Peter van Djick opened the official program. He claims to be a bit nervous but he says he has some things to say. Here are my notes...
His main point is: We all have a vision, and we have it in a different way. This technology permits people to have a voice w/o needing to have a lot of money or to ask permission of others. Now, we have an opportunity to make it all happen, but its also not necessarily just going to happen. To make it happen we need (1) technology and (2) a certain kind fo culture.
- Technology is coming along... there's an ecology of hardware that is making it possible to let video go everywhere fairly cheaply.
- On the culture (content?) side, the stuff that's going to happen "just because" is the downloads of tv shows for $2 or the dog on the skate board videos. But the stuff about getting out there with our own voices, isn't going to happen "just because." It's going to require a certain culture.(Charlene example.). This culture of having a voice + not having to ask permission of anyone. This is what we are trying to build.
- Technological determinism: stuff happens b/c it was going to happen anyway (e.g., the internet happens because it was going to happen anyway). But Peter doesn't believe this.
- A lot of technology is being built, but if we don't put our values into it, it's not going to be that great. The technology and values are co-evolving.
Value points:
- (a) is popularity important? or is it important just that one likes it?
(b) using "neutral" technolgoy vs. non-neutral (RSS is not neutral...?)
(c) control and ownership through, for example, formats, linking, and business models: formats -- apple and ms control things through their formats; linking -- iTunes doesn't link back to the source blog for a particular blog; -- business models
In the end, we need to build in "our values" into the technology and the culture. If we don't, we'll have a boring world in 10 year. How to do this:
- (1) have a discussion about these values, determine what the values are
(2) email and write the companies and call them out, tell them what we want
(3) be a teacher - we're still a small group, so give people the feeling that they have the power to communicate these things.
Sum: fight the fights and get this done now. Right now, our influence is strong. If we wait, we lose the window of opportunity.
Quote from Ann: (this is from a French film maker Francois ??? from 1957): The film of tomorrow appears to me as even more personal than even .... the film of tomorrow will be an act of love." (Sorry, I don't type fast enough to capture the entire quote.)