So, I'm in Denmark representing openDemocracy at the New Media Days conference in Copenhagen. Doc Searls gave the opening session today, and I joined him and three others for the closing. If anyone wants to know what I sound like in Danish, click here. It's mainly media industry professionals, and I think some might have been puzzled about what they might learn from a non-profit like openDemocracy.
I like to think we are on to something which will help old media survive in the future: quality analysis, local perspectives, immediacy and global awareness. Really, who wants to read the same news story 6000 times?
It was fun to talk Creative Commons, and even about our abandoned attempts at subscription models. Lots of people are trying to figure out how to make things work economically online, and it was good to test our future strategy on a few dozen innocent listeners. On Friday, I appear in a national newspaper here, as well as on national public radio.
We have quite a few Danish openDemocracy members now, but I expect next week we will have a few more. It's nice to see people excited about what we're doing, and the variety of voices we are getting online.
It's a pretty mixed bag of experts and professionals. You might be surprised to hear that the presentation that really blew my mind was on what they call Alternate Reality Gaming. I was kind of aware it existed, but once I began thinking how you could use this kind of virtual reality, group activity for education and activism, I felt inspired.
This whole new media business is about watching what works for others, watching what users get excited about, and then learning and adapting it to something that fits your goals. The technology is just the medium for it. Or as the Danish "Free Beer" evangelists say: "The beer is the message".
See if you can solve that puzzle.
