Flee The Fishbowl and Re-EMBED in Reality

July 15, 2007 · Comments

the chefIt’s come to me: the answer to what’s been bugging me for weeks. I’ve had this kind of malaise about new media, this kind of “podcasting is too insular” feeling. This stretches to video, audio, and even most blogs- even mine. It was/is feeling too much like preaching to the converted. And yet, I wasn’t thinking we should all just throw it away. So here it is (and you can “well, DUH!” me in comments):

New Media is a Tool

Podcasting, blogging, videoblogging: they are all just ways to communicate information. So are newspapers, television shows, and radio stations. So, what are the differences?

With new media tools, you have the ability to create your own media, distribute it, promote it- all in an open system, where everyone can have access to what you consider useful. A tool. That’s it. Not a movement. The movement is the fact these tools are now here. Whoopti-do. Pat your backs. Now, get to work.

Learn the Tools

Just like journalism, learning how to tell a better story, write a better blog, shoot more compelling video is a lifelong effort. If you love this process, learning how to improve your ability to tell a compelling story and build relationships through your digital media of choice, then you’re on the right road.

It’s cool that you CAN be a hack and still get some distribution, but it’s not enough to stay useful, interesting, or worth someone giving their attention. Learn. Build your skills, and grow from there.

Then re-EMBED

This is the revelation part. There should be explosions, flashing sounds, those kinds of queues in movies that tell you, “Hey! Popcorn chin! Pay attention here!”

Get out of the fishbowl. Go back to where your skills can be useful. Work. The Community. Your Family. Your neighborhood. Don’t just stick around with the other new media types.

It’d be like a bunch of firefighters just hanging around in a gym getting stronger. It’d be like watching the Justice League always just hanging out in their secret hideout polishing their batarangs or whatever. The point is: build your capabilities, then go out and USE THEM on something pertinent to something OTHER THAN new media.

We are the Fishbowl

We are the media. Got it. Yep. Now, go out and BE the media. Do something. Cover something. Make the world a brighter and more connected place by bringing the stories from the NON-new media enabled, non Web 2.0 spaces.

Assign yourself a new beat. Give yourself a new area to cover. And here’s a trick: extra points if this new area helps others (in whatever way works for you). Instead of a podcast about parties in Second Life, maybe a podcast about getting the most out of Second Life for small town businesses. Instead of a videoblog about all the conferences you attend (like mine?), maybe a series of video how-to guides, or video travel guides.

What Would Change for You?

What’s your blog/podcast/videoblog/whatever cover? What are you contributing right now? Is it useful to something outside the echo chamber? Does it help people NOT already inside the fishbowl nodding their heads in agreement?

Examples of non-fishbowl podcasts, video sites, blogs:

I could probably come up with more were I not offline while writing this. You might recommend others in the comments for me? But you get the point. It’s not about the bike. It’s not about the band. It’s not the fishbowl.

Use your tools in the EMBEDDED world you already live in. Take what you know how to do and find the REAL stories, the real useful stuff, the real “make a difference in the world” stuff.

Because it’s not being created in Hollywood or New York or Wellington or London or Tokyo. It’s coming straight outta you. The new stuff. The real stuff will be YOUR production teaching us something astounding. And I’ll tell you now that almost everything I do at PodCamp Boston2 will be on this theme. So be ready.

What’s your take?

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  • beckymccray
    Chris, I'm glad this came to you! You are dead on, as you know.

    This is why I write for and try to reach the OFFLINE small town entrepreneurs, why I promote to outside publications like Community Developer, why I submit occasional news items to Now Public, and why I went to Greensburg, Kansas.

    To me, the importance of the tool is related to how you use it.
  • Jon
    well, yeah.

    That's really what you've been teaching many of us all along. You just never get to see the results. Of course often, neither do we.
  • beckymccray
    And ironically, Jon Swanson is the perfect example! (right after me!) ;)
  • Funny to me that two real world offline examples of what I'm saying are the first two to comment on the post. Two super cool new media types who use these tools in small town America.

    Yeah. : )
  • Well, DUH! No, seriously, right on! I started blogging because I wanted to be a better communicator in real life. I'm happy to say it's working better than I ever could have hoped. :)
  • Aha; part of why I'm trying to convert my email correspondents & random Second Life people to facebook, twitter, and other tools they'd love once they got comfortable with them.

    But part of this campaign to promote new media has to include helping these folks over the initial hesitation, not simply preaching the mantra we're already so comfortable with. We've got to take the extra step to help them feel a part of the new thing we're asking them to do.

    Whatever works for us is OK, but pushing ourselves outside our comfort zone wouldn't be a bad idea. Let's blur our own boundaries for a change.

    It used to be - and often still is - the case that podcasters hang out with other podcasters; bloggers with other bloggers; and people in yahoo groups hang out with their group members too. Never the twain shall meet? Not if I can do anything to help muddy up those well defined lines.
  • I like the fishbowl. In the fishbowl I've exchanged more unexpected and interesting ideas and conversation with people I'd never get to meet outside it.

    But there are lots of us who are "in the fishbowl" for what's there - interesting people, connections ideas.

    And there are more than a few of us who bring what we have to offer, take what the fishbowl offers back, and then go make it all useful.

    Thanks, Chris as always, for reminding us that there's a point to all of this. And it's not in the publishing of content, but in the use of it.

    Please keep posting incredible ideas (when you're not busy making something from them!).
  • Well, I suppose my response is two fold. As far as the main "new media" I'm involved in, the Mayhem Show, we're simply catering to an audience in entertainment. We have opinions, and amusing ideas, and I'd like to think we've influenced a good bit, especially recently after all the positive feedback from how we "handled" the Chris Benoit situation on the show. I'd not political, or earth moving, but it is to this sect. Maybe we're just preaching to another "fishbowl" But maybe we're also converting, or re-converting those that aren't as huge into wrestling as we are. Either way, there's conversation going on. New faces, new influences....

    Then on the other hand, we also have a hand in some hip hop community locally here in Pittsburgh/Tri state area. We've "relaunched" all of the media I'm involved with under a "label" Deface Marketing, that's been around for years. And we're getting involved with, and trying to assist, other artists in the area and beyond through our network. Artist interviews, show bookings, etc. We're trying to meet the New Media with the old head hip hop guys that don't know how a myspace can help them, hopefully. It's been a success of sorts for my own band through our video segments on monkeyflingspoo.com, featuring our friends and acquaintances we play with, not just us or those on our label. We just did a cable access filming, and I'd love to help this girl do more to get the word and the artists out there via Pittsburgh and beyond, like we've been striving for.

    It's not world social economics, but it's earthmoving for some people involved, I'm sure.
  • Awesome post, and it is spot on. I'm feeling a lot of the same stuff about a start-up I'm developing in terms of bringing web2.0/new media techniques to more traditional businesses, so this post is absolutely great. Thanks for the insight as always.
  • just got here from twitter. chris, as if you are EVER 'full of it'. :P
  • Amen!

    Almost every Minnesota Story video appeals to come community, most of them *not* a new media community but a physical world community, a community of interest.
  • When I first heard this fish bowl theory it was via podcasting.. sorta podcast centric. Anyway, here's some of my thoughts.

    #1 There is some group think to the fish bowl.. I think a lot of that is do to a lack of diversity.. social economic ethnicity sex... Too many white guys of a certain age who are into tech with certain career ambitions.

    #2 This social media is still in a an experimental mode, a side effect being that its a little less approachable to a newbie then it might be if it where a more streamlined thing. I'm not sure if this is a bad thing.. I mean shouldn't we still be collectively inventing this stuff? It's maybe just the life cycle of the space...

    #3 For podcasting it would probably be nice if there was something simpler on the PC side.. that came with your computer, like iTunes does on the Mac..

    #4 A big part of the perceived value of content has to do with the presentation of the content.. and even folks who are often called "a listers" have presentations that ether scream "DIY" or aren't real competitive with what big media seems to be doing. I think there's a level on which the DIY aesthetic can makes the voice of your content seem more authentic.. but my guess is that people who aren't yet tuned into social media... this probably impedes there consumption.

    #5 Related to #2: A lot of people who I talk about social media to, who are not currently consumers, are perhaps interested but don't know where to begin. There seems to be an absence of starting points that are real approachable for newbies.

    #6 Social media folks might benefit from better promotional skills: My shtick has always been to synthesize guerilla marketing, pr, and publicity skills, with the kinda old school internet strategy stuff, and the more new media / social media strategy stuff. Inside the social media space the "new media / social media strategy stuff" is, if not common knowledge, at least not too hard to come by.. the old school internet stuff is perhaps not as common, and the kinds of marketing, pr, and publicity stuff of the guerrilla is nearly unknown. The more that new media folks know this stuff the faster the audience is likely to grow.

    #7 Social Media represents a fundamental shift with huge disruptive implications who's long term implications are probably much deeper and more far reaching then even most futurists are yet fathoming, at least in my opinion. I believe its a kin to a shift from Newtonian Physics to Quantum theory: It's like moving from a Platonic conception of the transcendent to a Buddhist conception.. Here we are talking about the very foundations of civilization.. things that underly the conceptual frameworks we use to understand reality. There is the question of nature versus nurture.. how do you distinguish between the the roll of nature and custom in understanding a people.. in understanding an identity? There are certain historical forces that where swept into our world.. from the Reformation, the French Revolution, Industrialization, Globalization... all of which had fundamental implications to the organizational principles of human civilization. What are the long term implications of moving from the Dewy Decimal system for organizing information to meta data.. folksonomies, etc? If innovation comes from a resynthesis of formally desperate fields of knowledge, what does that mean in relationship to the web 2.0 mash up? Particularly if this is fundamental to the future of web application architecture...

    We fish bowl dwellers, the New Media Vanguard, are still only dimly perceiving this stuff.. our understand seems to me to be shallow.

    At any rate, we are creating a new environment for which to live, for which to evolve into, to evolve to us.. we do not understand the long term demands this will place on us or how, exactly, to meet those demands. Many of us cry out "there's too much information," but much of this seems to me have more to do with the transitions in our own attitudes toward how to live and think about these things.. in just how to understand reality. This jump, it seems to me, is one that intimidates not a few people.. and is a part of what's slowing the transition.

    #8 The tipping point just hasn't quite happened yet.
  • Chris,

    Lately I've been having problems in my start-up. I'm learning the new media on the fly and falling on my face time and again. Just today I had to scrap my website and start over. I started wondering if this is worth it?

    Then I read your post.

    I have a beat I want to cover and things I can do. It's small and very niche, but it's something I'm passionate about. And you've just shown me that I'm on the right track after all.

    Thank you for that.
  • I have always looked at my podcasts and my blogging as a teaching and education tool, not for new media types, but for parents and people looking for a channel of information that can be very hard to find and triage quality information from the crap. The Consumer Reports model, as I'm fond of saying.
    What can I add to the conversation? My Voice, my real world experiences, my discussions with experts in the field.
    The conversations within the new media fishbowl are attempts to promote my activities with other people who are creating channels of content, to get better at what I do as a media producer, and to hang out with my collegues, so to speak, with similar interests and passions.
    And I find when I get more fascinated with the "toys" than the content, something is always bringing me back to the cor message-Stick to the topic, and your best outreach is a passionate listener who you can help.
    This shouldn't be about doing things to amuse ourselves, only- it should be about making a bigger diference in the world- that gives people something they both need and want, rather than something that just passes the time. And as a result, a revenue model follows.
    Simple things like the downloadable magazine we're trying to put together for GNM Parents is yet another example of how you can take online offline. We'll see how the experiement works, but I'm hoping it helps online people share why they should care about our blog to their offline friends. That's community outreach as well.
    What do you think, CB? Will/can/should it work?
  • One of the things that I love about living in South Africa is that some of the smallest efforts make HUUUUGE changes in people's lives.
    Podcamp Cape Town will pickup on lots of good lessons and apply them here. Our angle has a lot to do with how we can spread the good outside of the tech community.
    Mobile is the preferred platform for connecting online; so producing quality content for users waaaay out of our fishbowl is an exciting challenge.
    (I'm going to be talking about a fresh approach to education as edutainment through social media! yipppeeee)
  • Equally important - know when it's time to go back to the fishbowl, albeit briefly, to recharge, reload, everything that a vigilante would do in a batcave.

    But yes, PodCamp Boston 2 should have a strong theme of - "Welcome! Now get out."
  • Amy
    I dropped by to review some of your notes on attending conferences but have been sidetracked by this post. So while I am going into a relatively new fishbowl next weekend, in between then I am going to be doing some educating.

    On Thursday, I will be co-teaching a class on podcasting, blogs and wikis to public school teachers from rural Vermont. I'm going to focus on finding podcasts that match individual interests, and using Audacity to create new ones in a class setting. The focus can't be on the technology, it must be on the content. Then the question becomes not, how do I do this, but how do I use the content available to tell an interesting and relevent story.

    (btw, I'd love to hear from your readers what they think are your best posts getting the most out of attending conferences)
  • Chris, one of the best things you asked your readers to do last week was to introduce 5 people to blogs or podcasts that would connect with in some way. That was great.

    Taking what we know and love about new media and sharing it with those who don't understand it will be the tipping point. Start facing the crowd instead of each other will push the platform and technology to the next level.
  • Lan Bui posted a great comment on my blog on this same topic:

    "Next video blog event I put on will require all existing video bloggers to bring one non video blogger with them to attend."

    Genius.

    http://www.ericrice.com/blog/2007/07/16/the-pro...
  • Just the kind of nudge I needed this morning -

    "Go back to where your skills can be useful. "

    How often we forget that part..
  • LEMills
    You mean, it's not all about me?
    It's about time!
    -L.
  • It's not that the fishbowl is bad. If that's what you're thinking, you missed the story, young grasshopper. The story is this: go to the fishbowl, learn, drink the water, and THEN go back out and use this in the real world.

    You can't STAY here. You have to visit, refresh, and go out.

    Otherwise, the bad guys win.
  • sorry i'm a bit late to the party, chris, but i've been out and about in the "real world" this week. :P

    my passion has always been music, not only making it, but discovering other's music and sharing it. podcasting has been the perfect medium for me to do what i love best. my first podcast was created to help promote my band, lovespirals, but i quickly found that i could help other bands through our experiences.

    starting my music podcast, the chillcast, opened up new avenues to get involved. there's the obvious promotion of new releases, of course, but i've found that artist feature interviews and even just contests are making a big impact for the artists. plus, as my show reaches a wider audience, it draws in more recording artists to the concept of podcasting. not only have i been able to help small bedroom bands get their music onto the internet and heard on podcasts, but i've inspired major label artists, like lol tolhurt, to start their own podcasts.

    i often wonder how many folks from outside the fishbowl are hearing about my podcasts, since most comments come from my peers, but i feel confident that as time goes on, more and more music fans will be discovering the joy of podcasts through the bands that are featured on the shows. some of the people that come to hear their favorite band are bound to stick around for future episodes. and when they do stick around, they'll start learning about the wonderful world of "underground" music and "podsafe music" and everything that goes along with that.

    ttys--
    anji
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