Social Capital: Media Skills Education

I was recently interviewed for a UK newspaper around the subject of MediaCamps, I felt this information would sit really well on the SMC Blog also, and a couple others where I have cross-posted.

So could you firstly sum up what the media camp you’re involved is? How is it implemented? What do you mean by unconference?

I coined the phrase “MediaCamp” in 2007 having witnessed various self-organising groups in the technology sector create events where like-minded people came together to share knowledge and experience, though none, from what I could tell with some rare exceptions, were really reaching outside of their own knowledge sector and attracting both new-comers and seasoned practitioners to media, particularly in UK, I sensed a need for a melting-pot of pollination, an event with no echo.

I run them through my web development consultancy company and under the trading name of the Social Media Mafia, which is a large growing collective of people approaching 1000, as of this post.

The key in the term unconference is the “un” where we try to unravel the bad points about standard conferences. In a standard format conference attendees are seated and typically listen to a speaker(s) talk at them for a lengthy period of time whilst showing some slides, whilst, of course, this has clear value, it is in fact an ancient educational model. The spirit of an unconference is in participation, that is to say it is more workshop style, where a room of people engage in a dynamic session around the topic. Sure, the sessions have a focus, a point, but everyone is treated equally. This makes sense considering that working in the relatively young field of new-media we find that the participants may know just as much as the speaker, or be able to contribute in a dynamic way…. knowledge is the focal point, not “the speaker”.

MediaCamps inevitably have multiple sessions running concurrently, participants are encouraged to stand up and walk out of a session if they are obtaining no value from it and walk into one which interests them.

The majority of organisation for a MediaCamp is conducted on an open access wiki. That is a website which can be edited by anyone. So we put out some initial pages, such as:

* where
* what
* when
* who etc

We then watch as the participants themselves start to populate the pages with information about the camp, by adding topic sessions, local eating spots, travel details etc etc. It really is a camp for the people, created by the people, though with a leadership to ensure accuracy of details and practicalities with the venue and personnel.

I couldn’t find many of these in the UK - but loads in the US - why is this?

You are correct, the concept of “camp” is pretty much an American way of life, the Brits are not culturally so used to coming together with strangers and getting stuck in on a mutual project we are more suspicious and generally not evangelic by nature, the irony is we are really good at it, and can more than hold our own in comparison with the USA!

Who is it most useful to; those breaking into the industry (students, for examples) or those already in it? Why?

To be honest we have people right across the board coming along, from senior managers to students. If you imagine a CEO sitting down next to a recently graduated student there are great cross-cultural possibilities, both can learn from each other without the traditional barriers of management chain obfuscation.

What sort of skills can attendees expect to gain (and how)?

Life-long learning skills, where participants construct their own meaning from the topics, they create and foster their own experience through the topics, rather than just being told so, this is known as constructivism.

How do you design the programme? Do you look at skills gaps in the industry to tailor the information, at all?

Yes, I must admit I do target the industry and the skills gap to an extent, and there is going to be a huge skills gap in many of these new emerging media areas, particularly needed will be individuals able to manage change, critically analyse solutions/methods and rapidly, and also operate with significant concern for ethics and accountability.

Can you tell me about the ways it is shaping the media workforce?

The workplace is undoubtedly becoming more dynamic, we are seeing more and more people working from home, choosing alternative hours, and venues, work is becoming an extension of life-style, where we are always connected, or able to be. Large industry is generally a slow moving entity, it is hard for a company to stay abreast of fast moving communication changes, and very hard to embrace cultural change in the workforce, where employees will talk about the company in the online spaces. The world of social media enables all your consumers, employees and parties with a vested interest to communicate to thousands within seconds, garner opinion and amplify the “noise” both positively and negatively.

How and why are the camps useful for professionals? Can you tell me specifically what sort of impact it could have on a career?

As mentioned above research does indicate we are on the verge of huge skills shortage, I see it for myself in that companies really will need change management, they will need skilled employees and policies that are able to embrace “social captial“, and actively encourage their staff to use it for the benefit of the company, MediaCamps aid in that no question, we dig-deep into the positive aspects and, perhaps more importantly, the negative aspects openness can yield, the dangers of “wisdom of crowds”.

The camp format is not for everyone mind you, you have to pitch appropriate for your target audience in order to educate, you need a tiered process, so I am also organising a regular conference taking place 23rd October called Social Media in Business. This takes place in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. The content is much the same as a mediacamps but we have wrapped this up in a more traditional format to tempt some more of the corporate world out of their ivory towers, because they really do need to know about these disruptive emerging areas. The line up of speakers leading the sessions is mouth watering, they are all practitioners in the field with a vast amount of experience between them with case studies to share, it’s set to be a great day.

In addition we have a MediaCampSicilia (Sicily) taking place next weekend which is exciting, and I personally am looking forward very much to see how the Sicilians are engaging, or coping with, new and social media in the workplace, of course Sicily is culturally very different to UK.

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