Citizens media strategy session

Today a few colleagues and I began sending out invitations to a citizens media strategy session and social event.

We want to be as transparent as possible about this, so here’s what’s happening:

Citizens Media Strategy Session & Retreat
A strategy session to explore how various citizen media movements — open source software, free culture, grassroots journalism, digital/intellectual property rights, the commons, and media policy reform — can develop a more coordinated vision and begin sharing resources.

What:
An all-day meeting in San Francisco to bring together leaders of these movements to learn more about each other’s work and explore new ways to collaborate.

When:
• May 13 (Friday), 7-10 pm, social gathering and book release party (theme: the remix revolution) at a venue in San Francisco
• May 14 (Saturday), 10 am to 5 pm, agenda-focused sessions, San Francisco

Why:
Advocates of the various movements mentioned above tend to operate in separate silos, with little interaction, coordination or sharing of ideas and resources. There is untapped potential for fortifying everyone’s work, developing a more powerful public voice and tapping into a broad-based support system.

It’s short notice, but the time is ripe and we need the summer to plan for a large public event in the fall.

Goals:
• Plan a public conference to be held at a major university in the fall
• Improve the working relationships among citizens media groups
• Expand the grassroots media project spearheaded by Dan Gillmor
• Other projects, such as citizens television (please suggest them now).

Organizing committee:
– JD Lasica, author of “Darknet,” co-founder of Ourmedia.org
– Dan Gillmor, author of “We Media,” citizens journalism pioneer
– Jimmy Wales, founder, Wikipedia (waiting for confirmation)
– Craig Newmark, founder, Craigslist
– David Bollier, author of “Brand Name Bullies,” co-founder of Public Knowledge
– Mary Hodder, tech entrepreneur, founder of Napsterization blog
– Danny Schecter, MediaChannel.org
– Don Hazen, editor in chief, AlterNet, Independent Media Institute
– Scott Rosenberg, managing editor, Salon

The social event is open to the public. The strategy session is invitation-only (because of space limitations).

You’ll be hearing lots more about this in the weeks ahead.

JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.