New Communications Forum 2005: Blog University

Snip: Whether it’s the latest news leak, a new outlet for more traditional media, or a discussion about politics, technology, business trends, or a global occurrence, blogs are rapidly becoming an important part of online and in-person discourse. As media companies begin to adopt ways to accommodate this new medium, corporate blogs and blogs authored by individuals are finding a place in this growing online community.
New Communications Forum is an intensive new conference series specifically designed to bring journalists and marketing and PR professionals together to learn how to use new media tools such as blogs, wikis, RSS feeds and podcasting for media communications, corporate branding, marketing communications, public relations and employee communications initiatives. It will provide you with an in-depth, hands-on exploration of the future of communications.

NewComm Forum Europe 2005 will be held on April 5-6, 2005 at Eurodisney in Paris, France

Visualizing change

Friends Ben Banky and Linda Rae pointed me to a web site with amazing panoramas of Vancouver’s changing urban landscape, 1978 to 2003. It’s a terrific example of how somewhat abstract issues like urban planning can be given an immediate and apprehensible...

A quick view of e-consultation

I just came across a very succinct take on the advantages of online consultation. It’s from a 2003 paper Beyond Civil Society: Public Engagement Alternatives for Canadian Trade Policy (PDF) by Josh Lerner. Here’s how he summarizes the case for...

Is podcasting the death of discourse?

Tod Maffin sees podcasting as a way of letting people create “vertical” audio feeds; instead of listening to general interest radio shows like As It Happens, listeners can create their own personal streams of audio, based on their own particular interests. This is just the kind of scenario that makes Cass Sunstein worry about the future of democratic discourse.

Wiki-love

…but the joy of Wiki is that I got to fix the misleading instruction myself, right away.

Down for maintenance

Kudos to the team at WordPress for their foolproof scheme for backing up WordPress databases before upgrading. Did I say foolproof? Let me be the fool to take that back. If you’re missing all the juicy e-engagement news that’s usually here — not to...

Yak shaving etymology

I’ve finally done something to earn true geek credentials. No, not writing my own applescript (not that hard, actually). Not installing and terminating my own in-wall ethernet network (with brilliant foresight, just 6 months before wireless went consumer-grade)....

Conference on Online Deliberation: Stanford, May 2005

The 2nd Conference on Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practice will be held May 20-2005 at Stanford University. (Full disclosure: I’m on the organizing committee). The call for proposals asks for abstracts by March 15. A peek at some of the details:...

Technological leapfrogging

I have a story in today’s Toronto Star on Leapfrogging the Technology Gap. The story looks at communities or even whole countries in the developing world that are using information and communication technologies to leapfrog directly from being an agricultural to...

From diatribe to dialogue

It’s been an exciting 48 hours here on alexandrasamuel.com. It’s been swell hearing from all the folks who were shocked, outraged or otherwise engaged by my digressions (in November, and this week) on the subject of Condoleezza Rice’s political...