Hi all, event is about to start but no livestream is available - we had some difficulties at the venue.  We are recording the show though and will post it soon.  Thanks for checking in!

I’ve been pushing both Natalya and the group to embrace documenting the process of what we’re doing for a variety of reasons.  I’d sent out a bunch of emails over the last week describing why, and with links to various examples and how-tos but felt that for the half of the group that worked in interactive - but are new to writing - it was just noise and for the other half - who are completely new to online - that a lot of it was confusing and difficult to get a handle on.

The Astral Apartments, Greenpoint

So Natalya and I decided to set up an informal, last minute workshop at my - newly moved into – Greenpoint, Brooklyn apartment (I live in the notorious Astral) for me to run the group through the reasoning behind: digital content creation, transparency and working across different platforms, the importance of being consistent and finding a personable voice, how writing (blogging) within an interactive context differs to a more traditional approach to text, how to find an angle/hook to a story, decision making about what and how to document and the value proposition of building both an individual and group following.

There were some interesting and very good questions – for instance, Jane wanted to know how to find her voice on Twitter and Andy questioned why it was important to both blog (editorial, past, reflective) and microblog / livestream (real time, unedited thoughts).

Jane taped me speaking for my own records but I decided to post the video here in case it might be useful to others.  What follows is Internet 101 but there may be some insights that people are able to use.  You will also see us talking privately about some of our intentions about how to brand the project.  It might seem contrary to make this public, but I do so in the nature of what we’re trying to achieve.

Video pending

Videos we viewed from As The Dust Settles:

and Mickipedia:

I was really pleased with how excited the group became over the possibilities once they were explained, how quickly they caught on and their keenness to experiment, even suggesting another meeting to regroup and exchange stories about what worked for them and what didn’t.

After the camera was turned off they also discussed ways that the offline audience might be able to interact with us/story during the live performance via different types of technology use, and different ways we could utilize devices and services/platforms to make the audience feel involved and closer to the creatives both leading up to, and during the event, which was great to hear. Though Andy was hesitant about how personally open he wanted to be publicly - a valid, and common, concern - their excitement and inspiration overall was a real validation for the work I put in – including the unread explanatory emails!

And my response to solving the noise/isolated experience of email reading?  I’m going to have them start to use Tangler, a real time discussion forum with a desktop notifier – that way I’ll know for sure!