What we do
I am not a journalist.
I’m just someone who’s been blogging for a while, writing for a little longer and spots the important stuff when it comes along. In many ways I’m the same person I was when I started messing around on the Internet quite a few years ago and yet now I’m approached on a regular basis to do some weird and wonderful things. I haven’t changed the signal that I’m broadcasting all that much, but social media has certainly amplified it.
On Friday afternoon after a very successful social media cafe at its new home in the ICA I received a phone call from the Thomson Reuters news agency. I was asked if I wanted to come into their offices on Monday morning for a NewsMaker event with Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister.
Sure, I said.
And here I am now. In the same room as one of the most important people on the planet and simply because I tend to use a series of online tools and platforms that anyone reading this also has access to.
If you go to http://ourmaninside.com/ you’ll see that Christian Payne is with me. He’s one of the very best social media practitioners that I know. Yesterday as we spent the day here at Reuters working out exactly what this meant and what we could achieve, we were asked by a series of people what exactly it is that we do.
It’s a very good question.
Today we help to demonstrate how forward thinking and innovative a huge organisation like Thomson Reuters can be. I’m as out of place here as I was in Cannes when a similar set of people wanted to try something new and put me in the same room as Stephen Spielberg and Harrison Ford among others. That was a spectacular success not because of the names involved or the fact that I have a crazy job, but simply because we removed some barriers and allowed people sat at home to join in what would have otherwise been behind closed doors.
Today we’re taking a similarly high profile event that is already being broadcast worldwide (you can find a feed on the Thomson Reuters site as well as Christian’s blog) and seeing what we can add to the mix. With Gordon Brown due to start talking on the present economic crisis what can two beardy blokes with a few laptops and small cameras possible hope to add?
Well nothing directly on what is about to be said. I have as much interest in current politics as I did in marketing movies. I’m here with Christian to start conversations around the NewsMaker event that are currently not part of Reuter’s remit. I sincerely hope that following today the idea of getting these events discussed on social media platforms such as Twitter, Seesmic and Phreadz becomes a natural part of the news media’s roadmap.
Broadcasting on such a scale is brilliant. Listening to the conversations those broadcasts generate is even better.
And a happy side product is that we legitimise a little more the work we do (and by we I mean not just Christian and I, but all social media users) and the platforms we live and play on.
And hey look - I just used a free iPhone app to break a huge event. Don’t you just love living in the future?
Talk to Christian and I on Twitter right now and we’ll keep the conversation moving along.
Posted with LifeCast
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YAY! - this. is. progress.
Great stuff. I’m just in the press office of a large govt department, talking similar stuff - much interest.
Carry on chaps - Up the Tuttle!
[...] the UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown discussing the current economic crisis. Christian Payne and Mike Atherton were given unprecedented access to the event and asked to utilise social media apps in order to [...]
Hugely impressed with this project and very I’m glad that you and Christian (@documentally) used the arcane acts of JFDI. An amazing inspiration and a real world example of Social Media Reportage. I really like the linking up of all the tech, with Twitter, qik, blogs, Seesmic, Phreadz et al.
Again Much Kudos.
Keep it real.
All my best,
Del
@delboydare
[...] Social media bloggers, Documentally and Sizemore got access to Gordon Brown speaking at the Thompson Reuters Newsmaker event about the timely [...]
[...] “Well nothing directly on what is about to be said. I have as much interest in current politics as I did in marketing movies. I’m here with Christian [Documentally] to start conversations around the NewsMaker event that are currently not part of Reuter’s remit,” wrote Mike Atherton aka Sizemore in a blog post. [...]
good job - i know what a turkey shoot is to try and make these things actually happen. [insert something about 99% perspiration].
one thing i’d take issue with is the idea that this kind of initiative somehow ‘legitimises’ social media, the people who use it, and the platforms we use. I’m sure a lot of people see it that way, especially in commercial terms, but i prefer to look at it the other way round - that it was Gordon Brown who was in some small way legitimised by what you did today, by being faithfully rendered without the veneer of MSM packaging and presentation.
i’m sure that seems absurd coming from a media slut such as myself, but i can assure you, I’m completely serious.
Well done Sizemore & Documentally
But did you get to ask Gordon Brown what’s on his desk, in his handbag, on his bookshelf and who is favourite Flickr photographers are ???
I’m very much with Dan in terms of how ordinary people like us citizens are basically legitimising the wider press and with that politicians like our PM. Every newspaper I read has some element of “citizen journalism” or “people powered” element in it now and it’s amazing that has happened in just a few years. Trouble is a lot of regular journalists still find it pretty hard to admit or acknowledge that some of their news comes from bloggers or pictures on Flickr. When you question them about this (as I’ve done a number of times) they get super defensive and say “Yes of course we acknowledge our sources” - but in my opinion that’s bollocks.
I’m beginning to get more approaches from PR companies to talk to them about blogging & stuff or to tell them “how to do it” - which is all well & good, but slightly sad they don’t know how to it cos they’ve not been doing any of it naturally themselves.
Next week, the BBC have been kind (& slightly mad) enough to invite me to talk about blogging on Working Lunch on BBC2 - hopefully I won’t rant too much & thanks for letting me have my little rant here.
Bloody hell. I missed this - was offline for most of the weekend.
Good work!
I agree with Dan and Annie - it does legitimize politicians to be doing this, and respect to Brown for realising the power of it. Both he and the Labour party (and politicians in general) need to rescue themselves from the damage done by the Campbell/Mandelson project and a decade of refusing to be direct. In the light of that, there’s a chance that this might seem gimmicky, and open him up to the kind of flak Cameron got for webcameron. So it was important that he did it right.
So I disagree with Dan when he takes issue with the idea of it legitimizing these tools and the people who use them. It’s not an Either/Or. It *also* legitimizes them, gives them more credibility in the eyes of a sceptical pubilc and press. Not in *our* eyes - we’ve known for years what the mainstream is only just waking up to.
I have family members who are professional journalists and broadcasters as well as ordinary punters - most of them interested in current affairs - and despite my best efforts to show them the wonders of social media and online video for 3+ years, I think pretty much all of them still look on social media as not much more than a gimmick operated by hobbyists. Perhaps that says more about their view of me(!)… but partly this is a fear of technology, partly a stubborn belief that credible news is be gathered and distributed by professionals working large corporations.
So the more that high profile people use social media, the more people will see it in action being Useful, the less dismissive of it they’ll be and the more they’ll start to like getting some of their news direct from these sources.
A red letter day for journalism
Should’ve watched it before commenting! Just been over to Christian’s blog. I see it was Reuters’ initiative, not Brown’s, that got you there. I loved the Reuters guy saying “all the major blogsites”.
I’m gutted I wasn’t around for this it certainly is an exciting project and I’m pleased that both you and Christian had this opportunity.
For my two pence, I don’t feel that social media needs to be legitimized. It might take longer to become mainstream but it is really just another way to consume information. The early adopters (as with all technology) quickly become advocates and evangelists and everyone else will follow once the content becomes relevant to them.
[...] two months ago Christian and I were invited into Thomson Reuters to help cover a Newsmaker event with Gordon Brown - it turned out to be a pretty big deal. Tomorrow we’re back at Canary Wharf for a similar [...]