LiveBlogging WeMedia Miami 2008, Take Two

This panel, The Power to Change the World – so far I am engaged (at least more so than in the last two) because of Darya Shaikh of OneVoice Movement discussing how so many benefit from the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (choice quote: “if you’re not pissing people off, you’re not doing your job”) and the idea of an anti-movement using technology.

Moving on to Katrine Verclas of MobileActive (did you know that half the world is connected by mobile phone?) – a global tool for mobilizing activists using mobile technology. She mentions using mobile tech to remind HIV/AIDS patients to take meds, and on the site – again, the idea of using Twitter for emergency notifications (full disclosure: I am embarrassed to admit that I just signed up for Twitter today – I was trying to be all refusenik about it – clearly I can no longer avoid trends).

Jean Marc Coicaud of United Nations University (will someone remind me to talk to him later?) – “how do you go from information to knowledge?” A poignant question when you think about how much you tab back and forth in your browser, clicking and reading 10-12 pages at once, filtering what you can (come on, you know you do it too) into your brain, trying to weed out the crap…Anyway, from the UNU website:

UNU studies human activities and the way in which they are altering the world, with a particular emphasis on the concerns and needs of developing countries.

Very cool.

Hip Hop Caucus! Now that piques my interest (ask me why) Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. (“Media has the ability to make the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent”; “The revolution may not be televised, but it will be uploaded”)

Asked to talk about hip hop as a motivator (my favorite hip hop-related subject), he says:

In this process, what we’re dealing with with the media again, is the power to tell a story…We’ve been very vocal against Katrina…The mainstream media had to pick the story up [after the bloggers let it out]. Even when I leave here today, it’s so infuriating – because the media got behind that story when I go back to Washington D.C. I’ll be arrested for using a mic [because he was arrested before].

He’s discussing the idea of creating your own media within your community (in this case the hip hop community) – stressing the point that the media is not the bad guy – but that the bad thing is only portraying one side of the story.  “It’s critical for others to tell the other side of the story.”   And touching upon the elections – 1.3 million people registered to vote through Hip Hop Caucus (WOW!) and how the story of young voters is ignored (I agree), particularly those without college degrees.  Young people are voting but their stories aren’t being told. (He also mentions how Katrina occurred nearly exactly 50 years following Emmitt Till.

Final quote: “The pen stops, the life stops.”

The panel is not over yet, but I’m going to post this now while it’s still relevant.

(Simultaneously published here)