Words You Can Use: The BAVC BLOG

By Wendy Levy, BAVC Director of Creative Programming

I went to an interesting conference yesterday in San Jose, the Web Video Summit - first one in a national series sponsored by Jupitermedia (www.webvideosummit.com). Conference Oranizer Dave Burstein is a funny guy, he kept the second floor of the San Jose Marriott buzzing, interrupting panels whenever he needed to say something, but seemed to genuinely care about how everyone was doing.

Audience was mixed, mostly commercial or wanna-be commercial producers, one or two indie folks looking to crossover, general digital media industry people, CEO-types, no other nonprofit orgs that I saw. Panels were a mix of production/distribution — no content discussions. One very technical panel: Stanford professor John Cioffi who developed DSL talks about the new DSM (don’t ask me, I can’t explain it). Some entry-level production-focused stuff, how-to shoot the best video for the web (HD, lots of close-ups, minimal camera movement, lots of faces, keep it simple, stay on message), what codecs to use for what platform, etc. Smartest, most dynamic presenter was Alex Lindsay from Pixelcorps, right here in SF. They are producing some of the best podcasts around - www.pixelcorps.com.

Some panels were interesting (Hot New Companies), some deadly (A Better Tech World is Close, The Power of Collaboration). The whole day suffered from the traditional panelism of so many of these conferences: no one cares about the panel TOPIC, they just talk about their company and what they do. Moderators are timekeepers, wondering why no one has any questions. It’s a bad thing. It deadens the environment, does not support networking, sharing of ideas or innovation. I’m an anti-panelist. Remove the tables, create a space that connects “experts” with “participants,” don’t tolerate ego-driven self-promotion; require all panelists to talk about their work in the context of the world we share, and stimulate conversation that includes more than one person. In a panel that was called THE POWER OF COLLABORATION, Adriana Gascoigne from bub.blicio.us said, “I’m not sure why I’m on this panel. I guess you could say I collaborate with my camera…” And that’s the last time she referenced the panel topic. None of us were sure why she was there either.

Adriana interviews CEO’s at industry parties for bub.blicio.us, and showed a clip of her and Hooman from ALICE radio and he calls her “the hottest interviewer around.” Then she showed another clip of her and some other CEO (twice her age) talking at a party. There is mention of a new group she’s involved with called Girls in Tech. He is totally leching after her and asks, “how about I start an organization called Boys in Tech and we can… get together?” She smartly responds, “I think you’ll have a problem with too many members.” Nice.

Other Connections: I hung out with the always inspiring M. Dot Strange (he’s coming to the BAVC Innovation Salon tonight at the Apple store!), Scott Kirsner (The Future of Web Video), simply the best panel moderator on the planet, Joel Heller (Docs that Inspire), and Larry Irving (information guru from the ITVS Board). I also spoke to Dave Toole, CEO of Outthink Media (check out ourmedia.org), and was impressed by a very compelling feature on their site — a pretty comprehensive library of rights-cleared footage and music. They are linked with Creative Commons, Internet Archive, and others. Other cool new things to check out:

realitydigital.com
magnify.net
feedroom.com
reek-exchange.com
voddler.com
fora.tv

Last rant: I really could not believe the level of old-school sexist talk at this event. Yes, like all these conferences, it’s mostly white men. But most of the white men I know are chill, and especially in public spaces, their language is inclusive, sensitive, relevant. I hate overly-politically correct hissing in movie theaters, but I wanted to hiss multiple times yesterday. My feminist roots are showing, but it was CRAZY. I miss the Ms. magazine feature called NO COMMENT, where they used to publish the most overtly sexist advertisements they’d seen that month. Click.

Here’s what I heard, for real, on stage at panels at the Web Video summit:

“Who wants to see a 300 pound woman in a bathing suit in HD?”

“When your wife keeps complaining that there are too many remotes, this is what you need to keep her quiet.”

“This tool is so simple, your mother can use it.”

“This tool is a good way to meet girls.”

On to the next one.