Last week I had the opportunity to represent StoryMineMedia at the MIT-Knight Civic Media Conference in Cambridge, MA. Overall it was amazing experience to spend two days with some of the smartest people in the world and listen to their new and innovative ideas.
The theme of the conference was the “The Story and the Algorithm” and although there weren’t many video, photography, or documentary discussions, the underlying theme of almost every panel and every informal discussion was storytelling. This really opened my eyes. I was excited to see that fundamental thing that motivates me, is the same thing that motivates all these other people doing things that are very different than what we do at StoryMine.
What’s even more exciting is that we can all learn from each other and even work together. These days, when there are so many tools available to everyone, I sometimes feel like I have to learn how to use them all and do everything myself. However, in many of the discussions that I engaged in, people talked about the different types of people they work with to make their projects successful.
With each discussion and presentation, I was eager to hear what people are doing and think about how it can inform our work at StoryMine. Here are just a few of cool organizations that I learned about:
My favorite quote from the conference was from Kara Oehler, one of the founders of Zeega. “Collaboration is key. Find people who do things that you can’t do, and work together.”
Zeega is a non-profit dedicated to inventing new forms of interactive storytelling. Their goal is to help others build immersive experiences online. Users will be able to incorporate video, images, links, text, street views, etc. into their software when they create stories. It is built using open-source technology and will be available in the fall for anyone to use. I am excited for this to come out because I think it will open the doors to more creative and innovative storytelling.
Homicide Watch is a very different kind of storytelling. This website collects all available information about every homicide in the D.C. area. It not only aggregates traditional reports and articles, but it collects information from the social networks of people who knew the victims.
Laura Amico, the founder, gave a very passionate and interesting talk about the importance of honoring the victim and going beyond the reporter’s write-up and the police report, and getting the victim’s story – told by their loved ones. Laura talked about the communities of people that have grown to trust her website and use it as a forum for posting and talking about the people who are killed. Their discussions continue to keep the story going after it’s no longer in the newspaper anymore.
Tea Leaf Nation mines the vast amounts of social media coming out of China each day and translates it for a Western audience. Instead of looking at the major news sources writing about China, they look at what the average Chinese citizens thinks is important and presents it in a way that people who can’t read Chinese can understand. I thought this was a simple, but innovative way to share stories that matter.
– Elena