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Thursday, February 15, 2007
Weinberger on Rails 
| | I'm at a meeting where Dr. Weinberger just said he was "train lagged", having just arrived in DC by Amtrak from Boston. The timing was wrong to utter the headline above, so I thought Wtf, I'll blog it. |
How relating can transcend merely buying
| | Let's ignore the record companies for a minute. Instead, lets look behind them, back up the supply chain, to the first sources of music: the artists. Part of the system we need is already built for these sources, through Creative Commons. By this system, creative sources can choose licenses that specify the freedoms carried by their work, and also specify what can and cannot be done with that work. These licenses are readable by machines as well as by lawyers. That's a great start on the supply side. |
| | Now let's look at the same work from the demand side. What can we do -- as music lovers, or as customers -- to find, use, and even pay for, licensed work? Some mechanisms are there, but nothing yet that is entirely in our control -- that reciprocates and engages on the demand side what Creative Commons provides on the supply side. |
| | Yes, we can go to websites, subscribe to music services, use iTunes or other supply-controlled intermediating systems and deal with artists inside those systems. But there still isn't anything that allows us to deal directly, on our own terms, with artists and their intermediaries. Put another way, we don't yet have the personal means for establishing relationships with artists. |
| | The essay is about establishing those means. I wish I had time to write more before meeting with NPR today, but I ran out of time. (That's life, isn't it? From birth onward we're running out of time. Like having a tank with an unknown sum of gas.) |
| | Meanwhile, some of the other stuff I've written about public radio over the years... |
District of Connections
| | So I'm sitting Euan Semple in a Starbucks at New York and 10th in frozen, slush-crusted Washington, talking about the role of connections and participation in every enterprise. |
| | Reminds me of sitting in a Starbucks in St. George, Utah a few weeks ago with Steve Urquhuart, talking about the same thing. |
| | Steve made a point that will stick with me for the duration. I can't quote him verbatim (and I hope he steps in and corrects me if I'm misremembering this), but what he said was this: Politics is not about money, though it may appear that way. Money is just a by-product of connections. The problem of money in politics is actually a problem with our democracy itself: not enough citizens are connected with their governments — at least not in a direct and effective way. In that vaccuum, the few privileged with connections have the most influence. But now that we have the Net as a platform for all of civilization, there's no reason why we can't create means for productive connections between citizens and their representatives, plus the service professionals that also comprise their governing bodies. The challenge is to create means for participation by citizens and accountability by representatives. In other words, making democracy work. |
| | Now the job is helping public broadcasting get better connected with its constituencies. That's what I'll be doing for the next week and a half. Today I'm in town as a guest of NPR. So are Euan, David Weinberger, Jay Rosen, Jeff Jarvis and others. We've been encouraged by host/liaison Andy Carvin to blog about it. I see Andy is already doing that. |
| | Next week I'll be at the IMA proceedings in Boston, where a high point will come Thursday, when I'll be on stage with Dave Winer, helping the big guy give some of his wisdom to a crowd that clearly needs it (and already relies on tech and practices that Dave pioneered). Dave Sifry will be weighing in earlier in the week too. Much of this will happen through the auspices of the Berkman Center, which is running Beyond Broadcast a week from Saturday. |
| | Anyway, the message I'll be bringing is one I got from Steve. It's about participation. Engagement. Seems to me that public broadcasting is way too long on policy and bureaucracy and way too short on engagement. The WNYC spam Dave wrote about a couple days ago is a perfect example of a system that has no idea how to actually relate to customers. I listen to WNYC every morning — among a variety of other stations. And I hate the way the station insists on running a commercial message (usually from the New School) or pitching me on something-or-other as soon as I tune in. I pay WNYC not to be a commercial station, not to behave like its lessers on the radio dial. |
| | I'll be putting up some ideas about how to facilitate better participation. Like to hear yours too. I'll pass them along. |
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