Honest, sincere and real.

I loved his answer to the question about writers block.

Rash said that he felt like every song was his last and then the next one just seemed to arrive in his mind.

I love the sound of his music and he said that it is set to morph into a bit more deeper textures.

This is an interview that I would recommend to anyone who is looking at what they love to do and thinking of packing it in.

Sometimes all you need for a bit of inspiration is someone to take notice.

Listen to Rash Radio music at Triplew.me.

Here is the interview.

I am not just talking in terms of content but also in terms of delivery.

This is a huge challenge that I think we as academics get a well deserved F!

The REAL world our students will graduate to has little resemblance to the academic world we educate them in and this is really not a good thing. We cannot leave the educating for reality to a capstone project or graduation seminar. As faculty we need to be educating for the real world from day 1.

I have been experimenting.

How do you get students to produce real world assignments in a real world framework?

I don’t have an answer yet.

But here is how I will deliver an assignment tomorrow!

All I am doing is what I expect the students to do!

Which is another issue.

If a professor isn’t willing to put in 100% and experiment and try new things why should a student?

Check out the assignment!

Click here to view the embedded video.

We all have to do our thing so I suggest we pick that cause we can do our bit for, just do your bit and do it well.

MOvember is my cause!

It is easy to make a donation to prostate cancer research.

And I have been following the MO with my own brand of advice, all on video!

Click here to view the embedded video.

So why do it, grow a MO?

1. I can do my part and it is easy, don’t shave!

2. Prostate cancer is real and can impact on me!

3. The research is real www.movember.com

4. anyone can contribute and feel good for doing it, as little or as much as they want.

5. I think the MO looks pretty good on me.

So I am asking you to go to www.movember.com and look around and think about giving something for this particular cancer research.

If you want use me as your gateway to give! Here is my page to make donations through!

And if you do nothing else watch my YouTube videos and pass them on they are very educational! Just go to YouTube.com and search JamesPiecowye, all one word, and let the fun begin!

Yes we need more local coverage of ideas and issues, maybe that means we need more journalists.

But I dare say the journalist of yesterday and the journalist of today are 2 very different people.

The tools are different, the distribution is changing, the context has changed and the associations and links in the news are new!

And smoking and swearing in public are almost totally outlawed!

The journalist of yesterday is a content curator today!

Yes our curators will write and disseminate original work product.

But the information curator of today will also gather, sort and contextualize the vast amount of information for others!

Here is a piece of the Robin Good post on the idea of media curators today.

What is content curation and why is it so important for the future of web content publishers? The content curator is the next emerging disruptive role in the content creation and distribution chain. In a world submerged by a flood of information, content curators may provide in the coming months and years a new, tremendously valuable service to anyone looking for quality information online: a personalized, qualified selection of the best and most relevant content and resources on a very specific topic or theme.

Photo credit: Luna Vandoorne Vallejo

In other words, a content curator is someone “who continually finds, groups, organizes and shares the best and most relevant content on a specific issue online“. The most important component of this job is the word “continually.”In the real-time world of the Internet, this is critical.

This is how marketing expert Rohit Bhargava defines what he thinks is one of the key emerging online editorial roles of the future.

What the web needs to become even more useful and meaningful again (like in the old times, where only few websites existed) is a specialized middle layer of editors that gather, filter and distribute relevant information on specific niches of interest.

I have written and discussed at length of something very similar
since 2004, when I started writing about the concept of newsradars and newsmastering:

[...] the emerging newsmaster, is not just like the typical passionate Twitterer who shares all kinds of valuable information she finds. Her value, as I see it, emerges from focusing only on one, very specific topic, and acting as an always-on radar. Its unique value is not just in the ability to capture everything being said, written and published on a specific topic, but very much into her ability to filter, select and editorially curate (titling, sequencing, grouping, commenting, etc.) the flow of information she manages.

Mastering how to create niche-targeted compilations of content is indeed one of the key lifesaving strategies that wise-minded online publishers can adopt to offer greater value, even at a price, to those interested in it.

In a world where attention has become so scarce to become as valuable as currency, and where quality information on a specific topic requires ever more time and attention to be found, the value that could provide those who have the ability to organize, select, compile and edit the most valuable information on anyone topic is incommensurable.

Link: http://www.masternewmedia.org/content-curation-why-is-the-content-curator-the-key-emerging-online-editorial-role-of-the-future/#ixzz147mbYel7

Recently in a class I have to admit things could not have been at a lower level.

What to do?

Some might just take it.

Others might say you cannot change students.

Others might take up chocolate.

I decided to take the issue directly to the students in question.

At the start of a the class I stopped the lecture and let the group of 40 students know that i was not happy.  I told them that I was not enjoying the experience and why!

I then rebooted the class and introduced myself BUT this time I made it personal. I talked about why I became a professor and what keeps me int he UAE.

Some students told me that it was a very emotional moment and thanked me for the honesty.

After the reintroduction I put the reality on the table, we have 18 weeks together and there are 9 left.  The content is set but the delivery and context can be altered. So, I asked, what do we do?

I have a 50% stake in the class and the students have 50%.

We changed location, are working on more interaction and we made the changes instantly.

Today we met in our new room excited about a new experience, a reboot, and the cupcakes were presented to me at the end of the class!

Amazing!

Cupcakes wit my shirts on them!

The take home is simple.

Be honest, be sincere and remember that everyone wants a great experience!

If you are not delivering the best experience ask how to make it so and move in that direction.

]]> http://jamesed.com/2010/11/sweet-experience/feed/ 0 http://jamesed.com/2010/10/thinking-uae-media/ http://jamesed.com/2010/10/thinking-uae-media/#comments Mon, 18 Oct 2010 05:02:03 +0000 James http://jamesed.com/?p=1045 The media in the UAE takes a few punches, more often than not.

I teach about media and the communication process in the UAE and also work in the media in the UAE giving me a unique perspective on this very young industry.

There is no question the media here is still developing.

But compared to the development taking place in the west, or lack of, the change in the UAE media since 1968 has been profound.

The UAE only became a country in 1971!

What is still in its infancy is the media culture of the UAE, it is still being defined.

And part of the problem with the definition of UAE media culture is the extraordinary number of expatriates, like me, who are actively moulding the media culture of the UAE as I write.

What we are living is a classic Catch-22 moment.

The media here needs people like me but also needs UAE Nationals, what is the best mix and can it be legislated or does it just have to happen?

But no matter how I look at the media in the UAE I am left smiling and excited about the type of change taking place and the pace of that change.

Yes there are economic issues to work through.

Yes there are public/private issues to consider.

Yes there are manpower challenges.

Yes we need to reboot the thought process of what media means to us here in the UAE.

It is rewarding to know that some UAE Nationals recognize the change taking place and want more.

Here is a caller from Nightline who talks about his UAE media.

UAE National talks about UAE media.

I wonder how we might take this list and apply it to what we are teaching at University today?

Get a look at the entire list.

A few of my favorites.

14) Something smarter than us is going to emerge

Thank you, algorithms and cloud computing.

31) The built world will continue looking more and more like Microsoft packaging

“We were flying over Phoenix, and it looked like the crumpled-up packaging from a 2006 MS Digital Image Suite.”

37) People will stop caring how they appear to others

The number of tribal categories one can belong to will become infinite. To use a high-school analogy, 40 years ago you had jocks and nerds. Nowadays, there are Goths, emos, punks, metal-heads, geeks and so forth.

I found this on www.globeandmail.com and Tuesday is a great day to listen to CBC!

Douglas Coupland is a writer and artist based in Vancouver, where he will deliver the first of five CBC Massey Lectures – a ‘novel in five hours’ about the future – on Tuesday.

The class in question is COM311  a Zayed Media Lab practicum at Zayed University.

The class is worth 1 credit and asks students to bring together their cumulative experience to produce a project that is well outside their comfort zone.

This time around my students are engaging in grassroots audio producing content about Zayed University using their mobile phones and computers as their prime tools.

Blackberry,iPhone and Nokia phones were used this week to create short VOXPOP pieces.

Audacity was used as an editing tool.

This class is not about me teaching as much as it is about students taking what they know already and applying it to different situations and environments.

My role is to guide them through the challenges and motivate them to talk to one another to work through those challenges.

The irony is that in both the students and myself the teacher are learning as we engage in the process, a little like the blind leading the blind.

The goal of the class is not a grade but to get the attention of the university and produce a project that is beyond any expectation as well as new to the public face of the institution.

The real success of the ZML model is that the ownership of the project is with the student and not the teacher.

Today my students previewed an introductory activity that didn’t just meet expectations but exceeded them.

The assignment my students produced today, day 2 of the class was better than the audio projects other classes have taken a semester to produce!

What makes the class work?

1. the students know they are smart and talented, and not afraid to show and share their talent

2. these students realize the power of their mobile technology, they are not caught in the old school belief that you need studios and professional recorders to produce professional content

3. these students realize that what they put into the activity is what they will get out

4. respect, these students are treated with respect

5. the project is real, not hypothetical, it will be live both on campus and on Dubai radio

I have been teaching programs under the ZML model since 2003 and while every project is different they all are based on the 5 principles above.

The irony is ZML started as a rogue experiment and has become an activity that produces WOW projects through a combination of content, skills and ownership.

Today I put on 2 shows, one was on the basic infrastructure of a newspaper and the second was an intro to semiotics.

Whether you are in a service, knowledge or manufacturing industry you are working your mind  hard for several consecutive hours.

Yet what we fail to factor into our work day is a bit of relief or diversion from the mental activity we are engaged in.

I am not talking about going to a coffee shop with some marking or to a library and doing another thought activity.

What I am talking about is allowing your mind a release through a completely different sort of activity, exercise.

As a rule I try to get into a swimming pool for a kilometer of swimming as many lunch hours as possible.

The days I do swim it is amazing how much better I feel when I come back to work.

Energized is a good word to describe the outcome of my daily swim.

My energy for that 30 minute period is not being directed to an academic show but towards getting to the other side of the pool.

To mash things up a bit I strap on an iPod, the pool is the only place I wear an iPod for exercise.

Doing laps and listening to a bit of U2 is bliss and one of those ultimate releases.

Those days I don’t get into the pool I feel that I struggle to retain focus.

What I find odd is that we spend extreme amounts of time exercising our minds and when it comes to our physical self we spend ever decreasing amounts of time.

I wonder if our high school education has set us up to not factor exercise into our daily equation of activity? Increasingly daily exercise is not part of a high school education and is certainly not part of the average university students curriculum.

I wonder again if those that succeed the most are the same people with the healthy mental and physical exercise regime?

As much as we talk about new media and new education both seem to be caught in the mud of their old ways.

TV/radio/press/film all talk new but are doing very little that is new. New media is not putting a paper on an iPad! New education is not just changing the content.

New is re-imagining.

New in today’s context involves interaction, delivery, outcomes and social action.

The irony is that we are really only at phase one of the implementation of new media and new education.

We are stuck at interaction and hoping that the rest will follow.

We have tools to enable new but we are not yet in the mind space to make it happen.

Take my own classes as an example, students still file in and sit in rows and most of the time I stand and talk to them, why?

Because it is easy, it is as simple as that. The standard school lecture has been the mainstay of education for 100 years so why even think of changing things?

Because today we have the opportunity to take education to those who want it where they want it in the context that they may actually make immediate use of it! Time and space are no longer king the content, its delivery and the interaction provoked is what matters.

To mix things up a bit I am recording my classes for delivery over an iPhone or Blackberry, but the true convergence of the education I am responsible for guiding from the school to the private realm is still very much a work in progress.

It is a work in progress because of resistance to change from the providers and fromt he consumers.

I often feel the media, the educator and the consumer are asking for permission to think new but they don’t know who to ask!

What I find incredible is we the media, and educators, talk convergence, new media and new education BUT are not following through.

Why isn’t every professor making their class available online, on Facebook, on YouTube and linking them to others and their content via twitter?

I imagine a time when education is as much a meeting of a group of people in a classroom as it is a meeting of people in a coffee shop or on the beach or in an jet crossing the Atlantic.

The convergence and new aspects of media and education are not difficult to imagine or realize, yet we resist because it is not what we are comfortable with.

The video of my own class below was recorded and within an hour posted online!

The start of making new media and a new education involves considering how and where people will consume your ideas int his case and making that process of consumption easy and accessible.

The illusion is that this process of delivery and acces is hard.

My own recordings are formatted for a mobile phone so the quality of the image is pretty poor if viewed on a large screen, but the audio is good and that is really all that matters.

Here is my DIY guide.

1. activate your webcam, I am using iSight on my Mac.

2. use a capture software for audio and video, I am using Quicktime.

3. edit the front and back of the video, add a title, I am using iMovie.

4. export video to a useful format, I am using iMovie and exporting for mobile device.

5. post for download or viewing, I am using Vimeo

Take a look at the beta test below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sure the quality of the image could be better.

Sure the camera could be placed differently.

We can critique this video for a week, but it is out there.

We cannot talk new and converged media and education if we are not trying it!

What stops others form following my lead?

The illusion that creating online, converged, new media products is hard and takes a lot of equipment and know how.

Wrong,wrong,wrong!

What we need is for the media and educators alike to take the challenge and lead the way for the consumer instead of waiting for them to tell us where they have been and what they like.

We need to embrace the opening lines of the original Star Trek series, “to boldly go where no man has gone before!”