Positive spin on a weekly Express & Echo, could social media fill in the gaps?

From September the Express & Echo will be published once a week on a Thursday. It will aim at about 200 pages so perhaps almost as many as many as six times thirty two as Exeter is udes to. But I think the nature of a weekly publication could change fundamentally in relation to the internet and social media.

Currently there is not much promotion of the website in the print version. The "Contact Us" section has a paragraph on Breaking News suggesting www.thisisexeter.co.uk for updates from the Echo newsroom. If the print version is only once a week then the website will be even more essential for anything that happens between Thursdays.

Also the web is not exclusive for sources. There is no approximation towards monopoly as with a printing press. So websites become part of social media and the audience can find a variety of views. The role of a print publication could be to show all the possible connections and summarise the current conversation. A weekly is not the same as six days stacked together.

Featuring a wider range of social media could also extend the content available for print publication. OhmyNews in South Korea has developed a model of citizen journalism by concentrating resources on wedsites and editing. They have a free weekly print version to reach a wider audience. Already the Express & Echo has features such as wedding photographs sent in by readers and also on Thursdays a selection of pet photographs.

Thursday is also the day for the Wheelie Wild Show on Phonic FM. A major concern for Chris Norton is the music but I can sometimes slip in some talk so I will try to raise the issues around local media. We may carry this on while the transition to weekly print is worked through. So the Facebook page is one place to look or add a comment.

Cooperative Paper could relate to social media online : wifi Exeter map as example

http://www.spacex.co.uk/pl103.html

Paper based show starts at Spacex on Saturday. Not sure if the images will connect online.

Social media may sometimes be less restricted by academic conventions than previous recipe exchange coverage.

more later

I have an online Google drawing of a map of WifiExete. How to convert to hard copy?

https://docs.google.com/drawings/pub?id=1ZYyUZl8oDKRfwR35OGrS1rS59tV5xlZoSIqdSEVD8VI&w=960&h=720

Sidmouth Folk Week , posts shorter but more later

Sidmouth Folk Week continues so the blog posts are shorter this week. enough to remind me what to repeat.

Fallen Apples were busking outside the Anchor on Sunday. They got an actual booking at the Fringe out in the hills towards Branscombe. I don't understand what real folk music is supposed to be. I think they should have been booked onto a Sidmout stage. But the video may turn out well. Lighting at Dukes not that good, seems better from the side.

I have given up on using keywords as geo location to identify the styles connected to each pub. Well, I may come back to it later but it makes not much sense at the time. And I have not noticed many mobile devices. In theory social media could monitor the style in each location and which networks of friends should move in which direction. Actually you just keep moving to maintain reasonable information on available options. Sounds like a computer could cope but seems not to be used in practice.

For example Moveable Feast turned up in Anchor Gardens so keywords for venue same as Dukes. And I think the Fallen Apples were booked at Bedford Hotel during the winter so this venue registers along with the buskers. More data could reveal more sense.

#winterlude3 relection over winter to include BETT, Online Information and LEarning Technologies

The "winterlude" is a sort of break over winter that happens to coincide with trade shows. I started a cloudscape in 2009

http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/1953

Mainly it includes Online Information, BETT and Learning Technologies

http://www.bettshow.com

http://www.online-information.co.uk/

http://www.learningtechnologies.co.uk

This year the Winterlude will also include Cross Media Live although this will not happen as a show till September 2012. It is proposed by the organisers of IPEX, a major print show. My guess is that cross media is sooner than some may think.

http://www.crossmedialive.com/

Also in 2012 there will be drupa with an innovation parc

http://www.drupa.com/cipp/md_drupa/custom/pub/content,oid,18861/lang,2/ticket,g_u_e_s_t/~/Special_Shows.html

Some of the technology could be at the XML part of Online Information.

My take on XML is not that techy, i see it as  a way to cope with text. So expect more simple guesses and then actual reporting from the show floor.

#learn9papers revised papers on Learning with ISO 9000

This post is a reminder to develop this more later. Could end up as a book or at least long enough to be on offer through some payment device. I need to put some hopurs into a rewrite so current model will not work out.

Learn9.net and Scribd have copies of papers on Looking at revised ISO 9000, values and Dr Deming. these two were from Management Theory at Work conferences. Then also on Knowledge Economy, Protection Science and Experimentality. My papers have more or less repeated attempts to present ideas about quality as a method.

Current versions are free but not so easy to follow. #learn9papers should find new info when it turns up. 

"financially sustainable" - Guardian Media Group so what is "sustainable" about?

Writing to staff, Miller said that the results "underlines the need for GNM [Guardian News & Media, the immediate parent of the Guardian and Observer] to transform itself into a financially sustainable, digital-first organisation," a need that he went on to to describe was "pressing".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/01/pay-top-guardian-media-group-executives

The word "sustainable" is widely used but I am still not sure what it means. Here is an example from the Guardian. what to think?

Perhaps there is an implication of stability. as if a sustainable organisation stays much the same.

But "digital first" at the same time?  Could be rapid change as well.

Google TV is only a matter of time

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=154983&nid=129387

Things look bad. Returns higher than sales.

But I don't see why TV will not end up like sound or songs. some sort of search.

So the UK discussion on local television may come back to this.

more later, need to get out at the moment, Sidmouth folk week in real time and space.

Informa, what year are we in now? Taylor and Francis Cross Media Live 2011 2012

It is almost August so there is some drift mode about. But I do know which year this is.

The Bookseller reports that the proportion of digital sales for Informa publishing is 75%

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/digital-makes-75-informa-sales.html

There is not a lot of detail, though Taylor and Francis is included. Is this mostly journals? How much reference material on a database? And what sort of changes follow from this? My impression is that academic journals have mostly gone digital for libraries but the format continues. Still limited tolerance for drafts and variety of versions.

But the main point is that the Bookseller report is for actual numbers from the first half of 2011.

Meanwhile in another part of the Informa organisation Cross Media Live is announced for 2012.

http://www.crossmedialive.com/

This is aligned with the IPEX show and LinkedIn pages. The digital age offers new profits but apparently not till next year. There is something out of time in all this.

If the digital publishing reports were still of the kind where ebooks might be 3% sometime next year, then the classic IPEX view of view of print would still make sense.

Flickr set of pix guides Walk to Seale Hayne, continues recipe exchange

Here is a link

The Recipe Exchange has ended but the idea of a (bus ride, walk, pub visit, walk bus ride) still makes sense.

In this case it was a coffee with cake. Previous attempt to visit Seale Hayne bu car ended up at the Lost Tourist, a pub near the Plymouth Exeter road but not easy to find unless you are lost.

The advice I am getting for driving from Exeter is to go into Newton Abbott then take the road for Plymouth / Ashburton then follow the signs for Seale Hayne. From a map there ought to be a more direct way from Exeter but it is just not set up as such. If you do the study you might find the way on a second visit. anyway the bus route works ok. Allow an hour or so for the walk.

Once you get there everything is fine. I have no doubt that recording technology of various kinds will be well established before too long. Barefoot Broadcaster Carl Munson may visit Exeter of course so there are different ways things could go further.

Local TV could be held together with # tags such as #EX1to4

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/24/hyperlocal-news-bottom-up-growth

Reading Peter Preston yesterday there is a suggestion that grassroots local TV may get a welcome. I had missed the latest announcement from the Culture Department but have now found it.

http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/broadcasting/7235.aspx

I cannot find any clear support for local content as such. There will be ways to broadcast through some sort of regional structure. But there is still no clear reference to internet video. I realise that UK broadband is a bit behind the curve but it is getting better and probably will be good enough for video before these local cable visions work out as delivery. Of course both approaches can work together.

But I carry on trying out the Kodak Zi8. Welcome as cameras are that cost around £2000, it is clear that phone cameras will be comparable to the Zi8 quite soon, or maybe some are already. #LikeMinds will turn up in Exeter again this autumn and there was a hardware aspect to the previous occasion. The test is whether a 150meg file can be uploaded through wifi or 3g. A card taken to a desktop later that same week may be ok as well.

Meanwhile Jo Gedrych of JG Productions continues with a policy for proper production values. Previous discussions always seem to end up with a budget around ten time the number I first thought of. There is nothing wrong with this approach. So no options are closed in looking at desktop editing and cameras costing around £200.

Earlier today I had an email about "short form video" claiming that long form is anything over five minutes. 

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=154670#comments

so is the audience ready to put together the five minute sections for themselves?

#EX1to4 is a set of postcodes that are adjacent. Facebook admin insists we are all in Plymouth.

Rougemont Global Broadcasting is mostly at 

http://www.youtube.com/willpollard

Sidmouth Folk Week as location with significance, folksonomy starts with map

From last year I have found the basic map

https://docs.google.com/drawings/pub?id=1WSy4oLuHrlXYokRJrsodiVEH8jcs64ra5LTPJ5h-MB4&w=960&h=720

not sure the link is right, basic loop Anchor - Dukes - Bedford

Social media started with folk music, before digital technology. But now there is an overlap.

So assuming you can broadcast exactly where you are, and you choose to do so, what will it all mean?

Keywords classic, modern and dance. But can they be associated with a particular place.

Later a map of loop 2 to the Volunteer. And more words to cover the fringe over towards Branoc land.

"Sustainability" various meanings for the word @LSLNetwork #LSLNetwork #cqiMoSO

Discussion through email has raised a question about what "sustainability" means. The Deming group of the CQI offers a model on the website
http://www.thecqi.org/moso

Could be connected with environment, could be survival for companies. I am involved in this project and also try to relate to Lancaster studies in management. Recent book promotion-

The approach the book adopts presents the stories of 29 people who are seeking to make the world more environmentally sustainable and socially just. All of them were either tutors or participants on the original Masters programme.

http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/news/dml/22754/judi-marshall-book-launch/

So maybe sustainable as in continuation for enterprise is not in this scope. I know I don't have the accepted language when I express interest in the website.

There have been a series of conferences where words are used in the titles

http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/departments/dml/conferences/

"Learning Organisation"  was arguably in the first one, theory at work, but has mostly gone.

Could there be some overlap in conversations about "sustainability" if there was more clarity on possible meanings.

There is a MoSO group on LinkedIn. Not sure how open it is but I think it is possible to follow.

Leadership and Critical Performativity ; maybe a new space for conversation

I have found some guidance on how crit perf might relate to leadership. This is in a web page for a meeting in Exeter that happened earlier this year. I guess this is more of a research proposal than a final report with case studies. But it is interesting for me as something to relate to. In the paper on cp there is mention of TQM and then motorcyle maintenance as at least worth looking at. So there could be discussion of how learning happens within quality systems. Leadership appeared to be a development from learning organisations but some of the issues continue to be relevant.

Existing accounts of leadership are underpinned by two dominant approaches: functionalist studies which have tried to identify factors which ‘cause’ or are ‘outcomes’ of leadership, and interpretive studies which have tried to trace out the meaning making process associated with leadership. Eschewing these approaches, we turn to an emerging strand of literature that develops a critical approach to leadership. This literature draws our attention to the dialectics of control and resistance and the ideological aspect of leadership. However, it largely posits a negative critique of leadership. We think this is legitimate and important, but it should not exhaust a critical research agenda. In order to extend this agenda, we posit a performative critique of leadership which emphasises tactics of circumspect care, progressive pragmatism and searching for present potentialities. We use these tactics to sketch out a practice of deliberated leadership that involves collective reflection on when, what kind and if leadership is appropriate. We conclude by drawing out what this means for future empirical studies and more practical engagement with leadership.

Background reading: André Spicer, Mats Alvesson and Dan Kärreman (2009) Critical Performativity: The Unfinished Business of Critical Management Studies, Human Relations, 62(4): 537-560.

So I will try to find out more about this. Any clues from #CMS7 would help.

Meanwhile on Thursday this week I will be part of an experiment in using Skype as part of a local radio show. We are just looking at communicating between two floors of one building, from the bar to the basement. But this could attract more guests and online listeners could phone in more as Skype is free. Not off topic yet because this innovation is coming at an operations level. There is a management meeting but as volunteer we don't know that much about it. And sound connections for the building is another mystery.

wifi Exeter map - another try to display ahead of Thursday Phonic FM #EX1to4

Previous attempt to disply in Posterous from Google Docs link fell over but this should work.

Please add comment if you would like to edit, add new info. The aim is to show where Wifi is found in middle of Exeter.

BT requires funds. Several other pubs with free wifi but not sure where.

Skype tests in Phoenix Thursday 10 - 12 am

wifi Exeter another map attempt, Thursday Phonic FM assume Skype turns out ok #EX1to4

This is a revised map of "wifi Exeter"

still shows the main sites in the middle but also BT assuming you have paid up.

also Weatherspoons round the edges

The Well Tavern is not sure of the strength of the signal, really intended to work inside the hotel next door.

St Sidwells on Sidwell Street has desktop machines before 3pm

In theory if Skype works in the Phonic studio then wifi Exeter is extended.

#EX1to4 is a wider area. the wifi map will be extended later

https://docs.google.com/drawings/pub?id=1ZYyUZl8oDKRfwR35OGrS1rS59tV5xlZoSIqdSEVD8VI&w=960&h=720

Skype may enhance radio this Thursday, Wheelie Wild Phonic FM 10-12

I will be presenting another radio show on Phonic this Thursday. Chris Norton is not away this time but will experiment with Skype. The plan is to link with the wifi in the Phoenix bar. JD will be supporting the tech side on both sites so I may have to work the faders by myself some of the time. expect some long pauses and/or prerecorded sequences.

my brian soon turns to mush in a live situation so i doubt if I will cope with email or phone calls. But I can say more or less what i like and there will be text edits later and maybe clips on YouTube. Radio is not just the live broadcast. It is more of a loop from the web and back again. So when Skype is working there could be a lot of scope.

the Phoenix building was not built at a time when cable was considered. There are performance spaces and also a digital production facility at the back with video cameras. Also a recording studio not far from the radio. But usually these aspects do not come together for a final edit. Maybe wifi can help. Or maybe it will turn out that the elements come from somewhere else anyway. I will sort of plan what to say through this blog and see what links are possible later.

Youtube is definitely working as an input. Most tracks turn up there.

Mark Coles has some plan to continue world music post BBC world service. Hope to have more info by thursday.

See Facebook group  World Music Temp

also Broadcasting technology for Various abilities

and Wheelie Wild Show

Exeter could have the tag #EX1to4 so i will try this again. Rougemont Global Broadcasting is ok as a Youtube channel but i find that there is much more stuff available now so linking makes most sense. I will rave on about this.

-----------

The music will probably be

More Raphael Saadiq and Motown to open

Tracks from new Joss Stone CD1,  recap of Devon soul as just a little bit country

Folk around a Sidmouth fringe    New track from the Pyrates on Soundcloud

Moving on to 80s. Another mention for Laura Kikauka and the celebration of failure. I still think there could be an 80s focus for an environment with music. Not sure who would do it, but links can be continued.

#cms7 PhD language and B2B , "critical performativity" may need a different format

I am still trying to follow #CMS7 . this weekend is all about PhD research and publication. Nothing new on Twitter.

But you can find spicer.pdf on www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/ejrot/cmsconference/2007

search on unfinished business crital performativity

The Unfinished Business of Critical Management Studies

sorry the actual link is too long to display/copy

This is one of the texts to discuss, as well as another session on where to get published

The first problem with closely identifying CMS with anti-performativity
is that most CMS research is actually produced with performative intent. That is, most
CMS research is often produced partially with an eye to gaining a publication which can
be recorded on ones CV which can help to further ones career (Thompson, 2004). This
drive to publish has become even more pressing with the introduction of various research
auditing exercises in many higher education systems (Shore and Wright, 1999). These
auditing exercises certify a good scholar in terms of their efficient throughput of ideas (or
otherwise) into academic papers.

That sounds about right. The UK move to "impact" may change this slightly.

There is recognition of some issues for CMS

By defining CMS as being against performativity, one defines management as essentially being about performativity . Thus
critical management scholars have to dwell in a negative space. They are only defined by what they are not and what they are against.

Like a bloated tick, the fatter management gets, the fatter CMS gets. And like the bloated tick, CMS does not have a life of its own to celebrate, to affirm, to live. All it has to offer is a life which is constantly against management

I can't see much about why Business Schools tolerate CMS. Publications could be the attraction. there seems to be more critique in Business Schools than in other disciplines. not sure how this works or if there are any stats on this sort of thing.

But there seeems to be some hope that quality may be a subject to consider

Hochschild (1997), for example points out that life in organizations has become
comfortable and employee-friendly, largely through initiatives such as TQM, while
societal and organizational change has made family life more difficult (two career gender
patterns, the ideal of the dedicated employee), thus making everyday organizational life
more attractive than everyday family life. One should expect that this idea have had some
impact on CMS, if only to be challenged. CMS, however, is stuck discussing whether
TQM is an example of the exercise of disciplinary or hegemonic power by managers, or
possibly both. This relegates the whole question of life-work balance to feminists. It also
ignores the many tensions, struggles and potentialities which actually exist within the
practice of TQM. Rather than engaging with a practice in all its contradictory glory, CMS
seems to be content with rejecting it out of hand.

 
By the way, TQM is not now widely used as a term as far as I come across quality discussions. I think Hugh Wilmott and Making Quality Critical put an absolute stop on any flow of new information for the last ten years or so.

But there appears to be a readiness to look again as part of "critcal performativity"

 This means that instead of establishing distance towards a managerial practice, we seek to work as closely with it as
possible. By doing this, it becomes possible to locate point of potential within that
practice that might be drawn out or create libratory potentials. Instead of simply rejecting
a managerial practice like total quality or talent management out of hand, this approach
would seek to find the potentialities in it.

.

I will be looking out for any new info about this. Reports from #cms7 may well appear later.

there is also a section discussing how research results may be presented. This could include a mix of language and metaphor.

 Some of the metaphors which are routinely used in CMS include
organizations as psychic prisons, as discursive traps, as monuments of human stupidity
and irrationality, as instruments for domination, as patriarchy writ small. These ‘dark’
metaphors are certainly useful in drawing the reader’s eye towards the dismal corners of
organizational life as well as giving voice to the pain and anguish that many in
organizations suffer. But doing so often leads to the confirmation of established views of
what an organization might be. This leaves little space for the productive experimentation
with new metaphors which open up spaces of hope and exploration. 

This seems to me to be especially a problem with elearning and social media. My impression is that critique has supported a negative view of web technology that has been welcomed by conservative elements within education. there has been little revision of positions on dialogue as technology has improved and been widely adopted. I realise this is a bit sweeping but i could try to expand on this if it seems out of proportion to someone.

Being a bit more specific, i think there was a California hotel meeting about social media. Since then the website for such is not going very far. It needs some care and attention then probably a redesign. there is very little buzz, tweets. blogsearch results around #cms7.

If there is support for more engagement through "critical performativity" there could be a different language to reach managers and a wider public. Online this takes other forms as well.

-----------------------------------------------------

Rambling a bit from speculation as to what the current issues may be. Still reading the papers so more later. Any link suggestions welcome.

Rougemont Global Broadcasting - trying "EX1to4" again

Previous post is about how the scope of the YouTube clips on the Rougemont Global Broadcasting channel could develop to include technology more issues in Exeter. Some local tags such as #EX1to4 could work to find more local content from various sources, Recently there has been a lot more video turning up. The Respect Festival this year has reached a new level. There is still lots of clips from previous years and more to come.

Try #EX1to4 a few times. I think it could work well. Not too long, but fairly precise as to where it is. 

I have also tried Magnify as a way to aggregate stuff.

http://rougemontgardenbroadcasting.magnify.net/

http://rougemontglobalbroadcasting.magnify.net/

Garden broadcasting is more local, Global more technology. that is the idea anyway, but the robots are not that reliable. i may do some more manual edits.

Also more in blogs to link various sources. This Posterous blog remains the one most likely to be updated. But I will return to other ones that have been dormant for a while.

Rougemont Global Broadcasting - Experiments in Location

I may have posted about this before but I think there is a new phase for Rougemont Global Broadcasting, the name for my YouTube Channel. It has been a mix of local news for Exeter and technologu shows with related issues. There could be more scope to link these to Exeter. The ideas are better known so there is activity in Exeter as well as other places. A few examples-

Learning organisations and critique from Lancaster. I have been to several conferences in Lancaster  and then tried to link video clips in sequence on the campus. The sequence is roughly a tech vision near InfoLab21 , critique near the management school and then public space near the bookshop and library. This has varied as more consumer electronics is concentrated in the actual city centre. Exeter is interesting as the bookshop will vanish officially with the opening of the new central campus. The issues are around whether e-learning should be supported.

Print shows, cross media and the Winterlude  Clips cover both IPEX and drupa, the major European print shows. Also the Winterlude has been on Cloudscape for a couple of years, a period of time between Online Information, BETT and Learning Technologies. Cross Media Live has been postponed to 2012 but i think it could happen anytime and probably should have happened already. I can link to IGAS in Japan and a digital IPEX in Abu Dhabi. But for the UK this is as easy from Exeter as anywhere else. Online Information will include an XML area that could be technology for any form of communication so there will be other UK spots to report about.

eBooks etc Exeter has Waterstones .and an Apple store and a Sony centre. Also HMV seems to be finding more space for Android devices and mobile Windows. The High Street has a wide range of mobile phones and other devices. So at least as text blogging there can be links and comment. Video is sometimes not possible but there can be links to video from other places.  

There will still be local video to promote and record events. See next post on #EX1to4

Rougemont Global Broadcasting - Experiments in Location

I may have posted about this before but I think there is a new phase for Rougemont Global Broadcasting, the name for my YouTube Channel. It has been a mix of local news for Exeter and technologu shows with related issues. There could be more scope to link these to Exeter. The ideas are better known so there is activity in Exeter as well as other places. A few examples-

Learning organisations and critique from Lancaster. I have been to several conferences in Lancaster  and then tried to link video clips in sequence on the campus. The sequence is roughly a tech vision near InfoLab21 , critique near the management school and then public space near the bookshop and library. This has varied as more consumer electronics is concentrated in the actual city centre. Exeter is interesting as the bookshop will vanish officially with the opening of the new central campus. The issues are around whether e-learning should be supported.

Print shows, cross media and the Winterlude  Clips cover both IPEX and drupa, the major European print shows. Also the Winterlude has been on Cloudscape for a couple of years, a period of time between Online Information, BETT and Learning Technologies. Cross Media Live has been postponed to 2012 but i think it could happen anytime and probably should have happened already. I can link to IGAS in Japan and a digital IPEX in Abu Dhabi. But for the UK this is as easy from Exeter as anywhere else. Online Information will include an XML area that could be technology for any form of communication so there will be other UK spots to report about.

eBooks etc Exeter has Waterstones .and an Apple store and a Sony centre. Also HMV seems to be finding more space for Android devices and mobile Windows. The High Street has a wide range of mobile phones and other devices. So at least as text blogging there can be links and comment. Video is sometimes not possible but there can be links to video from other places.  

There will still be local video to promote and record events. See next post on #EX1to4