The Columbus Social Media Cafe – 24 Hours Later

Several of the attendees are starting to comment in the aftermath of last night’s Columbus Social Media Cafe, hosted by WOSU and COSI at WOSU@COSI.

One of the more animated and passionate discussions took place around the idea of Citizen Journalism, as seen in this short video excerpt.

Here’s what some of the participants are saying on their blogs:

Andrew Miller of Elephants on Bicycles writes -

In general we found issues drawn done lines that questioned the reliability of traditional media to provide unbiased reporting which was countered by the question of reliability on the part of citizen journalists. Both fair points conceded during the discussion. The ultimate development of the topic was that social media and citizen journalist types needed to build consistancy that could be related to a history of trust building, the way traditional media has functioned. Likewise, WOSU, aka traditional media, needs to work on understanding online relationships and online norms of trust development. The desired outcome of the discussion focused on a few key points. WOSU should provide an outlet for broadcast (could be web stream) of hyper local news and should back that with advertising and connections on their traditional formats. This could also play as part of their webpresence which would be enhanced through aggregation. COSI/WOSU could build content by allowing somewhat unfettered access to the media labs they have built and might be able to work with the libraries to build on this initiative. The net result should then be reliable, entertaining and useful local news and content that draws people towards these organizations, ultimately growing their sponsorship and allowing them to develop more community based programming.

The evening closed with a wrap up of all of the discussions. I was happy to give some comments on camera and think that this was an amazing opening to a dialogue between all of the parties that took time to show up. I truly hope this is only the beginning and look forward to seeing the fruits of our labor in the near future.

One thing that I wanted to close with is some personal reflection. A lot of questions and ideas were floated and some thoughts that I had I felt I should put down in type. Why do I blog, well, mainly to feed the beast that is the internet. I don’t call myself a journalist, perhaps a writer, but mainly as the internet grows and develops I want some of the machines knowledge to be a part of me, a part of who I am and how I view the world. If the internet is going to develop its own personality I want a piece of that personality to reflect my own personality. To paraphrase Ghandi I will be the change I wish to see – I think that sort of fits here. When asked what my passion was which brought me to this meeting I responded that I enjoy finding new ways to use my online community and media to improve my physical community. That was a pretty spur of the moment response and, like many such responses, I really do think it was the most truthful thing I could have said.

Jeff Johnson from Urban In-Fill says -

A wide variety of topics came to light at the Columbus Social Media event held at COSI in conjunction with WOSU, at which I was present. One of the workshops I sat in on was hosted by a young man who hosts the Columbusite blog. We discussed urbanism in Columbus.

The discussion morphed from density, or lack there of, to street cars, to light-rail, to retail, to ethnic neighborhoods, to reactions about height restrictions to real-estate. As we talked, it became apparent to all of us, that none of us were Columbus natives, yet we all felt passionately about the city, though some of us didn’t live in Columbus proper. We all felt that it was important for every portion of the metro area, basically all of Franklin County, to feel as if it’s all a part of what is a really great city. Without a really great “city” even the best neighborhoods and suburbs will eventually fail.

Jeff had some additional comments in a post called The New Immigrants on the Merion Village blog -

Bloggers, media experts, professors, teachers, real-estate agents, shop owners and a wide variety of others were in attendance. The topic I chose to host was “Capturing the stories of our citizens. Their past and present as a celebration of a rich and dynamic population”.

I told the group, that of all the cities in which I’ve lived, I’ve met the most interesting people in Columbus. Interesting because so many of our friends and neighbors have come from other parts of the country, and from other countries, all to find something for themselves in Columbus. We’ve lived in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Florida, yet we’re all come to Columbus now.

I suggested that perhaps because of our midwestern mind-set, we shy away from talking about ourselves out of modesty. While Columbus is the social and political engine for Ohio, we’re a very modest city, and maybe to our own detriment. I feel its important to our identity, the city’s identity, that we capture the stories of the new immigrants.

Who are all these people that are arriving in Columbus? Why have they chosen Columbus? What do they bring with them that will assist in Columbus as it emerges into the world-class city it’s about to become? How do we find these people who might otherwise just blend in?

With that in mind, I’d like to bring the discussion to our neighborhood. When I moved here seven years ago, the most common question I was asked was, “Where did you move from?” It’s a question I find myself asking often to the people I’ve met over the course of seven years. Its why I love Columbus.

Tell us your story. How did you get here? Why did you choose Columbus? Why Merion Village?

It is, after all, the stories of our history, and our presence, that make a place a community.

Noel Hidalgo (aka NoNeck), who writes On The Luck of Seven was quite enthusiastic about the event and noted on his blog that last night, i landed back in o-h-i-o and promptly found myself locked in a heated discussion on the network centric journalism… Noel will have more to say in the coming days as well as some video.

We’ll be posting more comments throughout the weekend as well as touch on more of the topics discussed during this Open Space Unconference. Special thanks goes out to Walker Evans from Columbus Underground for his help in promoting this event to the bloger community in Columbus.

More to come…