We Media Roundup: Storytellers caucus

For those who were unable to join the “Storytellers Caucus” at We Media this year, here’s some of what you missed: I started with a brief history of how our traditional ideas of story have proved a remarkable tool for making order out of the chaos of the world and our experiences in it. (PDF) […]

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How to predict the future

There has been a lot of discussion about the future. Specifically, a lot of that discussion has been based on statistics and anecdotes – the past. If predicting the future were based on the past. Prognostication would become merely a matter of extrapolation. As Rob Enderle correctly observed, in periods of great change, you can’t […]

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Assertions, evidence and ethics

A quick riff on Esther’s point about journalistic ethics: The problems of the world are too complex to be solved by ideologues and oversimplifications. The problem, of course, is that big media is perfectly suited – and actively organizing – for “the big story,” which becoming the simple story. At the same time, standards for […]

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The challenge of authenticity

As George Burns once said about authenticity, “if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” Current big media thinking seems uneasy with authenticy. This is dangerous because people are becoming more sensitive to it. They are seeking a proliferation of perspectives from different sources. Soccer moms looking for things to do with their kids, […]

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Serving shareholders or a democracy?

To riff on Howard Rheingold and Jay Harris’ point: This is the question news organizations need to ask first. Can the industry really expect ROI that’s 6x the average Fortune 500 company? Especially when everyone has the opportunity to become a global media entity on their own – and their doing it.

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