Bridging Media, A Step in the Right Direction

On Saturday, the inaugural Bridging Media Conference took place, bringing together delegates from the worlds of digital media creation, film, broadcast and many other disciplines.

Organized by local digerati darlings Megan Cole and Erica Hargreave and held in the "Hangar" at the Masters of Digital Media program on the Great Northern Way campus, the goal of Bridging Media was to better align the talent and experience of both the broadcast worlds and that of "new media."The discussions throughout the day on the various panels did exactly what they set out to do; ask and answer some of the tough questions related to "Where do we go from here?" In that regard, I would call the day a tremendous success, in my humble opinion. At the close of the day, I was asked what I would like to see done differently next time around. Overall the event was just right in most ways: size, content, format, and the fact that they sevred Vera's burger's for lunch! Yummmy. If there was something that needed changing, it was the diversity of folks in the audience, which I'm quite sure is no fault of the organizers. For an event meant to bridge the gap between the broadcast and online worlds, there seemed to be a noticeable lack of folks from the broadcast side, aside from a few producers who already had a great understanding of web content and how to leverage it. And I'm not afraid to say it- it's the folks from mainstream broadcast who needed the information and discussion the most.

I was invited to sit in on a panel entitled "Monetize, Monetize, Monetize," and prepared myself for a contentious discussion about how the current broadcast/advertising system has been broken by the web, and we need to figure out a better model to support the true value of content on the web. I didn't exactly articulate that point as well as I had hoped (isn't that always the case?) and I was quickly reigned in by the bright and inquisitive audience. Thankfully my brilliant co-presenters had plenty to add about other ways of adding value to various forms of content. And thus concludes my passive apology for spending too much time talking about advertising, when the crowd wanted to know more about ways to continue to make money off of their art.

I'm glad to have attended the Bridging Media Conference, I think it's a great idea that needs a lot more attention and a lot more discussion, so I sincerely hope that the organizers are keen to continue the discussion in subsequent forums. If there was one thing that we accomplished as a group on the weekend it was asking a lot of the right questions and I for one think we should reconvene until we have them all answered.

Bravo, Megan and Erica!