Thursday, September 23, 2010

Innovating The New Arab Woman

When: 4 October 2010, 2pm - 3pm. 
Where: Stanford University, Wallenberg Hall

Organized by Stanford Center for Innovation and Communication
Co-organizer: Stanford Center for Design Research



Register to the event here

Speaker
: Joumana Haddad, poet, editor-in-chief Jasad Magazine, author of "I Killed Sheherazade"

Panelists:Diana El-Azar, Director of Media, Entertainment and Information Industries, World Economic Forum.  Kirsten Mogensen, Associate Professor in Journalism, Roskilde University. Esther Wojcicki, Journalist, Educator, Chairwoman Creative Commons

Moderator: David Nordfors, Founding Executive Director, Stanford Center for Innovation & Communication

Joumana Haddad will be speaking about the new Arab woman, different from the cliche presently dominating discussions around the world. In her latest book "I Killed Sheherazade" she takes a stand for a modern Arab woman who is equal to man, autonomous, feminine as well as intellectual and professional, the custodian of her own body and her own sexuality. Haddad sees woman and man as equal in power and influence, their relationships built on consensual agreement between independent  individuals.

The panel discussion will cover both the New Arab Woman, as well as under which circumstances she can develop. Woman activists in the Arab world are today enabled by the Internet, cell phones and other technologies. Which types of innovations enable the new Arab woman? Which are the forces that can support the innovation processes that enable her?

More about Joumana Haddad:

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

National Slovenian TV report from IJ-7


Slovenian national public TV, RTV  Slovenia, broadcast a reportage from IJ-7. The reportage is made by Eva Uranjek. It is in Slovenian, but nearly all the interviews are in English, so it's interesting to watch it, even if you don't understand Slovenian.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Announcing IJ-8 May 23-25 2011. Academic Track Call for Papers

Call for papers:

Innovation, Journalism and Collective Intelligence

IJ-8 The Eight Conference on Innovation Journalism and CommunicationStanford Center for Innovation and Communication Stanford University, California.23-25 May 2011

IJ-8 The Eight Conference on Innovation Journalism is a venue for researchers from many disciplines and institutions to present work and ideas relating to the interplay of journalism,  communication and innovation ecosystems.

IJ-8 is a meeting place for researchers and journalism/communication professionals to discuss the best ways of covering innovation in the news, or communicating innovation, the business of doing that work, and how innovation journalism and communication interacts with each other and with society.

The conference welcomes a varied set of participants: Working journalists, policy-makers in innovation, academic researchers, faculty and research students in related areas of commerce, communication and journalism, and other professionals connected to the media industry.

The Conference is hosted at Stanford University under the auspices of the Stanford Center for Innovation and Communication.  The Center for Innovation and Communication welcomes faculty and graduate student submissions on all topics related to innovation and communication. 

The Program Committee welcomes strong theoretical and empirical contributions without regard to particular methodological approach, professional context (including journalism, advertising, public relations, strategy and innovation, and the standard social science disciplines) and overall orientation of the research (theoretical, descriptive, philosophical, pedagogical, methodological or practical).

“The Prinjos” –The Prizes for Best Innovation Journalism Conference Paper
The best papers in each of the following three categories will receive a recognition for “Best Paper at the Innovation Journalism Conference at Stanford 2011”:
1. The Grand Prinjo: best conference paper among all submissions.
2. The Junior Prinjo: best paper submitted by graduate students.
3. The Journalist Prinjo: best paper submitted by practitioners.

Manuscript Submission
Authors may submit full papers for double blind peer review before March 1, 2011. Papers should be between 5000 and 8000 words excluding bibliography and appendices. Please make the submission documents anonymous – author(s) identity must not be displayed. Please provide a separate page with paper title and an abstract of no more than 75 words; write name, affiliation and all contact information of the author(s) on that page with the abstract.  Format should be Word, citations in Harvard Style. Paper and abstract must be sent as attachments in one email to IJ8-Uskali@innovationjournalism.org

The Review Process
All papers will undergo blind peer review. The review process is humane, including reasonable turnaround time on submissions and  with firm but polite critique. Papers are reviewed in the order they are received and authors will receive answers as soon as the paper has been evaluated. Authors of accepted papers are expected to present their papers at the Innovation Journalism Conference at Stanford University. Authors of rejected full papers are invited to participate in the conference without presenting their work.

Conference Fee
 The Conference fee is $250, including access to the conference, conference materials and refreshments.


Main themes of IJ-8 Academic Track:
·  The role of innovation journalism in ubiquitous society, and in the new era of internet of things.
·  The influence of the real-time web and social media in innovation communication.
·  How journalism and innovation interact in times of rapid change.
·  Towards a systems view: Public attention and attention work in innovation communication ecosystems, the stakeholders and audiences, and the interaction between these elements.

Examples of research topics of interest:
·  Professional norms, values, codes of ethics and principles of innovation journalism.
·  How newsrooms and other professional organizations affect the coverage of innovation.
·  Democracy and governance: The role of journalism in the innovation economy.
·  Who sets the agenda for innovation journalism?
·  Concept of attention work, the professional generation and brokering of attention.
·  Concept of innovation communication systems; the flow of attention in innovation systems.
·  How innovation processes and innovation ecosystems interact with public attention, with news media as an actor.
·  Interdependencies between journalism and other actors in the innovation system.
·  The roles of reputation and trust in the innovation ecosystem.
·  Business Models for innovation journalism.
·  Models of innovation and media, including firm, industry and economy-wide innovation systems.
·  Governance, accountability and innovation in and by journalists and media actors.
·  State of the art as well as theory and practice in the teaching of innovation journalism.
·  Innovation journalism and feminism.

Information about the conference and accepted papers will be posted on: http://injo.stanford.edu,
http://www.innovationjournalism.org , the general InJo site, and the conference site
http://ij8.innovationjournalism.org

Program Committee
IJ-8 Chair: David Nordfors, Executive Director, Stanford Center for Innovation and communication.
IJ-8Academic Program Chair: Kirsten Mogensen, Associate Professor, Roskilde University.
IJ-8 Academic  Review & Publication Chair: Turo Uskali, University of Jyväskylä, Finland and Senior Research Scholar, Stanford Center for Innovation and Communication.
Dr. Ibrahim Saleh, Centre for Film & Media Studies, University of Cape Town

Program Committee Contact:
Professor Kirsten Mogensen: Mogensen@innovationjournalism.org

The Review Panel:
Professor Jari Ojala, Department of History and Ethnology, Uni of Jyväskylä.
Professor Antti Hautamäki, Agora center, University of Jyväskylä.
Professor Göte Nyman , University of Helsinki, Finland
Adjunct Professor Norm Meier, Boston University and President/Owner at the Catalyst-Global BCM Consortium, California
Research Director, Dr.  Jari Kaivo-oja, , Finland Futures Research Centre, University of Turku, Finland
Associate Professor John Damm Scheuer, Roskilde University
Associate Professor Kirsten Mogensen, Roskilde University
Associate Professor Oddgeir Tveiten , University of Agder, Norge
Dr. Ibrahim Saleh, Centre for Film & Media Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Dr. Fiona Martin, University of Sydney, Australia
Author, journalist Jane Jordan-Meier, President/Owner at Jane Jordan & Associates, California.
Doctoral student Kevin Perry, Roskilde University, Denmark.
Doctoral student Bettina Maisch, Institute for Media and Communication Management at University of St. Gallen, Schwitzerland.
Doctoral student Katrin Tobies, University of Leipzig Insitute for Communication and Media Management. 

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Slovenian Conference on Innovation Communication


Some great news from Slovenia (I added links):

On Apr 7, 2010, at 13:08, Violeta Bulc wrote:
Ok.. tomorrow is a big day ... Slovenian Conference on Innovation communication (one of the 4 tracks is innovation journalism).. we have 183 registered participants; we will also give away 27 awards in different categories for InJo for 2009. Rx, Violeta
ps; the new director of our the biggest daily newspaper (DELO) has mentioned yesterday in his speech that the restructuring of the newspaper will be based on innovation journalism principles, fresh approach and new technologies

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Examples of Flavors of InJo


Here are some examples illustrating different types of InJo, all relating to the iPad launch. Note that this is very tech-slanted InJo. Remember that InJo can also be social/cultural/business-oriented. Innovation is the introduction of novelties, the process of transforming ideas into new value in society. Technology is an enabler, and sometimes - but far from always - the key driver of innovation.

Here goes:

1. InJo covering the innovation release. This story by Chris Foresman in arstechnica is close to a product review, only it comes before the release, in the very last part of the innovation process, speculating on the product, the release and how it will affect Apple:

2. InJo covering the ability to innovate, and the future directions. The story by Seth Weintraub in ComputerWorld Blogs: Apple hires Richard De Vaul - specialist on wearable computers (e.g. computers embedded in clothes) - as "Senior Prototype Engineer". By interviewing De Vaul on his past we get a picture of Apple's possible future. The story gets traction from the iPad launch - as we are waiting for the iPad to come, we get curious about what may come after that.

3. InJo speculating on the future - columnist style. Here is one of my favorites - David Carnoy/CNET published this fictitious dialogue between Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Apple's Steve Jobs upon the launch of the Kindle. It was a critical review of the design of the Kindle (published in the reviews section), but at a same time an early visionary speculation of the iPad.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Nokia chairman delivers Finnish InJo prize

The chairman of Nokia and Royal Dutch Shell, Jorma Ollila, will deliver the Innovation Crystal prize awarded for a particularly well-produced innovation-related story in Helsinki, Finland on the 25th of March. This is the fourth time the Finnish Society for Innovation Journalism (www.finjo.fi) arranges the competition that this year has attracted a record number of nominations. The event also marks a new momentum for Finjo that under its new chairman, Carl-Gustav Linden, a 2008 participant in the Innovation Journalism program at Stanford, is raising its profile in the debate on the future of this country with just over five million inhabitants.

Finland is profiled as the world´s first country that implemented an Innovation Policy Program based on R&D and knowledge, as early as 1990. Finjo, founded three years ago, is another first; so far the only association in the world formally committed to Innovation Journalism, that is journalism about innovation and innovations in journalism. The word innovation is somewhat tainted by hype and rhetoric.

“I think it´s easier to get the message through if we talk about renewal processes or social change. I also believe that the deep recession Finland and parts of the world is in right now makes the issue more urgent and people more responsive. It’s a sort of Finland 2.0 discourse”, says Carl-Gustav Linden who is a business writer and researcher at University of Helsinki.

Finjo brings a broad variety of experts together –journalists, communication specialists, researchers, bureaucrats and business people for sharing thoughts on topics varying from the effects of social media to the R&D policy of the European Union. Openness is maybe one of the strongest assets of Finland and the rest of the Nordic countries, where Linux and MySQL are just two examples of where open and voluntary collaboration can lead.

“Even though Finland has been ahead of the rest in forming innovation policy there is a need for politicization and democratization and I believe Finjo is be just the right venue for these discussions”, says Carl-Gustav Linden.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

IJ-7 Academic Track - Call For Papers

IJ-7 The Seventh Conference on Innovation Journalism

Stanford University, Stanford CA

June 7-9, 2010

IJ-7 The Seventh Conference on Innovation Journalism is a venue for researchers from many disciplines and institutions to present work and ideas relating to the interplay of journalism and other forms of communication in innovation ecosystems. IJ-7 is also a meeting place for researchers and journalism professionals to discuss the best ways of covering innovation in the news, the business of doing that work, and how innovation journalism interacts with society. The conference welcomes a varied set of participants: Working journalists, policy-makers in journalism and innovation, academic researchers, faculty and research students in related areas of commerce, communication and journalism, and other professionals connected to the media industry.

The Conference is hosted at Stanford University under the auspices of the Vinnova Stanford Research Center on Innovation Journalism. The Innovation Journalism Center welcomes faculty and graduate student submissions on all topics related to communication and innovation. The Program Committee specifically welcomes strong theoretical and empirical contributions without regard to particular methodological approach, professional context (including journalism, advertising, public relations, strategy and innovation, and the standard social science disciplines) and overall orientation of the research (theoretical, descriptive, philosophical, pedagogical, methodological or practical).

“The Prinjos” –The Prizes for Best Innovation Journalism Paper

The best papers in each of the following three categories will receive a recognition for “Best Paper at the Innovation Journalism Conference at Stanford 2010”:

1. The Grand Prinjo: best conference paper among all submissions.

2. The Junior Prinjo: best paper submitted by graduate students.

3. The Journalist Prinjo: best paper submitted by practitioners.


Manuscript Submission

Authors may submit paper proposals or full papers.

- Paper Proposal – 500-700 words. Open until April 1, 2010

- Full Paper – max 25 pages excluding bibliography and appendices. Open until June 1, 2010.

Please make the submission documents anonymous – author(s) identity must not be displayed. Please provide a separate page with paper title and an abstract of no more than 75 words; write name, affiliation and all contact information of the author(s) on that page with the abstract. Format should be Word, citations in Harvard Style. Paper and abstract must be sent as attachments in one email to

IJ7-mogensen@stanford.edu

SUBMISSION OF PAPER PROPOSALS

If you want to test if your idea for a paper is welcomed by the Program Committee before undertaking the work of producing a paper, submit a paper proposal by April 1 and indicate that you would like to submit a complete paper. If our reviewers favor your proposal, you will receive an invitation to submit a paper before June 1. Your full paper will then be reviewed and given the status of either ‘reviewed paper’ or ‘paper in progress’ at the Conference.

SUBMISSION OF FULL PAPERS

You may submit a paper directly, without first submitting a proposal. Your paper may be accepted as a ‘reviewed paper’, ‘paper in progress’, or – if it does not meet the criteria of the conference – ‘rejected’. Please submit full papers to IJ7-mogensen@STANFORD.edu any time before June 1, 2010.

The Review Process

All papers will undergo blind peer review. The review process is humane, including reasonable turnaround time on submissions and firm but polite critique. Papers are reviewed in the order they are received and authors will receive answers as soon as the paper has been evaluated. Authors of accepted papers are expected to present their papers at the Innovation Journalism Conference at Stanford University. Authors of rejected full papers are invited to participate in the conference without presenting their work. No conference fee is collected.

.

Main themes of IJ-7 Academic Track:

· How journalism and innovation interact.

· How journalism can cover innovation processes and innovation ecosystems.

· Towards a systems view: Public attention and attention work in innovation communication ecosystems, the stakeholders and audiences, and the interaction between these elements.

Examples of research topics of interest:

· Professional norms, values, codes of ethics and principles of innovation journalism.

· How newsrooms and other professional organizations affect the coverage of innovation.

· Democracy and governance: The role of journalism in the innovation economy.

· Concept of attention work, the professional generation and brokering of attention.

· Concept of innovation communication systems; the flow of attention in innovation systems.

· How innovation processes and innovation ecosystems interact with public attention, with news media as an actor.

· Interdependencies between journalism and other actors in the innovation system.

· The roles of reputation and trust in the innovation ecosystem.

· Business Models for innovation journalism.

· Models of innovation and media, including firm, industry and economy-wide innovation systems.

· Governance, accountability and innovation in and by journalists and media actors.

· State of the art as well as theory and practice in the teaching of innovation journalism.

· Innovation journalism and feminism.

Information about the conference and accepted papers will be posted on:

http://www.innovationjournalism.org , the general InJo site, and the forthcoming conference sites

http://ij7.innovationjournalism.org alias http://ij7.stanford.edu

Program Committee

IJ-7 Chair: David Nordfors, Executive Director, VINNOVA-Stanford Research Center of Innovation Journalism.

IJ-7 Academic Track Chair: Kirsten Mogensen, Visiting InJo Researcher, Stanford University and Associate Professor, Roskilde University.

Turo Uskali, University of Jyväskylä, Finland and Senior Research Scholar. VINNOVA Stanford Center.

Marc Ventresca, University Lecturer in Strategy, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford; Senior Research Scholar, VINNOVA Stanford Center; and Research Faculty, Global Public Policy, Naval Postgraduate School

Doctoral Student Bettina Maisch, Institute for Media and Communication Management at University of St.Gallen andVisiting Researcher, Center for Design Research at Stanford

Program Committee Contact:

Professor Kirsten Mogensen: kirstenm@stanford.edu

Visiting Innovation Journalism Researcher

Vinnova-Stanford Research Center of Innovation Journalism, Stanford University.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

InJo TV Series Wins "Brand of the Year"

InJo is a concept for successful journalism. I have been saying it since I coined the concept, and I have often had to argue for my case.

SAMAA TV in Pakistan embraced the Innovation Journalism journalism concept and started the series "INNOVATION" in 2009. That InJo series has now been awarded "Brand of the Year", beating +500 innovation brands from all industries, winning both the consumer vote and the expert panel ranking. It's the first time a journalistic product wins the award. On top of that, SAMAA won the Corporate Social Responsibility award, an achievement SAMAA says happened due to its InJo approach.

Congratulations to Amir Jahangir, CEO of SAMAA TV, Shahray Zariff, Executive Producer of the INNOVATION series, and Fatima Akhtar, anchor and team member of the show, who will be an InJo Fellow 2010 at Stanford.

SAMAA's success tells us some things:
1. INJO IS POPULAR JOURNALISM
2. INJO CAN BE CENTRAL IN INNOVATION SYSTEMS
3. INJO WORKS IN EMERGING ECONOMIES


The Stanford news release is here below, followed by the SAMAA release. Here is an introductory video of the award winning INNOVATION InJo TV series (in English):



STANFORD UNIVERSITY NEWS SERVICE
Jan 26 2010.
(Here is the news release on Stanford's news web. Here is a copy in PDF)

Collaboration between Stanford Innovation Journalism Center and a Pakistani TV station honored

The award-winning program "Innovation" is dedicated to identifying innovation in all aspects of Pakistani life, and has covered issues ranging from alternative energy to mobile banking.

BY AIMEE MILES

A collaborative effort between the Vinnova Stanford Research Center of Innovation Journalism and a Pakistani television station, SAMAA TV, is receiving an award for its role in bringing local issues of innovative development to the forefront of public awareness in Pakistan.


"Innovation," a television program featured on SAMAA, was named "Brand of the Year 2009" in a category recognizing products and services that sharpen public focus on processes of innovation and competitiveness in Pakistan. The series beat out more than 500 competitors from various industries in a nationwide judging that included a consumer survey and an expert panel analysis. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani is scheduled to present the award in February.

The idea for the television series was conceived by the CEO of SAMAA TV, Amir Jahangir, who sits on an advisory board for the Innovation Journalism Center (also known as the "InJo" Center) at Stanford. The
series is dedicated to identifying innovation in all aspects of Pakistani life, and has covered issues ranging from alternative energy to mobile banking.

"[The Pakistanis] have created something of theirs with information and advice from us that has created a new model of media programming there that adds something to traditional journalism," said David Nordfors, founding executive director of the InJo Center. "It's a young, progressive, innovative and politically moderate TV company."

"[Jahangir] decided that SAMAA should start an Innovation Journalism TV series, that shouldn't be only about gadgets or only about business or technology, but look at how business, technology, and politics interact, about how innovation happens, and identify different actors in the ecosystem and get the whole picture. SAMAA's producer Shahray Zariff and her team did an excellent job in setting that up."

Nordfors identified the collaboration as a promising example of positive U.S.-Pakistani relations.

Four Pakistani journalists come to Stanford each year as InJo fellows, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The objective of the fellowship is to train international journalists to cover the innovation economy and network with U.S. media outlets. Fellows participate in workshops and conferences at Stanford and work with newsrooms across the nation covering issues relating to innovation. Fatima Akhtar, anchor and team member of the award-winning SAMAA series, will begin a five-month fellowship at the InJo Center in February.

"Pakistan used to be a very closed country — almost all journalism in Pakistan is about Pakistan, for Pakistani people. They've actually started taking in InJo fellows from other areas of the world as expert
commentators," said Nordfors. "It's very nice to see that it actually turned out to be a smash hit because this is really a new creature in Pakistani journalism."

The first innovation journalism program started at Stanford in 2004, Nordfors said. "Our network today includes funded innovation journalism initiatives in Sweden, Finland, Slovenia, Mexico, Pakistan, Israel and the EU — all connected to the center at Stanford," he said.


SAMAA TV Press Release
(Here is the release on SAMAA's web, here is a copy in PDF)

"INNOVATION" receives BRAND OF THE YEAR, 2009 Award

Upadated on: 27 Jan 10 07:40 AM

Islamabad, 25th January – “Innovation,” a television program featured on SAMAA TV, one of Pakistan’s leading Urdu news channels has been named “Brand of the Year 2009” in a category recognizing products and services that sharpen public focus on processes of innovation and competitiveness in Pakistan.

The program, a joint collaboration between the Vinnova-Stanford Research Center of Innovation Journalism (INJO) at Stanford University and SAMAA TV beat out more than 500 other competitors from various industries in a nationwide consumer survey and an expert panel analysis. SAMAA will be receiving the award by Prime Minister Mr. Yousaf Raza Gilani in an event scheduled in February.
The award is being given to SAMAA for launching Pakistan’s first dedicated program on innovation and for establishing the genre as an important journalistic beat in Pakistan. The Program has been recognized as the key source through which the journalistic coverage of innovation processes and ecosystems in Pakistan has been integrated into the national socio-economic development plan. The program has also been applauded for playing a leading role in bringing local issues of innovative development to the forefront of public awareness in Pakistan.

Speaking to Amir Jahangir, Chief Executive Officer of SAMAA TV, he said “The program success is based on hard work and a great network of INJO fellows across the world, who through their expertise has been advising on the program content, sharing research, commenting on innovation topics and providing solutions through their input and views. Due to this collaboration, the content of our program has been acknowledged as being credible, containing relevant issues and making efforts in bringing together the relevant stakeholders of each industry to find innovative measures to cater the society needs”.

Mr. Jahangir further said that “The global development has made our world smaller and our communication more effective. We want to bring innovation to the homes of every Pakistani citizen, so that their awareness and ability to be innovative is nurtured. Our future lies in the hands of innovation and for that we need to prepare a workforce which not only knows how to be innovative but also how to link it to the economic development”.

Amir Jahangir also shared that SAMAA is the only media channel in Pakistan, which has been recognized both national as well as internationally for being a responsible business operator using innovation journalism techniques as part of business strategy. This acknowledgement was given to SAMAA by the Asian Forum for Corporate Social Responsibility, who awarded SAMAA the Asian CSR Excellence Award 2009 as the only channel in Asia, for being a responsible business operator creating value for its viewers and empowering marginalized communities for a better tomorrow. SAMAA has also recently won the National CSR Excellence Award 2009, which no channel has received so far.

Dr. David Nordfors, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the VINNOVA-Stanford Research Center of Innovation Journalism coined the term “Innovation Journalism” in 2003. Dr. Nordfors said that “SAMAA has proven the viability for the Innovation Journalism as a genre in Pakistan, and emerging economies. This award is not alone a milestone for SAMAA TV but also for the Innovation Journalism Initiative at Stanford ”. He said that by being the first, SAMAA TV is leading the way for other media channels both in Pakistan as well as across the world.
Dr. David Nordfors specially acknowledged Amir Jahangir, CEO SAMAA TV for the strong leadership and commitment in bringing innovation to the Pakistani media. Mr. Nordfors said that Mr. Jahangir’s strong belief in linking innovation to economic development would play a crucial role in creating a new ecosystem in the Pakistan economy.

The program series is dedicated to identifying innovation in all aspects of Pakistani life, and has covered issues ranging from alternative energy to mobile banking.
Mr. Arif Allauddin, CEO Alternative Energy Development Board also appreciated SAMAA TVs program stating that “ it was the first of its kind show which showcased how different countries are addressing their energy needs using alternative energy -Thus, giving the Government of Pakistan the opportunity to learn and benefit from their experiences and serve as guidelines for us”. He said that the program has been engaging InJo fellows across the world and coming up with global solutions to local issues, which are required more now than ever, as Pakistan continues to face immense challenges in providing quality education, primary healthcare, energy supply and employment opportunities for youth.

The INJO program at Stanford University focus on building the capacity of media professionals to report on innovation, develop interaction between journalism and innovation, including how innovation is changing the profession and business of journalism, how to cover innovation in the news, and how journalism links innovation with society. Four Pakistani journalists come to Stanford each year as InJo fellows. The objective of the fellowship is to train international journalists to cover the innovation economy and network with US media outlets. Fellows participate in workshops and conferences at Stanford and work with newsrooms across the nation covering issues relating to innovation.

SAMAA TV is one of Pakistan’s leading private satellite television channels, which takes pride in its fair, factual and independent news coverage through its on-the-hour bulletins, breaking stories, incisive political analysis and current affairs programs. The channel is the first media channel is Pakistan to have established a well-integrated Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Program as part of it business activities.

The channel has also made a niche for itself through its programs on women and youth issues besides infotainment and sports. SAMAA TV, launched in December 2007 has network of district correspondents and five bureaus across Pakistan along with international stringers in the Middle East, Europe and North America.
© SAMAA TV - 2008

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Future Talk TV Show on The Future of Journalism

The future of journalism in light of the new electronic media. Host Martin Wasserman interviews David Nordfors, director of the Center for Innovation Journalism, and Tony Deifell, director of Q Media Labs.

Friday, January 08, 2010

HOLD THE DATES 7-11 JUNE 2010. JI@ST Conference Cluster at Stanford: IJ-7 + JTM

(The original, always up-to-date, version of this page is here)

JI@ST - A Conference Cluster about Journalism and Innovation:
  • IJ-7: The Seventh Conference on Innovation Journalism, June 7-9 2010
  • JTM - Journalism That Matters, June 9-11 2010
Both conferences are held at Stanford University.

These back-to-back conferences will take a thorough look on journalism in the innovation economy. The conferences are open for all types of participants with an interest in journalism and innovation. We are looking forward to an active, results-oriented discussion between people of different professions and views. (More details below.)

To receive calls for participation and registration, sign up here (This is not the conference registration. The registration will come later this spring.)

IJ-7 - The Seventh Conference on Innovation Journalism

Organized by the VINNOVA-Stanford Research Center on Innovation Journalism at Stanford University

Key topics:

- HOW JOURNALISM AFFECTS INNOVATION

- HOW INNOVATION AFFECTS JOURNALISM

- THE ABILITY OF JOURNALISM TO COVER INNOVATION

The conference includes keynotes, presentations and workshops. We have a multi-stakeholder approach, welcoming all types of scholars and professionals to take part in a discussion on the role of journalism in the innovation economy. The participants in this conference come from all over the world, due to the international character of the program.

A large part of the conference will be organized by the Innovation Journalism Fellows, who begin their Fellowships at Stanford in Feb 2010. The Fellows this year c

ome from Sweden, Finland, Pakistan, Mexico and Slovenia. Like all earlier years, the conference program will emerge in March-May.

The conference is like in 2009 scheduled to present an academic track, where researchers will present papers. All IJ-7 participants are welcome to sit in on the research presentations.

Check out the website of our previous IJ-6 conference and the IJ-6 conference academic track.

Registration will open probably in March.

Keep up to date here on the Innovation Journalism Blog and the Innovation Journalism Facebook Group


JTM - Journalism That Matters

JOURNALISM THAT MATTERS hosts conversations about the emerging news ecology among the diverse ecosystem of journalism – reporters, editors, publishers, videographers, photographers, media educators, reformers, volunteer journalists, and audience; from print, broadcast, and online media, both mainstream and entrepreneurial.

It is a community of media innovators and stakeholders that blazes paths and builds bridges to a new news ecology. We convene, connect, and inspire the diverse, engaged citizens who are molding and leading the media of tomorrow.

Using the un-conference format, we will explore What do we know and what do we want to know at the intersection of journalism and innovation?

Conference sessions could explore questions such as: Given the state of the industry, WHAT’s possible now? WHO are the new journalists? HOW are stories chosen? HOW are they told? WHAT kind of change is productive? WHO can the public trust? WHAT is the role of journalism in connecting people and community? WHERE can editors find qualified contributors and information with increasingly diminished budgets? WHAT new technological sources are reliable? WHERE is the new newsroom? WHEN are beat blogs, twittering and social networks best utilized? WHY is transparency so important? HOW do we maintain transparency and accountability while protecting sources?

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Prisoners Dilemma at COP15 in Copenhagen; Meanwhile in Mei Lin's Kitchen

Doug Engelbart and David Nordfors
(This blog post was published by Huffington Post 31 Dec 2009)

On December 9, world leaders debated global climate in Copenhagen and Obama was in Oslo to accept his Nobel. I was sharing a glass of wine with Doug Engelbart, father of personal computing as we know it, in the kitchen of Mei Lin Fung, Doug's long-time friend, in Palo Alto. It was a potluck dinner, shoes off, sparing Mei Lin's floors. I sensed links. Half a world away, people were commemorating the world's biggest problems, preparing for gala dinners, while we toasted the birth of perhaps the most powerful tool in human hands, sitting in that cozy kitchen among people who had made it happen.

Doug was guest of honor. In San Francisco, on Dec 9 1968, his 'Mother of All Demos' gave birth to the modern PC: Doug and his SRI team, with chief engineer Bill English, demo'ed for the first time personal computing as we recognize it today, showing the first computer mouse, interactive text, video conferencing, teleconferencing, email, hypertext and a collaborative real-time editor.
Mei Lin Fung
While Obama was receiving his Nobel, the Copenhagen Climate Conference was becoming a giant prisoners' dilemma. If all cut emissions, all win. If nobody cuts, all lose. If some cut but not others, non-cutters win more than cutters. Which courageous leader will commit first? As fictional Jim Hacker, Minister of Administrative Affairs in the political satire 'Yes, Minister' says: "Courageous? I don't want to do anything courageous! That's the kind of thing that ends careers." Swedish PM Fredrik Reinfeldt's was not happy: "Who sets the speed of progress? The least ambitious."

When groups face common problems, power goes to those who must agree for anything to happen. Often their political power and the value of their 'OK' grows as they hold out--supply and demand. If the problem is bad and people want their 'OK' they say 'Well, first YOU must [insert demads here].' They may be conscientious, backed by their constituencies, so it might not seem immoral. Leaders build power, stature and wealth for their followers by gatekeeping. Some may get a Nobel, others may end up in the International Criminal Court in the Hague. The need for consensus breeds gatekeeping. That's the game.

Back to Mei Lin's kitchen. It might be closer to the solution than banquet halls in world capitals. The name 'Mother of All Demos' came later. The actual name marking the birth of real personal computing was 'a research center for augmenting human intellect.' Doug's idea was not to make computers smarter, it was to help people be smarter. Computers had been about automation, replacing but not augmenting intellect. Doug was lucky, a chosen researcher supported by J.C.R. 'Lick' Licklider at ARPA, the visionary accredited for planting the seeds of computing in the digital age. Normal funders disdained people like Doug: the ideas did not fit their funding.

Lick coined the "intergalactic computer network," a vision of computers collaborating. The Internet protocol that enabled it was invented by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn. Vint - often referred to as 'father of the Internet' - is today at Google, still reforming civilization.

Doug hosted the second node of the Arpanet, the predecessor of the Internet, at his SRI center, believing that by networking PCs humanity could improve its 'collective intelligence' and solve tougher problems: such as avoid nuclear wars, stop pandemics and solve environmental issues. Solutions via traditional multilateral agreements may be hard: they engender gatekeeping, brinkmanship and cheating on agreements.

But through improved PCs and the Internet, it is easier to innovate, to introduce game-changing novelties, that can bypass obstacles to getting things done. If gatekeepers disagree, innovate and re-design the game to work without them.
Doug Engelbart and Bill English
Bill is holding the Google Phone
This is happening in IT, including music, entertainment and media, not the least journalism. For example, Creative Commons is an innovation of copyright in the digital age. HuffPo bloggerEster Wojcicki, Chairwoman of Creative Commons, as well as the Palo Alto High School Teacher of Mei Lin's daughter among other kids, was also with us at Mei Lin's this evening.

Voices--including Thomas Friedman's--are saying that innovation, not multilateral regulation, should drive the climate issue. The ideal: a balance between innovation and regulation. Necessary international agreements can be driven by the innovation ecosystem, putting gatekeepers at risk of being bypassed. And international agreements can enable the innovation ecosystem, through creating incentives.

David Nordfors
Given the impact of personal computers and the Internet on humanity, I was struck by the intimacy in Mei Lin's kitchen vs. the grandeur of the manifestations of the world's problems in Oslo and Copenhagen. As Copenhagen opened our eyes to the difficulties of creating consensus in a cynical world, perhaps in 2010 meetings in kitchens and garage startups will be equally important to multilateral negotiations in large congress centers. One could leverage the other.

PS. The achievement of 'the Mother of All Demos' was astonishing. Mei Lin: "That demo was never supposed to work." It might not have if not for Bill English. Bill was there, showing his new cell phone. Later it became known that Google had given beta versions of its own Android to selected people (Bill probably among them). Did anyone in Oslo or Copenhagen get one?

Friday, December 11, 2009

Slovenian InJo-InCo 2009 Manifesto


Violeta Bulc's Vibacom have released the InJo-InCo 2009 Manifesto, the project is lead by Estera Lah P0ljak. The publication is in Slovenian, there is a summary in English here. It starts like this:
"Identifying significant events and projects, becoming aware of their importance in time and space, critically assessing their advantages and challenges, capturing responses of different stakeholders, proposing initiatives and future activities. These were our guidelines in drafting
the second issue of our annual publication, the InJo-InCo Manifesto 2009. All of the above is also included in the principles of innovation journalism, from which the InCo movement as a business-civil initiative was initiated and grew into wider innovation communication projects interconnecting different stakeholders of the innovation space based on dialogue. This publication is a result of this active involvement. The title “Manifesto” itself demands action or manifestation, thus we start by proposing initiatives for an innovative breakthrough of Slovenia drafted based on the philosophy, dialogue and experiences of the InCo movement in the field of innovation communication and journalism in 2009. These initiatives are accompanied by commitments the InCo movement will fulfil in 2010 and which we believe will raise awareness about creativity and innovation in Slovenian space."