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Welcome to MIXMÉDIAS Montreal on May 17th

bruno boutot — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:02:30 +0000

I am thrilled to personally invite you to the MIXMÉDIAS Conference that will be held in Montréal on May 17th, 2012. This will be one of the most exciting and lucrative professional days this spring and I am delighted that you will attend. But what is it exactly? #

When Michel Chioini asked me, just over a month ago, if I was interested in organizing an international conference in the context of CONNECT 2012, I was blinded by my enthusiasm since I immediately agreed to take on this challenge. What a great opportunity it has been! #

Marketing and Media on the Web? I have lived and breathed little else for the last fifteen years. It’s my career, my livelihood, and my daily pleasure. The idea of gathering in Montreal the best minds in the business enchanted me. Of course, that meant I had to find people in a very short time period, but the responses have been very positive, including from those who were interested but unavailable. #

Each day I experience the same challenges that my marketing, media and advertising colleagues face on the Web. So with them, I wanted to get answers to two pressing questions: #

Revenue: How does one make money on the Web? Not tomorrow, not soon, TODAY! #

Content: What new types of Web content are profitable? NOW! #

I received some exceptional answers. We will immediately be able to integrate the practical aspects of Web Business. #

Ben Kunz is a master in his trade: he has considerable experience in media sales; his analysis is brilliant and his humour sharp. While some of us may have a tendency to be over-zealous (no, I’m not talking about you, for God’s sake), Ben’s “No Bullshit” attitude is very refreshing. So the day will start on the right foot. #

Many of us working in marketing and media are still daunted by the question of Web revenue opportunities. The time has come to change that. #

Bryan Segal will bring us up to date. Most big businesses use Comscore. Bryan will present their recent whitepaper on the new nature of advertising. A panel of experts, from the Internet Advertising Bureau will follow him. They will enlighten us about Real Time Bidding. #

Andy Nulman lost money on the Internet but now he’s making a profit. We’ll see how he turned things around, with fanfare and flair. Michelle Blanc’s experience is worth its weight in gold; when she takes the stage she will get to the heart of the matter by telling us “How to make ca$h with content!” #

We will also hear from the incomparable Stowe Boyd. His metaphor of Liquid Media brings light to the job we do in the sometimes bewildering World Wide Web. #

Arjun Basu has accompanied his clients from print to the Internet, then through Web integration of their business strategies. He’ll share the stage with Craig Silverman, one of the top Web Journalists, who just happens to be a Montrealer. #

One of the most important Web discoveries is the opportunity for personal contact with our consumers. New interactions have been generated through social media, but now more and more big business and up-and-comers create their own platforms to welcome their members… and to do business with them! #

Craig will interview William Mougayar, CEO of Engagio, who has an earth-shattering point of view: “Conversation is the new Web content!” We are looking forward to that, just as much as we are looking forward to Jessamyn West, who will follow him. She is the Director of Community at MetaFilter, one of the most successful and respected communities on the Web. She has vast experience in the art and ways of creating quality content with members. #

Rich Millington, from London, UK, is the world top specialist for business communities, period. We would be wise to make the most of this exceptional opportunity. #

The speakers wanted to know who YOU are. I told them, “Montreal’s best. They will want to talk to you and ask questions. Give us the best you’ve got.” They are therefore ready for your questions, whether in the conference room or elsewhere. Don’t be shy! #

So I invite you to share this special day with me.
The venue is fantastic: it’s the ICAO building, a United Nations agency! #

If your name is on this page, the conference is on me. Email me bruno@boutotcom.com.
If you are one of my contacts on facebook or Linkedin, or if I follow you on Twitter (or @boutotcom in French) you are a “member of boutotcom”: you are eligible for a reduced rate. On the Register page (Inscription), in the Discount window (Rabais), select boutotcom.
If you are 10 or more, contact info@eventia.ca for a great deal. #

It will be a very profitable event, yet without pressure or stress: we’re between friends. This most enriching day is not to be missed. It will be even better if you are there. :-) #

Follow @MIXMEDIAS #MIXMEDIAS Like MIXMÉDIAS #

4 Ideas For Practicing A Journalism Of Collaboration

bruno boutot — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 12:53:18 +0000

Last Saturday, I have lead a conversation at MediaCamp Montreal. The title of the topic is the longest I have ever written: #

How to begin today doing Web journalism with your readers using just your blog until your publisher gives you the right tools. #

This theme was inspired in part by a report from the last SxSW conferences written by Nathalie Collard, Media Columnist at La Presse of Montreal. She quoted the conferences of Jay Rosen and Jeff Jarvis, whose blog are required reading for anyone involved in the transformation of newsmedia: Press Think, BuzzMachine. Natahlie Collard’s article was titled The Journalism of Tomorrow, Today. #

The great majority of newsmedia still don’t understand how a part of their readers could contribute to their content. So most publishers don’t invest in offering to readers a solid system of stable identity with a personal page, memory of the contributions, appreciations of these contributions and, if need be, rewards for some contributions. #

But most news media have blogs for some of their journalists and most of these journalists can delete comments on these blogs. I believe this simple tool is enough to begin practicing an online journalism of collaboration with readers who are interested in this type of participation. #

Here are the 4 ideas I have given to start the discussion: #

I – YOUR BLOG IS YOUR KINGDOM #

A blog is private property. You don’t have to accept anything that you don’t want. And the reverse is true: anything that is published on your blog means that you want it to be there. State what you want and how you want it. Anything else is refused or deleted. #

II – WHEN YOUR BLOG IS OPEN TO COLLABORATORS, YOU ARE EDITOR IN CHIEF #

You are responsible for every word published in your space: topic, length, tone, style, typos. Every single word. The best editing tool is stating clearly beforehand what you are looking for. And once you have it, well, edit. This is a publishing tool. #

III – WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THIS BLOG? JOURNALISM #

This is our job: journalism. It has nothing to do with herding comments. It’s about finding relevant facts. This is the only task to which you may invite collaborators to participate in. No opinions: facts contributing to the building of a news story. #

IV – WHO ARE YOUR COLLABORATORS? PEOPLE YOU KNOW #

There is no rush, no obligation to include anybody. You can start small: other journalists, people you know, people who are referred by people you know. You’ll come to know those who are referred and act accordingly: it you gradually trust them, you keep them. If you distrust them, you ditch them. That’s how you build trust: you wouldn’t use a spongy stone to build a wall, it would endanger the whole building. #

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

bruno boutot — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 01:14:51 +0000

Transcript of the speech. #

On Twitter and Writing

bruno boutot — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 03:37:50 +0000

@GreatDismal
William Gibson #

Twitter for me is a casual conversational form, largely offhand by nature. Unrehearsed speech as opposed to writing.

@GreatDismal
William Gibson #

“Writing”, for me, is a fundamentally different activity. I strongly suspect it’s different neurologically, physiologically.

@GreatDismal
William Gibson #

Writing formally is like improv all by yourself, in an empty room.

I became that which watched broadcast television

bruno boutot — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 01:55:14 +0000

I can remember seeing the emergence of broadcast television, but I can’t tell what it did to us because I became that which watched broadcast television. #

William Gibson
the Paris Review 197 #

[1981]
And somehow I knew that the notional space behind all the computer screens would be one single universe. #

idem #

In the cities, the past, the present and the future can all be totally adjacent. #

ibidem #

Cities look to me to be our most characteristic technology. We didn’t really get interesting as a species until we became able to do cities — that’s when it all go really diverse, because you can’t do cities without a substrate of other technologies. There is a mathematics to it — a city can’t get over a certain size unless you can grow, gather, and store a certain amount of food in the vicinity. Then you can’t get any bigger unless you understand how to do sewage. If you don’t have efficient sewage technology the city goes to a certain size and everybody gets cholera. #

ibidem #

William Gibson – Photo Michael O’Shea/G.P. Putnam/Canadian Press

The Displacive Fallacy: new media don’t replace old media

bruno boutot — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 03:19:14 +0000

From a Tweet by @timoreilly: #

Lovely piece about how technologies don’t just replace one another. Search for 3rd occurrence of “Displacive Fallacy” http://bit.ly/cJSAlb #

In high-technology societies, like the United States, our enthusiasm for the new leads us to what I call the Displacive Fallacy. This is the belief that a new technology displaces the old, and drives it from the field as a conquering army disperses the enemy. Pundits not so long ago prophesied that the telephone would displace the mails, that radio would displace the telephone, that the phonograph would displace live orchestras, and of course, that television would substantially displace both radio and the book. In the library world only a few decades ago some microfilm enthusiasts were predicting that microforms would displace books. Now we hear similar predictions of how audiovisual aids, motion pictures, tape recordings, television, or the computer will displace the book-or perhaps human beings themselves. #
Despite some conspicuous exceptions, the general rule in history is that a new technology does not displace but rather transforms or finds new uses for an earlier technology. Printing did not make handwriting obsolete. The automobile has not displaced the bicycle. Television has not displaced the telephone or radio. #
The Displacive Fallacy, however, assumes that there are only a limited number of social functions and that the categories of experience are not expandable. Such a static view is quite uncongenial to my pragmatic, experimental, and somewhat American way of thinking. Experience is ever expanding. New inventions do not simply fill old needs, for the inventor himself concocts new needs. He actually invents new forms of experience. Nobody “needed” the telephone, radio, or television. They were not the product of widespread demand but actually added new dimensions to human experience and created new demands. #
This simple fact has momentous implications both for the historian and the librarian. For each new technology produces its own new kind of record and leaves its own special new residue. If the historian is to chronicle the full range of human experience he must find ways to use, and must find the meaning of using, them all. The librarian has a special responsibility to save us from the Displacive Fallacy. #

The Republic of Letters
Librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin on Books, Reading, and Libraries, 1975-1987
Edited by John Y. Cole
Library of Congress, Washington, 1989 #

Daniel J. Boorstin – photo: Wikimedia Commons

Cathy Horyn tells how readers contribute to her blog

bruno boutot — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 21:33:08 +0000

We read so often that readers’ comments are useless that it’s still worth highlighting when a journalist appreciates the contribution of her readers. #

“these are the kinds of comments and the kind of fashion writing we would love to have.” #

Cathy Horyn, photo by David Shankbone, via Wikimedia Commons

In an interview in Harper’s Bazaar, New York Times’ fashion critic Cathy Horyn talks about her exchanges with the readers of her blog, On The Runway: #

So we’re looking at the collections journalistically, and in a very timely way, and then everybody gets to talk about it right away. And that’s what matters to people. Last February in Milan, we had a really great discussion about Prada and postmodernism. She did those very round-shaped full skirts, and the girls looked very meaty. Marko came on with this really great post about how it reminded him of his grandmother or his mother or something, about how they dressed, and it was really well done. Then this other person came on talking about feminism and socialism and what it was before the Berlin Wall and after the wall, and it was really smart. I was like, I never thought about that. And maybe I wouldn’t have thought about it, not being European and not having that experience. She wrote it in such a nice, interesting way, and I thought that these are the kinds of comments and the kind of fashion writing we would love to have. The blog is great for that. That’s when all the very interesting and quirky and cranky people come on. #

@CathyHorynNYT
@nytimesrunway #

Jeff Jarvis on news media and collaboration

bruno boutot — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 02:48:25 +0000

Jeff Jarvis makes suggestions to news media: #

…the best thing they could do is to enable and protect the voice of the public. They could curate, train, promote, and collaborate with new people using new tools in new ways, for example. They could establish platforms that make that possible and networks that help make it sustainable. They could see it as their role to support a lively, healthy ecosystem and all of its members, including not only the new kids but also the struggling legacy media (by that view, I’ve long argued that the BBC should make it its mission to use its powerful megaphone to promote and support the best of journalism and media in the UK, no matter who makes it; that is a public good). #

XKCD VOX POPULI

bruno boutot — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:05:24 +0000

The punchline in XKCD’s comics appears most of the time in a mouseover text that I have made apparent here. View the original. #

In abundance as in scarcity, news is about trust

bruno boutot — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:56:32 +0000

It’s strange how the abundance of news shares some territory with the scarcity of news. #

Paolo Bacigalupi’s description of “news that you can trust” in a dictatorship parallels what’s happening with news in social media: who do you trust? #

With a new mix of Kulaap’s music from DJ Dao streaming over my stereo, I sit down at my little kitchen table, pour my coffee from its press pot, and open my tablet. #
The tablet is wondrous creation. In Laos, the paper was still a paper, physical, static, and empty of anything except the official news. Real news in our New Divine Kingdom did not come from newspapers,or from television, or from handsets or ear buds. It did not come from the net or feeds unless you trusted your neighbor or look over your shoulder at an Internet cafe and if you knew that there were no secret police sitting beside you, or an owner who would be able to identify you when they came around asking about the person who used that workstation over to communicate with the outside world. #
Real news came from whispered rumor, rated according to the trust you accorded the whisperer. Were they family? Did they have long history with you? #