There’s been a congestion of conferences lately striving to save our sorry pubradio asses. Their themes range from the grand From Participatory Culture to Participatory Democracy to the mundane Making the Transition. They’re put on by groups with amorphous promises in their names: Beyond Broadcast Digital Distribution Consortium Integrated Media Association — mix & match to create your own exciting organizational combos.
Once conferences were safe excuses to get away from spouses and commune with co-workers. Now they’re powerpoint infested face2face fests, where people stare at their computer screens. Once there was a time-honored tradition of spending conference nights genuinely interacting with real folk, i.e., chasing hookers and hootch. Nowadays, everyone runs back to their hotel rooms to blog, stream, cast, and flickr.
You must post your opinion, preferably at length, prodigiously linked to all other opinions, and prefaced with urgent proclamations of bullet-pointed self-perpetuation:
- Crisis Management – Why your organization needs to Blog
- Mobile the 7th Mass Media is to internet like TV is to radio
- National Public Whatsis.
And don’t forget to mention Web 2.0, even tho you’ve no notion wtf that means. I, however, know exactly what Web 2.0 is, and I’m willing to share this insight; as soon as I’m invited to give the keynote at the next conference.