Invitation to the Chicago New Media Summit

I received an invitation today to the Chicago New Media Summit…

I am extending you a personal invitation to be a participant for the Chicago New Media Summit 2008.

We are asking you to represent your industry and participate as one of 300 modern media pioneers. 

September 15th-16th, you and 299 others, will gather at The Museum of Contemporary Art to create new allies, exchange vital resources and invent new business. This history-making event will include talks and performances by 43 of Chicago’s breakthrough pioneers across diverse industries, it will galvanize the city’s talent and money around a shared passion for the interactive future, host a start-up marketplace and promote Chicago as “The New Media Capital of the World”.

Each talk will be filmed and streamed via the Internet.

The link below will take you to the new CNMS08 site where you can see the Schedule, Register and Sponsor links.
This invitation expires on Friday August 29th.

Be part of history, 

John Patterson
Founder & President
Chicago New Media Summit

Its online community describes the event as one that will “unite Chicago’s most innovative and influential individuals with two days of talks, presentations and performances about the mergers of technology, entertainment, advertising, activism, and more … It will give its members access to participate in new ideas and new ventures. The long-term vision of the summit includes an idea awarding crowd-sourced new ventures with the capital to begin a business born during the event. The site is birthing new ventures, relationships, commerce and networks of new communication and collaboration.”

Sounds amazing. And I’d be thrilled to attend. Unfortunately tickets are $425 — which is fairy reasonable considering the schedule/lineup/opportunities — but this is well-beyond my monthly discretionary income. Fortunately, tickets for the Monday night Social Gala go for $75 and include performances, presentations and a networking event. This sounds much more feasible… I’ll keep you posted.

- A.Rae

Fox is Next to Tap the Masses

This Just In:

Fox Broadcasting Company, yes the same Fox that brought us classic shows such as the Simpson’s, 24, and the Tick (well maybe not the latter), has partnered with crowdsourcing firm Passenger to build an on-line community around Fox shows and to help executives make more informed programming and marketing decisions.  Passenger will help Fox to analyze public response of pilot episodes, plot direction, character ratings throughout the development process.  This is not the first project Passenger has worked on with an entertainment studio.  They played a huge roll in helping LOST big wigs Damon Lindelof and Carton Cuse select which episodes would be submitted to Emmy voters.  Fox is hoping that Passenger can begin by helping to collect feedback on their upcoming fall schedule. 

Some studios have been reluctant to take the crowdsourcing route because of the constant monitoring of feedback required.  Lately however, many have been turning a corner so-to-speak, and recognizing that a focus group here in and there is simply not enough to gauge the public opinion.  Who knows, maybe with a little luck they’ll listen to this blogger’s voice and bring Elisha Cuthbert back on 24. 

 

-Paul B.

Leveraging the Power of Crowdsourcing

In the past couple of years, the term crowdsourcing has been thrown around quite a bit. Crowdsourcing, which was coined by Jeff Howe in 2006 Wired magazine article, refers to the act of taking an everyday task and outsourcing it to the masses in the form of an open call, hence crowd-sourcing. The idea here is that the voice and actions of many is ultimately better, or more efficient, than that of one person or company.

Recently, there have been several very public demonstrations of crowdsourcing within the corporate world. Powerhouses such as Kraft, Sony, Starbucks, Pepsi, and MasterCard have all utilized the public voice to drive their marketing campaigns. Even Apple recently purchased a consumer-generated advertisement from a college student (you may recall the “Music is my Boyfriend” iPhone commercial). The reality of today’s situation is this – traditional marketing outlets (i.e. Television, print, billboards) are becoming less effective on the generation that truly matters – Generation Y.  Gen Y is a tech savvy, Web 2.0, real-time answers needed group of individuals. They command their voices to be heard and lately many companies have been listening. So, as the number of crowdsourced tasks continue to increase, it will be very interesting to see how the voices of the corporations will echo the voices of the masses. More to come later…

-Paul B.