’s List became the national shopping mall and local papers began losing their revenue from the classified ads. Reduced revenue led to reduced staffing and local news coverage suffered.

Local television news turned into a ratings game with hopes of making viewers stay tuned so as to move the audience into their affiliates’ prime-time programming.  What was once truly the local news turned into grand-standing and fear mongering.  Capturing our attention with fear is easy.

A few years ago I came to the conclusion that tuning in to fear-based reporting was destroying my opinion of the world around me. When a gun-pointing burglar at a drive-through window in North Carolina made the top-story on my Columbus news station, I knew things had gone awry.  I made a conscious effort to tune out.

And though I tuned out, I still had a desire to know about meaningful local events taking place.  Blogs became my source of local news.  I found local blogs written by people who were interested in the same things that I was – urban renewal, architecture, social issues and I liked reading these on-line articles because I knew that those doing the writing were telling me about what they’d seen or accomplished themselves.

It’s true that blogs may have a decided slant but I could surmise quickly that the person telling me the story was passionate about the subject.  The passion for virtually any subject was coming from people within my community who had a vested interest in the outcome and was no longer coming from traditional news sources who now failed to educate me, but rather saw me as a source of revenue for their advertisers.

Little did I know that I’d eventually become a part of this new media.  When I would tell friends and neighbors about some fact or event that I’d come across, it was often the case that I’d hear this reply, “How is it that I’ve not heard of this?”

That’s when I started a blog of my own.  Essentially I did it as a way to tell my friends and neighbors about the information that I was discovering rather than having to write numerous e-mails.  Never did I think that what I was writing would end up becoming part of a city-wide dialog as it did when I started writing about my use of public transportation.

Having grown up with public transit and living in various cities where it was simply accepted and would have been considered passe’, in Columbus I found a local appetite for the stories I was sharing.   Thanks to the web and the interconnectivity of blogs, my stories found their way to other cities where similar topics were bubbling to the surface.

Interestingly enough it was my stories that drew readers to the blog.  I wasn’t necessarily reporting on the news, rather, I was simply recanting my experiences.  It turned out that I was creating the type of “new media” that the population found intriguing – the same type of new media that I myself, was seeking on various topics.

No other organization is poised to embrace this new media as well as NPR and it’s member stations.  They are member supported and lack commercial advertising.  NPR and NPR member stations should continue to expand their ability to share local stories that create meaning for their communities.

Creating access points for community “broadcasting” has the ability to create media for the public and not just broadcast to it. Torey Malatia’s Vocalo project as part of WBEZ set up a studio on Chicago’s west side so that residents can drop in and create media that’s relevant to them.  Vocalo’s volunteer staff then edits, creates and broadcasts the listener-generated content over the air, on-line and through streaming audio.

While experimental in nature, Vocalo emerged after Torey Malatia asked the question of whether Chicago public media was meeting the needs of the entire population or simply catering to the “lake-front liberals”.

Like any brand, NPR and NPR member stations will see and ebb and flow of listeners and contributors.  And like any brand, these stations must find ways to create new audiences that will become future contributors.  Unlike any other time, or perhaps like it was a few decades ago, the best way to create an audience is to engage them.

Our communities are craving information, education and relevance.  Today as it stands, we have more powerful tools and more economical ways to engage them than ever before.  And perhaps that is the obligation that stands before all of us.

For more information or to register for PubCampOhio on Sat., May 8, click here.

This guide has been prepared in order to provide potential PublicMediaCamp (sometimes called PubCamp for short) organizers with a reference toolkit for creating their own local PubCamp. Please keep in mind that these insights are not edicts, but are recommendations based on our past experience creating unconferences, and from our experience in creating the 2009 national PubCamp in DC. First some quick links then the guide:

The Blog is here – http://www.publicmediacamp.org
The Wiki is here – http://wiki.publicmediacamp.org
The Google Group is here – http://groups.google.com/group/public-media-camp
The Twitter Profile is here – http://www.twitter.com/publicmediacamp
The Flickr Group is here – http://www.flickr.com/groups/publicmediacamp
The SlideShare Group is here – http://www.slideshare.net/group/publicmediacamp

Download the word document of this guide here – PubCampGuide.Final.doc

Watch a walk-through of the guide here – PubCamp Field Guide Walthrough Video

Watch an overview of PubCamp here – Intro to Pubcamp