Why these events fail - but why they're worth trying

Spent most (not all) of the day at the WeMedia forum. Tried to realtime blog some of it - tricky to do while listening hard, trying to watch and add to the chat.

See the Cybersoc blog
http://www.cybersoc.com/2006/05/wemedia_confere.html
For an excellent realtime blog from Robin Hamman - nice one! I'm not going to try and blog like that today on the assumption that I'll be able to link to the work of other bloogers.

These events fail because the world views of the participants are too divergent. And there's a resource and operational quality gap. Obviously the global reach of Reuters and the BBC needs huge resources - but also they have to operate to a certain level of quality in terms of delivery. Wheras we make stuff work on a shoe string - and we don't have 'management process'.

But we still have to do this because the message about power and participation in the media needs to be delivered - even if it remains in the 'do not open until Christmas' box. And we have to take the message to their territory. Because they don't come to us.

Communicating about the issues is important - and events like this are very difficult. It's worth trying.