By now we’re surely all familiar with the details:  the aging I5 Bridge collapsed at about 7:00 PM this evening after being hit by an oversized truck.  Happily, there were no fatalities, and the three people whose vehicles were discharged into the Skagit River have been rescued and two are recovering in a local hospital.

Thanks to Twitter, the big networks had nothing on BuzzFeed News

How you heard about this incident and what you discovered are as individual as you are.  We no longer share a uniform exposure to news media – we are living in the digital age, and anyone can broadcast and re-broadcast their own version of events to an ever-wider audience.  You may have heard about the bridge collapse on your car radio or seen it on your Twitter or Facebook feeds. 

If your first or dominant source of news has been social media, you’ve taken in multiple opinions and commentaries from other observers.  And – you’ve had equal opportunity to post, tweet, retweet, favorite, or comment on the posts of others.  You may have been overwhelmed at the enormous volume of breaking news; distracted and seduced by rabbit-hole vistas into the story.

Confused about who to follow?  The Puget Sound Business Journal’s Emily Parkhurst lost little time in publishing a guide for who and what (in terms of hashtags) to follow.   You may have your own personal favorite news sources.

King 5′s Facebook page pushes crowd sourced investigation

One of the big differences from news-gathering today is the availability of quick updates from professional first responders on the ground.  News watchers tonight had ample opportunity to hear from people really in the know – like Trooper Mark Francis, the official Washington State Patrol District 7 Public Information Officer, whose Twitter feed allows him more than 24/7 air time to broadcast.  It gives him access to us.  Increasing use of social media allows public officials to crowd source investigations as we’re seeing on King 5 TV’s Facebook page.

At some point though, some of us may have wondered just how much we need to know.  The multiple images of twisted steel and sadly listing cars in the river – fascinating, at first.  That 20^th image may be superfluous.  The urge to get drawn into online discussions about the many related issues is a related danger to personal news and time management.  Or is it a valuable opportunity?

Clearly, we’re still figuring it out when it comes to social media and breaking news.  Our options continue to increase and so do the chances to get it wrong.  Tempted to add your voice to the mix?  Even in the wild west of social media, there are best practices.  My colleague Ana Visneski, a Coast Guard Public Information officer recently recounted these in her post following the Boston Marathon tragedy:  .

 Tonight we’re relieved that everyone is safe, and concerned about the impact of a broken major traffic route on the eve of a holiday weekend.  We’ll have no shortage of information as we navigate the situation.  Navigating social media may be our biggest challenge.

How have you stayed up to date on this situation?  We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Hive of content-related job titles
Image supplied by the author

This hive can be an eye-opener, especially if you thought that creating effective content only involves writing and posting to the Web.
But as anyone who’s ever looked for a content-related position knows, job titles aren’t exactly standardized—a “Producer” in one organization might be in charge of shooting, editing, and posting video content, while elsewhere the role could be focused on entering content into a content management system and then distributing it on a wide variety of platforms and channels.
Fuzzy job titles are problematic for job seekers and recruiters, but also for internal and external clients. They have a content-related request…but who is responsible?
It needs to be posted on the website, so I talk to…the Web Producer?
It’s a marketing brochure…the Marketing Manager?
I want to post this on Facebook and Twitter…the Community Manager?
It needs a short paragraph…the Web writer?
All of the above…the Content Strategist?

You can’t expect a client or collaborator to be familiar with your team’s idiosyncratic organizational structure.
Within a team, too, confusion around responsibilities often reigns. Mere job titles don’t help individual team members understand how their work fits into the overall efforts of the team. Even the people you collaborate with most closely are probably working on a slew of tasks you aren’t aware of, some of which may impact your joint project work.
Job titles also don’t help much with assigning new projects that don’t fall into predefined job descriptions, which can lead to much unproductive time spent on fights over new territory.
A hive of content tasks
Instead of a hive consisting of job titles, it can be useful to consider the content responsibilities your team takes on. For instance, a marketing and communications team may be expected to handle these functions:

Hive legend
Image supplied by the author

Content planning and strategy

Content creation

Web production and content distribution

Web and mobile development and project management
Online marketing, advertising, and analytics

Internal communication

PR

This hive visualizes how various tasks associated with content interact with each other.

Content Responsibilities Hive
Image supplied by the author

Planning and strategy responsibilities should inform what content is created and when, what core branding messages the content should convey, and how the content that’s created should be managed, promoted, tracked, and analyzed to create a virtuous learning cycle in which content becomes more closely synched with the needs of users and potential clients, as well as with the organization’s business goals.

Internal communication and managing media relationships may seem tangential content responsibilities, but are core pieces of the hive and content should be planned, created, and managed to accommodate their needs. Web and mobile development and project management , finally, determine how fast and in what formats and what platforms content can be published.
Assessing and redefining roles
Once you determine your content responsibility set—which will depend on business goals and what your clients need and expect from you—the next step is to determine for each of these functions who should be involved, and which elements are not adequately staffed.
It can also be helpful to look at individual contributors to determine what exactly they are working on within this set of responsibilities. You may find that some positions are very narrowly circumscribed, while others span a wide range of responsibilities.

This post was produced as part of the UW Comm Department’s undergraduate Entrepreneurial Journalism course.

By Hailey Way
Bleary eyed and in a hurry, I walk over the footbridge that passes near the Henry Art Gallery. My pace slowed as I began to hear voices in front of the gallery, and surprisingly, my reflection on a LCD monitor. The digital chatter diminished to one voice as I approached closer and stood still. Unknowingly, I was participating in an interactive installation, which unites social media and surveillance film.

A contemporary art piece has been turning heads of people passing by on their way to the University of Washington campus. Fusing sound with video, the artwork is illustrating a collaborative way to bring narrative to our social media use. “Sample interaction of the artwork with the university community”, or Sanctum, was developed by two artists, James Coupe and Juan Pampin, both faculty within the Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) program at the UW. The work is a combined effort of Coupe’s expertise in social media and video surveillance installations and Pampin’s forte in the mixed media realm of digital and instrumental sound composition.

The artists Juan Pampin (left) and James Coupe (right). Photo credit: Hailey Way

A high traffic area, the overpass near the Henry is a crossroads for a variety of people that will shift over the installation’s two and a half year duration.
“The opportunity to use a public space is challenging and intriguing. Public art has the ability to go out into the people. It’s not a passive piece, it challenges people to come in and interact with it,” said Juan Pampin.

The presence of the piece is to use technologies that we don’t normally acknowledge, such as surveillance, but are among us. There are 18 screens on the façade of the Henry that are filming multiple directions within the courtyard. In this public space, the installation is engaging in private lives of participants who decide to interact.

In Sohrab Andaz’s article for The Daily, Juan mentioned concerns many expressed about the surveillance.

“People entered the museum and started complaining, ‘I don’t want to be videotaped,’” Pampin said. “But in reality, if you don’t want to be videotaped, you probably can’t go out of your house.” (The Daily)

Along with the surveillance, if an individual approaches 12 feet away from the gallery, their presence is calibrated. Remain stationary for long enough, the observer will be listening to a story, a synthesis of statuses.

One of the many status updates. Photo credit: Hailey Way

The written narratives that appear as people approach the screens are fuelled by Facebook status updates. Those who want to participate can sign up here. The Facebook app requires your age and gender; participants will otherwise remain anonymous. After 90 days of participation, the database will send an e-mail asking of your continuation. If you decide to deny the renewal, your demographics will be removed from the system.

“It will be interesting to see it evolve over the two and a half years; to observe various behaviors over time… these are expert users of social media,” said James Coupe.

As an observer of Sanctum, I decided to sign up for the Facebook app. A simple click of a button and I was taken on trip down memory lane. After the “thank you for joining” page, I was faced with a list of status updates dating all the way back to 2009 up until late 2012. The database would then extract any number of these phrases, or a combination of them, to fit with any female in her early 20’s that approaches the façade of the Henry.

“Sanctum aims to single people out of the crowd to work with these notions of private and public space, and to use other individual narratives based on demographic similarities by people walking by,” Coupe said. “It will be interesting to see over the course of the two and a half years, how many people remain tethered to this work. But for now, the more the merrier.”

As Facebook acquires more people to participate, the database grows. The cameras on the façade narrow in on one person, if they approach close enough, and will attempt to match their demographics with someone similar from the database. Various statuses appear according to the most likely matches, and an extraction of stories emerges.

“People are intrigued. They don’t think about the data processing that goes on behind the scenes when they use social media. Messages are collected on Facebook and surveillance cameras collect demographic profiles. So, we are using these technologies to create a node or a place where they can coexist, and you are the center of it,” Pampin said.

Sanctum interacting with an observer. Photo credit: R.J. Sánchez, Solstream Studios

Coupe discussed profiling as coexisting with narrative construction. Each story can be unique depending on the physical match with the status description.

“Narratives are based on a story or a scenario. This combination of demographic features suggests a particular story,” Coupe said.

In essence, with the ubiquitous amount of statuses that emerge, numerous combinations are procured to tell an enticing story to the observer. Next time you walk by the Henry Art Gallery, take a step closer, and listen to the voices around you.

A sparkling evening at Wine World
Photo by Amy Rainey

How do you spark lively conversation, meaningful professional connections and new ideas? In one all-too short evening? An un-conference just might be the way to go, especially when marshmallows and spaghetti are a part of the mix.

The MCDM Fellows have taken their responsibilities as Cohort 12 mentors seriously throughout this academic year, holding boot-camp style workshops and regularly connecting with the incoming cohort to answer questions. With Saturday night’s MCDM Connect event, they collectively rose to a lighter sort of occasion and hosted alumni, current, and incoming students for the first-ever MCDM Connect at Wine World. Over wine and hors d’oeuvres, attendees networked and explored career paths. Formality was out. It was all about cutting to the chase and focusing on connections and ideas.

Alums Peter Luyckx and Jordan Slaymaker admire their “disruptive” tower
Photo by Anita Verna Crofts

And how do marshmallows and spaghetti figure into a tech-intensive, media-savvy professional mixer? Early in the evening, unsuspecting MCDMers gathered around cocktail tables in groups of 5 to 6. Each team was handed a packet of 20 pieces of uncooked spaghetti, 1 yard of string, 1 yard of tape, and 1 marshmallow. The challenge: build the highest freestanding tower possible in 12 minutes with only those materials, with the marshmallow on top.

The Marshmallow Challenge famously fosters collaboration and innovation. Although the structures created at Wine World on Saturday night were measured for height, the unexpected directions taken by some teams were appreciated.

Evan Westenberger shows off a 3-D printer
Photo by Scott Macklin

A series of 30-minute conversation groups sprang up in each corner of the room where we explored provocative topics as diverse as 3-D printers, the potential for an MCDM student consulting, leveraging the MDCM degree, Death and Social Media, and much more.  Those wishing to explore a new technology could move beyond 3-D printing to dig into gestural computing. From new topics in journalism (how media covers breaking news) to information diets, a broad sweep of topics was explored.

“Lightning talks” – 5-minute on a variety of subjects were presented by anyone who had the expertise and the inclination to share knowledge and inspiration.

Hard choices had to be made between “Moving Mountains – Lessons Learned from Organizational Change”, “Content Murder on the Orient Express”, and “Online Marketing: A Use for Every Marketer”. Several of these were given or moderated by Fellows, but advance signups were open to everyone with expertise to share.

Fellows (l-r) Randy Leslein, Dean Hudson, and Amy Rainey with alum Mary Perkins
Photo by Anita Verna Crofts

For the MCDM Fellows – Amy Rainey, Dean Hudson, Evan Westenberger, Beth Koemans, Pam Kahl, Randy Leslein, and Kat Schroeder – this event was the culmination of a year of supporting the incoming cohort. MCDM alums and current students know each other a better now and new ideas are now being further explored.

The hard work of planning is over, but for those who made new connections or jumped on the bandwagon of an upstart idea, it’s just beginning.

Do you have a moment to share from last Saturday’s evet? An insight, or perhaps an idea that sprang from MCDM Connect? Let us know!

Stressed out after a long week? Gravity be gone – we’re off to the moon with Chris Hadfield, who returned with his Russian and American colleagues on Monday night.  Yes, Hadfield is Canadian.  Who else would take a guitar into space?  He also soars in his use of social media – were you one of the nearly 1,000,000 following him on Twitter last week?

Skychurch Screen (Photo: EMP Facebook Page)

As described on the EMP website, this exhibition was a way to “Explore 40 years of visual effects, creative storytelling, and technological innovation in video games through hands-on gaming consoles and interviews with the artists, producers, and designers that defined the genre and brought new electric meaning to the word ‘game’.”From Pac-man to Bioshock, from card games to influential speakers, at the closing night of this extensive exhibition there was something for every genre of nerd to enjoy.

All smiles in the Portal Room
(Photo courtesy EMP’s Facebook page)

In the Sky church, attendees lined up to battle it out at Madden, Old School Donkey Kong and a myriad of other games on massive floor to ceiling screens. One could also get a lil liquid courage, participate in an epic 10 person Bomberman match, or just hang back, people watch post on Reddit.

Not into big crowds? It’s cool, they had you covered. For a more private gaming experience, you could head down to the portal room and get your game fix on a smaller screen in one of the many stalls separated with Zelda-esque metal acanthus walls.

Cozied up in the Portal Room
(Photo Credit: EMP Facebook Page)

In addition to games, it was here in the basement that you could jump in the “Scream Booth” for a spooked set of photo booth style pictures, play with perception in front of the transformative monster maker to cast a shadow of a different kind or check out some sweet game art.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you weren’t into gaming onsite, there were also a handful of live talks to attend that ran the line from game history, to game creation to mobile games.  For the truly non-social, the exhibition featured 20 kiosks where one could simply slip on some headphones and learn about the ins & out of video games like Super Mario Brothers 3, The Legend of Zelda, The Battle of Midway and whole slew of others.

If you didn’t make it to the exhibition, shame on you. It was awesome.

Anyhoo, we are really excited about this weekend’s MCDM Connect event–the first of the Fellows’ party offerings to the newly-christened CommLead community. Wine World is the place to be on Saturday, where we’ll eat, drink, make merry, and–of course!–have a little digital fun. We want you all to come and meet new people and make new connections within the community.

We also want you to participate! It’s not hard, and we promise you’ll have fun. Have 5-10 minutes of passion or expertise on a topic? Give a Lightning Talk! Want to interact with a smallish group and actually delve into something that interests you? Sign up with an idea for a group discussion! We don’t want slides, grand presentations, or extensive coverage–what we want is people to come and interact with other people about aspects of digital media that they love–bring your topic, and we’ll give you the time and space to chat it up.

Click here for the RSVP link to the event.

So, fill out the form below, come to the party, and Connect with us. We’ll see you on Saturday!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/11dYAr-gtSTyC5rGjNbC4reXi8HQ0Xe42L7RqL8cpUtI/viewform