Am I on Barack’s Buddy List?

First of all, let me get this out of the way right up front. Barack and I aren’t really BFF. Sure, he agreed to let me know about his choice for vice president before he told the media. Yeah, that was a nice gesture. Instead of first blabbing to television or faxing newspapers, he would go straight to me. Via text message! In fact, texting to me shows he really does understand me. I am using text messaging a lot more these days. Hey, who isn’t? It’s easier in meetings than a phone call. While my 17-year-old routinely pushes my call to voicemail, he actually answers my text message (I guess when his friends see him thumbing away they can assume that he is texting to a hot girl instead of an old dad). And now I am texting for other things besides communication. If I want the weather, I text my zip code to 4cast. If I need the answer to a question quickly, I text it to chacha (242242) – the answer comes back to me in less than 5 minutes. Each year in the US, we send over 576 billion text messages (yeah, I got that number from chacha in 4.75 minutes). Texting is quickly becoming a standard part of our lives and our phone bills. Choosing to text seems to show that Barack gets me. Has he realized that the common (wo)man has big thumbs and a service plan with a bucketload of messages? Barack seems to know his audience, right? Maybe.

On Saturday, I finally get the message – at 3:23A! Did Barack think I would still be up? If that call had woken me up, I would have been filling in my ballot from bed! By the time I read the message (at 8A the next morning), I had already heard about Biden on NPR. So maybe I wasn’t so special after all?

Fighting back the disappointment, I read in the text that Barack has a mobile site. A true progressive! When I click through I see that Barack has his own set of ringtones. I am already thinking about getting down to his platform on health care and national security address everytime I get a call from my Republican friends. I’ve got to have it. But then I learn the unpleasant truth behind the glitz.

Although Barack is flexing some serious geek muscle here with new media methods for connecting with the electorate, some of his stump messages aren’t connecting online. I mean how can I buy his promise of inclusiveness when his ringtones won’t play on my phone? Talk about the digital divide! And I have been waiting for a friend request since the primaries.

The next few months should be interesting. As they reach out to the voters, we will quickly learn who is the connected candidate and who is the digital dabbler.

DBB (Tu, 8/26, 12:30P) Mobile Advertising w/ LSNMobile

Our first guest of this Digital Brown Bag season (Tuesday, 8/26. 12:30P, NMI, 412 Journalism) will be David Spear from LSN Mobile (http://www.lsnmobile.com/). LSN Mobile is a national leader in mobile advertising – yeah, that means cell phones. But LSN isn’t ringing you up to push ads. They have a very cool way of localizing both content and advertising called “Local Wireless.” David is great at explaining it. So if you want to see how you might experience mobile advertising in the future, join us.

ideas @ iDMAa (11/6 – 11/8, Savannah)

Most of them bite. Conferences. Someone stands at a lectern on a stop-watch leash attempting to cram into 10 minutes everything about their latest gambit to get tenure. Most of the presenters stopped really caring about what they are talking about 6 months ago -- right after the paper got accepted. It all feels so pro forma and last semester! Heck some of them even read to me! Most conferences bore the heck out of me.
That is why I love iDMAa – the International Digital Media and Arts Association. No reading. No posturing. iDMAa is one of the only conferences I attend where people truly share ideas. When I travel home from iDMAa I have at least five great ideas I can’t wait to start work on. And I have at least 5 new friends to work with.
On November 6 – 8 in Savannah, GA, we are going to be holding our coolest conference yet.
The theme is “Ideas for the Future” and we are opening up all new ways of sharing your ideas. We are putting out a call for “Thought Pieces” where you share your ideas about the future – in whatever format you choose. If it is a paper keep it under 3000 words. If it is a video make it less than 5 minutes. If it is a performance, make sure we don’t need too many props. Get creative! Go crazy! Stimulate some ideas.
You can send your thought pieces to me at sshamp@uga.edu. And we need to have them by 9/19.
And you can still do traditional papers or propose panels as well. You can read about all the ways of participating at http://www.idmaa.org/idmaa2008/.
I swear it is going to be a blast. Plus Savannah is a very cool place – in November. I hope I will see you there.

What’s the big (iDMAa) idea?

And just to show you how iDMAa can jumpstart crazy wild ideas, here is video about the idea that came out of iDMAa – and changed my life. And you can see it on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6XbRTowB2o