Posted by ericahargreave on April 14, 2008
Hello All,
Been enjoying reading everyone’s posts on Bridging Media! Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts! I think one of my favourite quotes was Meg and I being referred to as ‘digirati darlings’ in Jordan Behran’s blog posts. Never been called a ‘digirati darling’ before!!! Quite liked it!
Another note in Morten’s blog that hit a chord with me was the mention that one of the obstacles in building a bridge between traditional broadcast and digital media is that the two communities speak two different languages. It is this point that I want to address in this post. Megan and I realized in the process of building towards the inaugural Bridging Media that one of the areas that creates misunderstanding between the broadcast and digital communities is in the use of ‘terminology’. I myself am guilty of this. As Meg and I were building to the event, I referred to the digital media community as the ‘tech community’ or ‘techies’ and Megan after looking at me strangely on more than a few occasions finally clarified this misconception of mine. ‘Techies’ are ‘technical people that work with technical things, like lighting and sound equipment’ or within the digital community they are ‘the people that code and build things on drupal’. She, a social media consultant, is not a ‘techie’. The term we should be using for this community was ‘digital media’ or ‘digital experts’.
I realized it was not only me and the broadcast community that was confused with regards to the correct ‘terminology’ as I read a few of the Bridging Media posts. It seems that there is the misconception that what we are terming the ‘broadcast community’ simply refers to the ‘broadcaster’ - ‘the person that works for the networks commissioning the shows’. To clarify here the broadcast community refers to everyone that works in film, television and video - broadcasters, filmmakers, producers, writers, directors, camera operators and the list goes on. A wide variety of skill sets, I know, but then the digital media community is similarly represented by a wide variety of skills sets. Proportionately the ‘commissioning editors’ represent a small number of the ‘broadcast community’, especially in BC, as most of these individuals work in Toronto where their networks are based. We were quite fortunate at our inaugural Bridging Media event to have a decent representation of the broadcast decision makers at the event. That said I was told by one that it is us - the filmmakers, producers, writers, and digital media experts that the broadcast decision makers are looking at for the lead on where to go with the future of media and not the other way around. Making us for all intensive purposes the decision makers in building the future of media!

Photo by James Sherrett
Similarly we were most fortunate at the inaugural Bridging Media event as the event was attended by a fairly even mixture of individuals from these two communities - approximately 66 individuals from the broadcast community, 63 from the digital media community and a handful of others. As Bridging Media grows we hope to address more and more of the individuals from both these communities and clarify more language misconceptions as we encounter them, allowing us to gain understanding and appreciation for each others crafts, so that we can strive to speak the same language with one another as we build the future of media together.
Posted in Bridging Media, Event, Resources, Technology, Vancouver | Tagged: Bridging Media, broadcasters, defining, digital media, translating | No Comments »
Posted by ericahargreave on April 10, 2008
A few bodies that weren’t able to stay right to the end of our inaugural Bridging Media have been asking about who won the festival passes to nextMEDIA and VIDFEST, and the classes in Langara Colleges Continuing Studies Programs in the Photography Program, Macintosh Series, or Electronic Music Program.
So here are the results - drum roll please ….

The lucky winners are:

A tremendous thank you to Achilles Media, New Media BC, and Langara College for providing our winners with these exciting and inspirational educational opportunities!

For the rest of you, whom I am sad to say did not win, you should still check out these two great festivals and continuing studies classes for some inspirational opportunities of your own!
Warmest of wishes and congratulations to all of our winners!
Erica and Meg
Posted in Bridging Media, Event, Resources, Technology, Vancouver | Tagged: Achillies Media, bridging media winners, Langara Continuing Studies, New Media BC, nextMEDIA, VIDFEST | No Comments »
Posted by ericahargreave on April 7, 2008
Good Morning all you lovely people,
A week after our inaugural Bridging Media and I am busy sorting through the many wonderful summaries and posts on the event. Thank you everyone!
I am posting a list of those that I found here, to create a bit of a database on the first event, summaries on, thoughts on and suggestions for future Bridging Media Events. If we have missed any posts, please send me a link and I will update.
And thanks to everyone for their feedback and written word!
Erica

Live Blogs (thanks to the lovely Rebecca Bollwitt)
Podcasts
Session Podcasts (thanks to the delightful Robert Ouimet)
A Day in Review
Radio
- Get Connected Radio (I haven’t got the actual link for this show, so if anyone does, please forward it along. Thanks!)
Blog Posts
Pictures
Loads of great pictures can be found on our flickr feed.
Thanks so much to Jen Hong, James Sherrett, John Bollwitt, and Carol Browne for snapping some shots!
Posted in Bridging Media, Event, Resources, Vancouver | Tagged: Bridging Media, Miss 604, Robert Ouimet, The Straight | 1 Comment »
Posted by Megan on March 30, 2008
It’s the day after Bridging Media both Erica and I are thrilled how it all came together and that the day was received so well. About 150 people turned out, a mix of digital media professionals, Producers, Broadcasters and a few newbies as well. While my photos are coming soon (Flickr Tag “bridgingmedia” please), and more posts to be written on the summary and the all important future growth this beast, you can listen to all of the sessions, courtesy of Robert Ouimet, and can read the Live Blog of all four sessions from Rebecca Bollwitt - thank you for putting in the time, energy and efforts capturing the day. (And thanks to John as well, for snapping some pics!)
There were a LOT of people who helped out to pull this off. Sponsors, organizers, speakers, participants, attendees, all of those people that just randomly stepped in to help out where needs: Thanks to ALL of you!
Posted in Bridging Media, Event, Technology, Vancouver, live blog, podcasts | No Comments »
Posted by Megan on March 5, 2008
We are pleased to announce the official site for Bridging Media. Et voila!
Bridging Media is an event that was cooked up by a few folks - mostly through some conversations at first, which led to ideas of throwing a type of “-camp” event, at the usual, reliable, excellent and supportive WorkSpace. As the conversations grew, and then in turn became more conversations, interest grew as well. Erica and I quickly realized that this topic, our community, these industries, people’s concerns, questions and areas of grey - all deserve a day. So we started planning.
And here we are today, with an event page set up, a great line-up of knowledgeable speakers, a space to host it, some sponsorships from the community and the registrants keep coming! Read all about it on our About page.
We’ve realized this is not a 2-person effort, far from it. Now that it’s grown to a *bit* of a beast, we’ve enlisted a few more to our core group to help out in these last few weeks.
What do we need right now? Well, if you’d like to help out in the coming weeks or on the day, we’d love that - please let us know. Also if you would like to speak on any of our sessions, please contact us.
We are hoping to acquire a few more sponsorships to cover a few of our costs. Please get in touch with us and we can share with you more information about sponsorship benefits.
Posted in Bridging Media, Event, Technology, Vancouver | Tagged: Bridging Media, Event, Technology, Vancouver | No Comments »