cmEvent Archives

December 18th was the first ever StatusCamp. It was also another ChangeMedium experiment – bringing the context of the medium of change to the developers building its future.

The event was an excellent day with over two dozen folks including the Status.net team and Peter Deitz of SocialActions. It was an amazing event to learn about where Status.net and the OpenMicroBlogging initiative (OMB) are going. The wiki has more details on OMB but it is due for a major new release and will be integrating PubSubHubBub, ActivityStrea.ms, Salmon, and WebFinger. What this means is an integration of emerging protocols to put people at the centre of micro-messaging. Not only is this a positive protocol development, but it signals the collaboration of major participants in this field to create an 0pen, interoperable system – an essential aspect of the medium of change.

I also presented a new pitch (below) on why all this really matters to all of us. It prompted a good session on social uses for Status.net and sparked a number of unexpected side conversations. What I’m learning more and more is that many developers have a social streak – a bent for making the world better. Many don’t publicize it but it seems that most do. This is encouraging as I look forward to future ChangeMedium events and seems to fit with the notion of bringing research, development, and application together to build this medium better.

Following that thread, I received some great suggestions for ways to do just that including compiling social use cases for developers to hack, doing developer challenges – prizing the best apps/hacks, and focused dev days to tackle specific problems. I’m interested in all ideas like this – they give fodder for communities who want to create events that move and make this medium for all of us.

If you want to dig into the details there’s a pretty comprehensive wiki up with notes from the event (update: good summary post from Jon Philips too). Here also is the context presentation I piloted at the event.

ChangeMedium – Context

View more presentations from Michael .

It’s go time.

ChangeMedium Toronto is slated for October 24th at MaRS. What is it? Read more to find out. Want a hand in it? Leave a comment below.

What?
ChangeMedium is an initiative to provoke public micro-messaging as a medium for change. Public micro-messaging (e.g. Twitter) is emerging as the most accessible, participatory public medium in history. Bringing the open and emergent properties of the web to the global reach of text messaging is already showing great potential for public benefit. But we’ve only begun to understand what’s happening let alone build an infrastructure to make the most of this medium. Enter ChangeMedium Toronto.

ChangeMedium Toronto is an event to explore the frontiers, gather community, and make the medium. It will be a simple format with 2 tracks – one for researchers and one for hackers. We want to explore the frontiers. What is this medium about? We want to push ourselves further. What are the implications for change? We want to contribute to making it better. Let’s make it happen.

Why?
The pace of change is stunning. Researchers, hackers and makers are already involved in understanding and applying this medium. Whether for fun, profit, or benefit we’re creating this as we go. ChangeMedium Toronto is our inaugural effort to convene this community and introduce and provoke the potential for change.

Who?
ChangeMedium emerged out of the work of a group of people passionate about the world play with Twitter as a platform for change. The Toronto event itself was provoked by Frances Westley and Renjie Bitauld of SiG@Waterloo, Lisa Torjman and Allyson Hewitt of SiG@MaRS, Ryan Coleman, Peter Flaschner, and James Walker.

Of course we’re just beginning and what ends up will be a product of the community. Have an idea? Want to play a role? Want to know more? Leave a comment and get the ball rolling.

Tag: cmEvent

OpenMicroBlogging amps up the medium of change.