• Office of the President Lee C. Bollinger: 2009 Commencement Address

  Lee C. Bollinger’s commencement address to the 2009 Columbia U. graduating class, with a special focus on globalization and freedom of the press/ media: “…the very same technology – the Internet – that is making global communication so pervasive – is simultaneously undermining the financial model of the traditional press, as we’ve known it.”

  Many great insights. Some excerpts:
  QUOTE
  …you have been here at a pivotal moment in history. You came in texting and you’re going out with a twitter. And regardless of whether you’re a fan of digital downloads or old fashioned ink on paper, while you’ve been here you’ve seen the value of dialogue, and of access to timely, credible, independently generated information and ideas. In August, 2005, just as many of you were settling into your first semester here, Hurricane Katrina was ravaging the city of New Orleans, amid accusations of gross government mismanagement and misinformation. Your Columbia years have coincided with two brutal and still unfinished wars – in Iraq and Afghanistan – shaped by our own government’s far too extensive control over information. You will tell your children about the unprecedented economic crisis that erupted during your time here – a global event fueled by inadequate disclosures and regulation. From the standpoint of our ability to acquire a full understanding of things that matter, we clearly have a long way to go before we can rest.

  Meanwhile, you have been witness to and strengthened by participating in the process of vigorous open debate – on issues such as gay marriage, the conflict in the Middle East, and climate change. And you have played a role in one of the most exciting political campaigns in American history – a campaign waged like never before through online media and social networking.

  Through it all, you have lived in the most privileged intellectual environment on the planet, perhaps of all time. Nothing compares to this – to the freedom you have felt – and possibly taken for granted – to consider every idea and t

  tags: columbia_university, lee_bollinger, commencement_speech, media, journalism, press

• Why journalists deserve low pay | csmonitor.com

  Christian Science Monitor opinion piece making the case that journalists aren’t pulling their weight in creating value for readers/ consumers.
  QUOTE
  Wages are compensation for value creation. And journalists simply aren’t creating much value these days.

  Until they come to grips with that issue, no amount of blogging, twittering, or micropayments is going to solve their failing business models.
  UNQUOTE
  Picard then divides his piece into three parts:”Where does value come from?” and “What are journalists worth?” with “Adapt or Die” as conclusion.

  QUOTE
  Robert G. Picard is a professor of media economics at Sweden’s Jonkoping University, a visiting fellow at the Reuters Institute at Oxford University, and the author and editor of 23 books, including “The Economics and Financing of Media Companies.” This essay is adapted from a lecture Professor Picard gave at Oxford. He blogs at http://themediabusiness.blogspot.com/
  UNQUOTE

  Excellent must-read article.

  tags: journalism, csmonitor, value, robert_picard

• Presentation Zen: Making presentations in the TED style

  Lots of great links and pointers to explore in this post by Garr Reynolds who blogs “on issues related to professional presentation design.” As the title indicates, this entry is about “the TED style,” and includes “the TED commandments” as well as links to examples of great presentations.

  tags: presentations, ted_conference, howto, zen, reference

• globeandmail.com: The visible city: Will public data end up online?

  Frances Bula reports on Vancouver City Council’s plans to make city information and statistics publicly accessible:
  QUOTE
  The idea is that everyone from programmers to curious residents could use city data to do anything from tracking their garbage-truck driver on his route to mapping where the worst landlords’ buildings are.

  The notion – being pioneered in such places as Toronto, Washington and San Francisco – is that the more information people have, the more cities can tap into the collective energy of their residents to develop new applications or get more involved in the way the city works.
  UNQUOTE

  tags: vancouver, public_data, ubiquity, information, municipal_government

• From ‘why?’ to ‘why not?’, the internet revolution | Media | The Guardian – Annotated

  Great article by Clay Shirky on the changed status of media production, who owns it, who controls it, with an astute take on abundance. (“That era, when media were shaped by the scarcity of production and by the judgment of professionals, has ended.”)

  tags: clay_shirky, newspapers, journalism, business_model, online_media, the_guardian

• Scribd Invites Writers to Upload Work and Name Their Price – NYTimes.com

  I’ve used Scribd for a while now – great service. This NYTimes article describes how it’s moving into becoming a platform for e-publishing with a business model for authors/ publishers. Also meant as a diversification / challenge to Amazon’s Kindle, and to Google.

  tags: scribd, online_book, online_publishing, business_model, e-books, nyt, kindle

• The myth of the parasitical bloggers – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com – Annotated

  The title is self-explanatory for this article by Glenn Greenwald, who examines Maureen Dowd’s plagiarism of Josh Marshall to show that bloggers aren’t at all the parasites that MSM pretends they are. (h/t Dave Winer)

  tags: glenn_greenwald, salon.com, bloggers, plagiarism

• Events | RUDI – Resource for Urban Design Information – Annotated

  Info page for an upcoming June 2009 UK conference I would love to attend: “a place for creativity? unlocking the original in urban design and development”

  tags: rudi, creativity, urban_design, manchester, conference

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Posted: 05|24|09 at 2:28 am. Filed under: links.

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