Watershed Radio

 An exciting public radio project is blending new and traditional media systems to highlight the important concept that environmental issues are vital to people irrespective of the governing lines we draw on maps. 

Tackling River Traffic Pollution
Report by Ann Murray (Listen Below)

Shared reporting planned for Ohio Basin ecosystem from Current.org reports on Louisville's Public Media WFPL the driving force behind the Ohio River Radio Consortium.  Additionally the article reviews how the Consortium is incorporating public education, conference events, and stories to tell the stories of the Ohio river ecosystem.

“What we’re trying to do is raise awareness of the fact that environmental issues don’t stop at state borders,” said Kristin Espeland Gourlay, managing editor at WFPL. “What we put into the air from power plants in Louisville flows north and east, and run-off from a farm in Pittsburgh runs down stream to Cincinnati and Cairo, Ill.”

The project, which was turned down for funding by CPB’s initiative supporting local journalism centers, is moving ahead after securing grants from three foundations. It will produce on-air and online reporting from journalists throughout the watershed that reaches from New York to Tennessee.

Gov 2.0 Camp

Organic conference organizing is alive and well.  Gov 2.0 Camp being held at one of my favorite Washington D.C. High Schools, Duke Ellington School for the Performing Arts, is a two day gathering that brings together the best minds in government and new media.

The conference, or un-conference itself is a representation of the great capabilities of the professionals at the conference.  From Toronto to Seattle to Washington DC, from CTOs to application developers, arrive to a conference where the agenda prior to the event is not set.  In the morning attendees, all 2 or 300 of them, arrive to propose topics and ideas for the day.  Once everyone proposes the session ideas for the day, organized chaos the likes of the Wall Street floor ensues, as people buy and sell ideas to merge sessions into compact sessions.

What's amazing to see in this dynamic environment is the representatives from government agencies as far and wide as the Navy, Air Force, EPA, Voice of America, the White House, Organizing for America, the City of Seattle, Washington DC Metro, Department of Defense.  There is no doubt new web strategies for government were on the road to the District prior to the arrival of the new administration. However, with the success of the latest political campaign and agencies in 2008 to leverage web strategies for successful impact, web 2.0 or what ever you want to call the new media world, has definitely set up camp inside the beltway.  My hope is that it brings real change to people outside the beltway.

"The Dig" on Coffee Shop Marketing

Check out other Photos by Thomas Hawk on Flickr

Discovering a New Band the Old Fashioned Way

We've all been there. The coffee shop bulletin board. Free guitar lessons, a new room mate needed (fill in your long list of what you need in a person), a bed for sale, the next big little concert, jobs to save the environment (and get paid too!), and a realtor's business card. Times are tough for these posting boards. The internet has taken over and replaced them. Actually BB's were some of the first active places on the early dial up ISPs. So BB's at your local coffee shop are dead, right?

Maybe not. As the dirge of information increases online, bulletin boards at local coffee shops, (you'll notice most Starbucks and other chain shops don't have BBs) have a unique opportunity to serve as what modern day advertisers might call, "viral distribution centers."

Sure there is an overwhelmingly amount of useless information. Most people though, look because they are curious and sometimes, you find a golden nugget. Which I did on Saturday at the coffee shop.

Waiting for my cup of 21 de Septiembre coffee at Big Bear Cafe in Washington, DC, I noticed a stack of blank TDK CD's with red marker writing on each disk placed on the shelf sitting next to the board games. Curious to find out if someone had left their collection of CDRW disks lying around I picked up one of the discs and started to investigate. THE DIG, LIVE AT THE BLACKCAT, Mon, Feb. 16th was the first thing I noticed on the disc. Ok, so this is a local DC band making their way up and giving away free discs I thought to myself. The songs on the disc were listed out. 1.) She's gonna kill that boy. 2.) Penitentiary. 3.) He's a woman. On the top of the label, THE DIG, thedigmusic.com , myspace.com/thedigisup . As I picked up the entire stack of 50 discs I looked to see if all the discs are the same; if the band took the time to handwrite on each disc all this information. Yeup. Either this band is huge and has a sweatshop of interns writing out labels on CDRW discs or, the band sat around one night with a pack of sharpees and had a labeling party. I like the image of the latter.

Turns out THE DIG is up, on their new media marketing that is, and who ever is running that part of the band was smart enough to start interacting with their potential listeners in a very real way. In the coffee shop. After picking up the disc at Big Bear, I took it home, listened to it, and thought if I liked it that I would check out the web urls on the disc. The music was equally as sophisticated and intelligent as the way they got me hooked. Free music in a take home package, not over sold or too glitz. Simple, organic, hand made, but with a purpose. Kind of the way I like my coffee. The variety of promo websites turned out to be equally as adept and was surprised to find that this NY based band has over 10,000 followers on MySpace. On their home page you'll find the download for their free 16MB download that you can listen to on your computer. The whole thing got me feeling like the group was hinting at the Radiohead, free music strategy, without giving it all away.

I'll be heading to the Black Cat on Monday evening to see if their live shows are as smart as their marketing. One thing they've proven to me, coffee shop bb's aren't dead at all, you just have to do some diging, which is the fun part (Starbucks knows that coffee and music go together, but buying a CD or getting one free download from a card just isn't as interesting).