Honourable mention must go to Ed Levinson from Analusis, mostly because he was just so darn entertaining, in the tradition of manic street preachers. (Sadly, Ed didn’t actually get to pitch his idea. It went like this):

Sadly, Ed got pulled away at that point. He’d hit the 30-second mark. But I could tell that most of the people in the room wanted to hear more and I will be in touch with Ed to find out precisely what this entrepreneurial mentor was driving at.

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“What the Net does is shift the emphasis of our intelligence, away from what might be called a meditative or contemplative intelligence and more toward what might be called a utilitarian intelligence,” he said. “The price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking.”

Think about that for a minute.

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In the pre-Web era, your privacy was something that was largely under your control, and apart from having your picture appear in the newspaper or on a police blotter somewhere, the risks were fairly limited, and easily understood. Now, the definition of privacy is a lot harder to nail down – and, in fact, differs from person to person – and the risks are (theoretically at least) unlimited.

It’s not all bad. Worried that your future employer is going to check your Facebook photos for incriminating evidence of conduct unbecoming? In a few years, it won’t matter. When everyone has embarrassing photos on the Internet, then employers won’t bother checking, if they really want to hire someone to get the job done.

What is your expectation of privacy in a wired world?

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For anyone who blogs, reads blogs or uses any social networking sites to post or view links, the idealized symbiosis between new media and old media should be obvious. But is it symbiosis or parasitism?

The old paradigm of news delivered in print may be dying, but without good old fashioned investigative reporting by paid journalists, I believe that most of this new media content, including this blog, could not exist.

There’s no doubt that new media news sites like Now Public can provide quality citizen journalism. But even there, how much of the stories on those sites is inspired by previous reporting done by paid professionals?

To take an analogy from renewable energy sources vis a vis fossil fuels, citizen journalism can only do so much to meet our entire information needs as a free society. Finding the right mix will be the challenge of the next decade.

Excerpts from New Media vs Old Media: A Portrait of the Drudge Report 2002-2008, which provide an excellent example of the dependence of new media on traditional media content.

The Drudge Report is one of the founding flag bearers of “new media”: a U.S.–based news aggregator founded in the late 1990s that has developed a reputation for breaking tomorrow’s news today…

In a time when mainstream media is coming under increasing pressure from “new” media, this portrait of one of the Web’s longest–lived and most commercially successful news aggregators paints an image not of a new media paradigm to replace the old, but rather of a symbiotic and highly dependent relationship between old and new…

Free societies depend on massive amounts of information to create an aware population that can provide direction to its elected representatives. If new media kills vast swathes of old media publications, our society may find itself at least temporarily unable to get the information it needs to make informed decisions. Even if plenty of new media news sites rise in the wake of the defeated publications, it is difficult to see how genuine sources of hard investigative journalism will replace the old paid models.

If private companies can’t hack the old media model, a massive expansion of government-subsidized CBC-like entities hardly seems a viable alternative. Even with the best intentions, it could only become a mouthpiece of agitprop. So a private solution will need to make the old print model and purely online new media companies truly symbiotic if we’re going to have access to the information we need in the future.

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Nowhere is this more evident than in the PR strategy of Olympics organizers, who are caught between old and new worlds of community engagement. New media is about free participation and building a community, and VANOC’s approach offers a lesson in recognizing the fine line between sabotaging community relations with excessive control and letting the bloggers run wild.

Read the rest of my BC Business column about how businesses can build a social media strategy on top of their traditional communications and marketing capabilities (and avoid the pitfalls of trying old tactics in a new medium), Let’s Get Social. Enjoy.

PS: What do you think of the cartoon image Antony Hare drew for me? I think it’s pretty cool.

PPS: Kris Krug was kind enough to update me the other day on the status of his alternative media centre for the Olympics, the True North Media House. Since they didn’t actually have a name for their group when I interviewed him, the place-holder name being tossed around at the time of the inverview was the Independent Media Centre, which I abbreviated in the article as IMC. I’m informed there is already an IMC that is not at all related to True North Media House, so where you read IMC in my column, please translate it as True North Media House, to avoid confusion.

KK also took exception to the following line in my column: “IMC spokesperson and web 2.0 entrepreneur Kris Krug says the people behind his group are overwhelmingly pro-Olympics and pro-business and are not remotely related to such groups as the new-media anarchists behind the Resistance 2010 campaign, with their No Olympics on Stolen Native Land motto”

While I was strictly correct in that the True North Media House is not the same organization as the Resistance 2010 campaign, Kris wants to make clear that anarchists and people of all stripes and affiliations are welcome under the big tent that is True North Media House. Glad we cleared that up.

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But I expect this debate is not going to go away anytime soon. Interesting that Canada seems to be going in an opposite direction to the USA and other nations, which have recognized the danger of allowing large corporations to throttle Internet access and usage.

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Vancouver social media guru Monica Hamburg has put together a phenomenal compilation of social networking sites for job seekers to find that hidden job market at Me Like The InterWeb.

Just one problem, and I say this as a convert to the incredible opportunities offered by social media and as a good friend of the author: between blogging, Twittering, Facebook-friending and all the rest of these very cool ways of connecting with employers, isn’t it way too easy to get caught up with all of these fun things and neglect the brass tacks of a traditional job search (eg. researching companies, adapting and revising your resume, tracking down the person you’re supposed to talk with, submitting your credentials and following up with a phone call)?

I know from personal experience that it’s easy to get immersed in social media sites and blogging, taking significant time away from activities that would have a chance of getting me famous or making me money. There’s only so much time in the day. Where I’ve succeeded in converting my social media efforts into “real-life” opportunities, I’ve made a conscious and dedicated effort to connect in more traditional ways with people and organizations where I’ve created links in my social networks. That last step, so basic and obvious, is not always followed-up without deliberate strategy.

My advice to those just getting started with new media apps would be to make sure you’re managing your time. New media can bring you opportunities. But I’d also caution that after a certain point, unless your business is directly related to social media, a law of diminishing returns seems to come into effect.

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I sat in on a presentation hosted by the BCTIA where some of BC’s most promising tech companies talked about the possibilities for success through creating solutions that people actually need, not just want. They also talked about how tech companies can cope with the overall economic trends, which ain’t good. Get the story in Techvibes.

But it’s been a busy week, and I haven’t just been focusing on tech for profit. A little follow up to my previous Fearless City post, you can see how Phones for Fearless is helping bridge the digital divide in Vancouver’s downtown eastside in my contribution to the Vancouver Observer. Will the experiment in social media for social change be emulated in other North American cities? I’m curious to see what happens.

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But there is an interesting experiment going on in the downtown eastside, Fearless City, bringing new technology and media tools to energize the neighborhood’s artists and other residents. Empowered with donated camera cell phones, other mobile devices, and peer training, the people of the downtown eastside get to tell their own stories and have a greater voice in our fast-changing city. With a camera phoneThe Vancouver blog Raincoaster provides some details on phase 2 of Phones for Fearless.

Excellent overview of what Fearless City is all about on Global TV. If you want to donate a cell phone or get involved, here’s how to contact them.

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Here’s are some of the highlights of the year gone by:

January. For no particular reason, I set out to become the most searchable Vancouver blogger and come pretty close to achieving it before setting off the Vancouver Blogger Nerd Fight, in which I choose not to run.

February: At Vancouver’s premier blogging conference, Northern Voice, I meet the guy who makes this blog possible.

March. One Thousand Stories, a documentary about my friend and gifted Vancouver-based writer Kevin Spenst‘s literary adventure wins the Paul and Ben Film Festival for best short film. Here’s an interview I did with Kevin after his victory.

April. On the political front, the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee starts enjoying some success in its goal of helping Canadians understand why we need to be involved in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, on the social media scene, Hummingbird604 (then known at the time as a Student of the Environment) provides a blog-inspiring mantra and social media consultant Monica Hamburg gives me a lesson in crowdsourcing.

May. I wander around the world-class UBC Museum of Anthropology and make a video. Also, some people do actually pay me to write for them, and I finally cobbled together some tips for copywriters on my WRITEIMAGE blog.

June. I write about the Great Firewall of China and ponder Vancouver’s success in creating a more environmentally sustainable transportation model.

July. I explore whether us bloggers can and should attempt to provide better web security for our readers when large corporations and public organizations are falling down on that job. Also, Omar Khadr gives me an ethical conundrum and a very bad headache.

August. My preference for more discrete breast-feeding habits for mothers in public spaces makes me a bit of a caveman. On the plus side, I’m told I can now pick my nose and scratch my scrotum in public with no social consequences. I have yet to test out this theory.

September. Dedicated and hard-hitting journalist and author Terry Glavin reminds us again why we must stick to the mission in Afghanistan and ignore the heckles of so-called “peaceniks” who would abandon millions of Afghans to the predations of murderous thugs.

October. A little teaser for the present Israeli-Palestinian conflict plays out on video outside a Vancouver liquor store. Also, I celebrate that it’s time for change in Obama’s adopted hometown (well, before he moved into the White House).

November. Vancouver’s new mayor Gregor Robertson takes on homelessness, just in time, before the cold weather really hits. I have a Super Cool Weekend in Vancouver. Jihadi terrorists bring tragedy to Mumbai, though getting a certain local blogger to express solidarity with the victims against the barbarians is a little like pulling teeth.

December. Currents wins a runner-up award for Best Politics Site or Blog from Miss604′s Best of 604 Awards after a hard, bare-knuckles blogging campaign. A cold winter snap descends on Vancouver. Meanwhile, there’s a political crisis in Ottawa. Vancouver’s indie media tries to work with the Olympics, sparked by Dave Olson and Raincity Studios’ open letter to VANOC, with some excellent commentary on the situation by the OlyBLOG. And just as the year is about to end, I protest for democracy and peace for the Israelis and Palestinians against a bunch of Canadians who don’t seem to really understand what it’s going to take for both sides to get there.

Those are the highlights. Looking forward to a great 2009.

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