NPR and PBS plan national PublicMedia Camp

Published in Current, Aug. 3, 2009

Even though school will have started by then, about 300 public-media folks will get to go to camp on the weekend of Oct. 17-18 [2009] — NPR and PBS’s first national PublicMediaCamp. Plans will be announced this week, says Andy Carvin, NPR senior strategist, social media desk.

It’s an “unconference,” like the deliberately unstructured BarCamps that are popular for brainstorming and spontaneous code-writing among open-source web technology activists. But it’s not officially a BarCamp, Carvin says, because this one has planned objectives than those using that name (barcamp.org).

The low-budget, informal camp will be held at American University in Washington, in cooperation with AU’s Center for Social Media.

CPB plans to help each of 10 stations send a pair of representatives. It issued an RFP (deadline Aug. 3) to hire a coordinator to help with training and logistics.

One major objective for the event, Carvin says, will be to demonstrate how stations and other public-media groups can use such meetings locally to hook up with local web developers. So it makes sense to invite nonbroadcasters to this national camp as well. Carvin expects one-third will come from public TV and radio and the rest from the overlapping realms of civic journalism, open-source code and media activism. 

Similar web-oriented camps have been held by Minnesota Public Radio and by KUSP-FM in Santa Cruz, Calif., Carvin says. 

Web page posted Aug. 3, 2009
Copyright 2009 by Current LLC

EARLIER ARTICLE

Radio Engage, a social network in drydock: An open-source web development project in Santa Cruz, Calif., planned a PublicMediaCamp to brainstorm for its project, fall 2008.

LINKS

Sign up with PublicMediaCamp organizers to be notified when you can register. Some details are known.NPR's Andy Carvin discusses the plan.

Web developer Desiree Cox of Quiddities Dev Inc. looks back at the PublicMediaCamp held in fall 2008 in Santa Cruz, Calif., as part of the development of an open-source content management system for KUSP-FM and other community radio stations.

Local media techie Matthew Galvin attended the Santa Cruz event and wrote that it "was really enjoyable, although my head hurt from trying to wrap it around the incredibly broad spectrum of interests."

In a 12-second video posted online, a participant in the Santa Cruz camp says he'd like to enlarge public attention spans, not shorten them.The video appears on 12seconds.tv, a new Twitter-like site that limits videos to a fraction of a minute.

CPB sought a coordinator for its involvement in the PublicMediaCamp.