I sent this out to backers who were subscribed to my newsletter at the beginning of this month.

Just wanted to update the larger interwebs on the status of We Operate Best Together.  Been a while since my 2nd update so apologies on the late ping.  Here’s the latest…

Moved Back To San Diego

I returned successfully from Australia and within a week, got offered a full-time job at Media Arts Center San Diego!  I’m now the Lab Program Manager for our DIY New Media Lab and manage all aspects of programming, partnerships and fundraising for the Lab.  It’s hard work building a lab, but also something I’m very excited about.  I’ve always wanted to build one since I was little.

I blog regularly about my work at the Lab and live just half a block away in the beautiful neighborhood of Golden Hill.

Partnering With FabLab San Diego

Reflecting on My Time With CuriousWorks

I just got an email from my friend Emily Jacobi asking for support for a cool project.  If you remember, I had the pleasure ofworking with Digital Democracy on their Handheld Human Rights project during NetSquared’s 2009 Conference.  This latest project is an extension of their project.

They’re looking to translate a book called “Little Brother” into 4 Burmese languages.  The money will support activists living around Burma’s borders who will translate the book and distribute it around the country.

Inspiring social change – through a book – using online fundraising.  This is old school AND new school activism.  How can wenot support it?

Make a pledge here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1033999452/little-brother-vs-big-brother

Books are one of the few things you can never waste money on.

This is some exciting news from my fellow awesomes over at Digital Democracy.  Read their news below or become a fan of their Facebook Page.

Gabe Hopkins sent a message to the members of Digital Democracy.

Posted via email from Memeshift’s posterous

Howdy We Operate Best Together Backers and Fans!

Apologies if some of this is old news to some of you, but I thought I’d condense the past months’ adventures for y’all in this email.  Also, I’d asked some of you if I could add you to my eNewsletter list to stay up to date on my project.  Might you resend me a yes or no – even if you already have?  Your privacy is important and I’m currently doing all these batch emails ‘by hand’ – no fancy eNewsletter software yet:p

Onwards with the updates!
-morgan

August and September have been incredibly busy and enriching months for WOBT.  The scope of We Operate Best Together has also expanded a bit to incorporate some new developments in the adventure…

—Adventures in NYC—
I visited NYC (and Boston) and had an amazing time:

•    got a free roundtrip ticket to Boston (care of Ben Sheldon thanks Ben!) for the NAMAC Conference (http://namac.org/conference)
•    toured the Eyebeam art and technology space in New York and interviewed Emma Lloyd, Director of Technology: http://bit.ly/3zfgiy
•    attended my first SHARE event: http://bit.ly/p33AG
•    squatted a loft in Manhattan with a childhood friend: http://bit.ly/1wbtFE
•    visited with WOBT friends at Digital Democracy: http://bit.ly/548f2
•    volunteered some time with the Transmission Project (formerly CTC VISTA) to redo their wiki: http://digitalartscorps.org/wiki

A brilliant, brilliant time in NYC/Boston was had by all…

—WOBT Site Relaunch—

I also relaunched and got a new URL for We Operate Best Together:  Check it out: http://www.weoperatebesttogether.org You can also subscribe to blog updates (different from this newsletter) here: http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=WeOperateBestTogether&loc=en_US

—WOBT is Now in Australia!—

Aaaand in the midst of adventuring on the East Coast, I got a job in AUSTRALIA with an amazing organization called Curious Works (http://www.curiousworks.com.au/about).  Through creative collaborations nationally and locally, they work to ‘reshape the systems of cultural production in Australia, for the benefit of all Australians’ using new media tools and trainings.

While here I will be traveling to remote Australian communities to do technology assessments, develop curriculum and assist with new media/video storytelling.  Throughout, I will be documenting all my work on the WOBT and Curious Works websites.

Today I venture out into a New South Wales‘ (Sydney’s) first dust storm in nearly 25 years to begin my first day of work at Curious Works Sydney artist loft office.  Check out the pix below:

Operate together!
Morgan

P.S.  Don’t forget to send me a quick yay or nay to opt in for ‘hand-crafted’ future updates!

If you want ‘auto’ updates, sign up to get the latest updates from the WOBT blog delivered to your inbox here: http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=WeOperateBestTogether&loc=en_US

P.P.S.  Feel free to share, bookmark, forward or Tweet this post:)

See the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Memeshift’s posterous

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On September 6th, I got to go and visit and jam at my first SHARE in New York City.

SHARE is basically an ‘open jam’ for anyone to come and play their sound/video/visual art with others. From their Facebook Page:

SHARE is first and foremost a platform to explore expression, in a variety of artforms. Through its openjam-styled sessions, SHARE engages its participants and spectators in a continually changing dialog on art and culture. As such, SHARE represents an ongoing exploration of collaborative performance as cultural exchange.

I was also fortunate enough to meet (for the first time!) Keiko Uenishi. We’d been having email exchanges for a couple years while I was starting a SHARE in San Diego with my friends. Keiko (along with some of the other SHARE.NYC folks) were incredibly helpful in getting us up and running, offering advice and even visiting us to see how we operated.

This particular SHARE I attended was held at the Issue Project Room – a relatively new space in a converted can factory. They had a really nice 16 speaker surround sound system for projecting the sound as well as a two story high wall for projecting amazing visuals. Kieko had a pretty neat Wii controlled MAX/MSP patch that she was running. I had Ableton Live and a built-in microphone for my jamming. Below are a few more pictures from the night.

Can’t wait to jam again!

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Memeshift’s posterous

Image via Wikipedia

This August, I was fortunate enough to have a paid flight to Massachusetts AND place to stay (thanks to Ben Sheldon!) for the recent NAMAC Conference – which was a blast!  Thanks NAMAC!   While in Boston, I also decided to visit New York for friends and research for We Operate Best Together.

On first arrival to New York, I stopped in to visit and get a tour of the lovely Eyebeam space in Chelsea.  I had a great ‘after-hours’ tour from Emma Lloyd, Director of Technology at Eyebeam.  Not only does she handle and structure all technical software and hardware support for the 18,000 square foot facility, she also manages all technical needs for their fablab AND their woodshop – from one technologist to another, my hats off to her! I got to see some of the amazing workspaces and interview Emma on some of the way Eyebeam works.

I was particularly interested in their highly-competitive artist residencies and fellowships.  Key things Eyebeam looks for in recruiting artists for their space are:

1. Newness: is this a new and upcoming artist?  How far along are they in their career?  Is there a need for them to develop their art?
2. Ability to contribute: as Eyebeam is pretty communal, reviewers ask: How will this artist be able to ‘give back’ to Eyebeam? You could be an amazing artist, but having something to give back to Eyebeam (teaching, workshops, volunteering) boosts reviewers’ confidence in selecting you.

Residencies and Fellowships
Another part of being a resident or fellow at Eyebeam is in the very ‘open’ nature of one’s work there.  While applicants can outline a project they hope to finish while having access to Eyebeam’s space, veering away from one’s original project is allowable and sometimes, even encouraged – particularly if an impromptu collaboration with another Eyebeam artist is part of the new direction.  To see a space that supports these tenets is inspiring.

Here’s a bit more about Eyebeam, taken straight off their site:

Mission

Eyebeam is an art and technology center that provides a fertile context and state-of-the-art tools for digital research and experimentation. It is a lively incubator of creativity and thought, where artists and technologists actively engage with culture, addressing the issues and concerns of our time. Eyebeam challenges convention, celebrates the hack, educates the next generation, encourages collaboration, freely offers its contributions to the community, and invites the public to share in a spirit of openness: open source, open content and open distribution.

Atelier

The atelier model is fundamental to the concept of Eyebeam. The studio/workspace environment, in which the energies of artistic production, education and curatorial practice fuse, provides a unique, stimulating and vital working context for creating art. This tremendous energy, along with the dialogue exchanged between curators, artists and students of various practices and stages of development, can inform and inspire the creation of artworks that may not previously have been imagined or produced.

And feel free to say hi to Emma on Twitter here: @nydakini

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Memeshift’s posterous

Travis and Liz

On my last day in New York City, after squatting a loft with my good friend Travis, I had another chance to meet up with Keiko (from the previous Sunday’s SHARE event) and stop by the Digital Democracy offices to see where all of their action happens. It was like a meeting of 3 very separate world for me: my good friend Travis – who I’d grown up with getting into all sorts of trouble with; Keiko, who’d (remotely) helped me start SHARE.San Diego; and Liz Hodes, who along with the rest of the Digital Democracy team made pledges to my We Operate Best Together project.

Wordles of RFP and Org Strategic Plans

Visiting with them was great.  Not only did I get to meet Liz in person, but visiting their offices in New York was fun and I got to talk to Liz a bit about some of the projects that D2 has in store for 2009.

One project which they are launching is D2TV, which documents and allows you to follow the D2 team as they travel throughout SouthEast Asia working on their Project Einstein.  From their blog:

Project Einstein, our digital pen pal program, was born from a photo training Digital Democracy conducted in Bangladesh in January 2008 thanks to support from What Kids Can Do. Partnering with MITʼs Center for Future Civic Media and high schools in Indianapolis, Indiana, we are now creating a platform and curriculum for resettled refugees and their peers in the U.S. to connect with refugees overseas.

Keiko and Liz really hit it off when Liz mentioned the Project Einstein.  Keiko has been working towards getting a SHARE for Kids going – also another project to connect youth with media (sound) making tools and each other to creatively collaborate and SHARE with each other.

I was so happy to simply introduce friends old and new to each other.  Definitely a high point for me on my brief trip to New York.

Me and Keiko 2

Me and Liz Hodes

Me and Travis!

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Thank you!

Hello internet. I’m happy to say I won my goal with Kickstarter. Thank you everyone! I could not have done it without you. For those who missed the action, I decided to do a 4 hour marathon online DJ set (that’s part of what’s documented in the video above) to raise the remaining funds for my $1500 Kickstarter project goal. Throughout it, people were Facebook chatting me, Twittering, emailing and calling to wish me luck, spread the word of We Operate Best Together and make pledges. With just 7 minutes to spare before midnight, July 4th, I MADE IT. Had I not, I would not have gotten ANYTHING. Zilch. Nada.

Again, THANK YOU FANS, BACKERS AND SUPPORTERS!

That said, I am now taking a little bit of time to recoup, get grounded and prepare to ROCK Europe…

Not to mention that a server hiccup caused me to lose all posts from the past 7 months, shortly there after. HA! Seems a perfect time to do this before setting out on my adventure.

A strong ship makes for strong sailing, no?

If you like, check out my other cool projects below:

You can also visit me on Facebook or Friendfeed and Twitter.

Feel free to send a private message using the form to the right or leave a comment below. You can also download my resumé if you like – I’d love to have a few cool projects/websites to be working on while I’m traveling.

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We Operate Best Together is on Facebook. If you join, any links you post on the Wall there will appear here as well as over at Memeshift. Go ahead, post cool links to projects on storymapping, social innovation and entrepreneurship.

Here’s 6 sources to get you started:

• http://delicious.com/search?p=socialinnovation
• http://delicious.com/tag/socialentrepreneur
• http://search.twitter.com/search?q=socialinnovation
• http://search.twitter.com/search?q=socent
• http://delicious.com/search?p=storymapping
• http://delicious.com/memeshift/socialentrepreneurship

Note: According to the Kickstarter funding platform rules, this project will only be funded if at least $1,500 is pledged by Jul 04, 12:00am.  So go ahead, make a pledge!

Can’t make a pledge?

Here’s 6 ways *you* help make this project a success.

1. Email this post to a friend - know some people that should know about this? Send them a link!
2. Write me back! – Let me know of any cool places worth checking out in England, Holland or Norway!
3. Tweet about it: (using this link: http://bit.ly/V77BF)
4. Blog about my project (you can even grab a widget for your blog post)
5. Share my campaign on Facebook
6. Join the We Operate Best Together Facebook Fan page

And don’t forget, for anyone who does make a pledge, there are some goodies in store for you too (see the pledge rewards on the right hand side of the WOBT Kickstarter page).

Ready to do this?  Let’s.  GO!

Me and Marco Menendez at Laney College

Things are AWESOME right now.  After scaling back on a few other things, a whole series of awesome energy, love and support from strangers, friends, family and colleagues alike has flown in to my life.  For those that have been following my story, here’s the latest.

I want to go to Europe to document creative communities, but am low on funding resources.  I’m working on some cool websites while running a Kickstarter campaign to fund my project. I also have an AmeriCorps Ed Award as a possible funding source.  But I can’t use it unless I’m enrolled in school.  Why not do a study abroad program at a local college and apply the Ed Award?  None existed.  So, I created my own class *after* enrolling at Laney College, in Oakland.

In order for it to be approved however, I had to:

1. create a self-designed independent study proposal
2. find a professor to sign-on to oversee it
3. get a signature from the Dean of Instruction to approve it

And I had to do all this *before* applying for a Payment Request from AmeriCorps.

And I just got the Dean’s signature today.

YES!!!!!!!!!!   This marks the key to unlocking the treasure chest of my Ed Award to further support my trip!  All I have to do now is enroll in the class I just made and I’ll get the award sent to me!  This is like personal entrepreneurship and I’m so excited.  AND, there’s even a possibility the college could pull me in to assist with workshops on new media/broadcast journalism when I get back via classes that Noemi Zeigler (a.k.a Madeline Minx) teaches…

I totally WORKED my AmeriCorps experience too – ‘built capacity of media arts centers’, ‘led and developed digital storytelling workshops’, ‘developed social network campaigns for non-profits’….

I feel so awesome right now.  And if I’m able to reach my Kickstarter goal by July 4th, that’ll be the icing on the cake…  I’ll be able to:

• travel safely
• travel well
• be well fed
• document cool communities and people (and have cool gear to do it with!)
• have fun WITHOUT HAVING TO WORRY ABOUT MONEY

Darlene. She's awesome.

I also want to give a big shout out to Darlene Cruz.  She’s awesome.  She was soooo helpful the first time we met, told me which professors to track down and even shared some of her own aspirations with me (she wants to do volunteer work in the Philippines one day).   She’s a real connector this one.  Did I mention she rocks?  She used her sweet talking skills to get buy-in from necessary staff and faculty *and* introduced me to some great folks who further gave good feedback on my project (thanks Marco!) – certainly my hero(es) for the day.

The many times in the past where I’ve attempted to go to Europe, money and maybe even my own fears have always held me back.  It’s now looking like I’ll have something far more valuable (money not withstanding!) in going out there – the support of people who believe in my project.  Thanks folks!

Oh yeah, I’m still plugging away on getting more funding for my project.  If this is successful, I wonder what this project could evolve into?

Sooo, don’t forget to make a pledge on my Kickstarter page or become a Fan of the We Operate Best Together Facebook Fan Page!

Yesterday, I attended a collaborative brainstorming session on some future Storymapping initiatives of the Center for Digital Storytelling (disclosure: CDS has also given me some seed/partnership money for the project that this blog is hosted at).  This project is seeking to develop a series of national projects for organizing digital story projects based on the link between narrative and place.  Led by Joe Lambert, our session had some great folks contributing their thoughts as well as a nice overview of some other projects running under the Storymapping umbrella.

In the session I learned about participatory action research as a framework for collaboratively affecting community/social change by direct and reflective engagement with communities – communities determine the inquiry and outcomes of learning about themselves together.  I really like the collaborative nature of this approach and it seems really fitting to my project – I just didn’t have a name for it:)

Here’s who was in attendance and the projects they are connected to:

• Ariel Bierbaum: from UC Berkeley’s Center for Cities and Schools joined us. She had some great insight in to the importance of community inclusion in any city planning process. Currently, she manages Y-PLAN which is a good network of young people working on community issues across the country.
• jesikah maria ross: she currently heads up UC Davis’s Art of Regional Change project.  And brought a lot of great insight through her work with the Saving the Sierra – a project that uses public media and citizen storytelling, to document community efforts to conserve the environment, culture, and economy of the Sierra Nevada.
• Robert Kershaw: who’s currently at the Center for Digital Storytelling as well as Cows and Fish – Alberta Riparian Habitat Management Society.  He fosters using digital storytelling to communicate the value of the land, it’s history, culture and need for conservation.
• Gianluca Corinaldesi: joined us from Italy and is currently working on iPortraits.
• Daniel Rizik-Baer and Emily Jameson also joined us, both grad students in urban planning, having some fresh perspectives how to best move forward.

Joe Lambert, Director of the Center for Digital Storytelling was of course there and went over a great introduction to location-based media and how it could best be used to synergize storytelling efforts around the world.  We covered similar projects that the Center For Digital Storytelling ran as well as some other great resources and even a training on building our own Google maps.

Other CDS Storymapping Projects:

• The Placemeant Project: Stories of Why Where Matters
  Throughout the Spring and Summer of 2005, stories were collected from communities around Ukiah, and in October of 2005, they were integrated into a stage production featuring 21 stories, many performed live by the authors. In 2006, an additional workshop collected stories from other parts of Mendocino, leading to a touring production in August and September.
• Save Our ShorelineWalking through the Wild of the Albany Bulb
  Local to the San Francisco Bay Area, this project suggests ways to think about values that we need to sustain in our idea of recreational space, including the idea of a raw space that children and artists can explore.
• Mondo Bizarro’s I-Witness Central City: this project has a sign-posts indicating a number that people can call in to to hear stories of a particular place in their city.  Future plans for this project aim to have numbers where people can call in to leave their own stories for others to listen to – all via cellphone.

Other Locative Media and Related Resources:

• The Center for Locative Media:  The Center for Locative Media works with different cultural and educational communities to enable the creation, delivery, and distribution of narrative histories of people and places using emerging and locative technologies.
• Networked Publics:  From September 2005 to June 2006, “Networked Publics,” a team of thirteen scholars at the University of Southern California‘s Annenberg Center for Communication explored how new and maturing networking technologies are reconfiguring how which we interact with content, media sources, other individuals and groups, and the world that surrounds us.
• Infrastructure for the New Geography: This is a downloadable PDF from the Institute for the Future that forecasts the emerging ecology of the ‘geoweb’ and the importance for ‘geospatial literacy’ – how will we, in the future, make sense of place to write our own stories and shape our own futures and destinies?

Resources:

• GPS Visualizer – a free, easy-to-use online utility that creates maps and profiles from GPS data (tracks and waypoints, including GPX files), street addresses, or simple coordinates. Use it to see where you’ve been, plan where you’re going, or visualize geographic data (business locations, scientific observations, events, customers, real estate, geotagged photos, etc.).
• PlaceStories – PlaceStories is a software system for managing digital media, creating digital stories and publishing online through Google Maps.  PlaceStories is supporting the storytelling, networking and digital communication needs of community organisations, government agencies and others who work with communities, particularly rural and regional areas.

Might you know of any other projects to link here?  What other locative media + storytelling projects do you know of?  Why is place important?

After serving in AmeriCorps for 2.5 years (with the awesome CTC VISTA Project), I have an Ed Award I can use towards post-secondary expenses at an accredited Title IV school.  I want to be well supported money-wise during my travels, so I enrolled at a local college (Laney College), met with a college counselor,  and am now designing an Independent Study while waiting to hear back regarding my Education Award Payment Request. Yes!

While at Laney, I had a *great* conversation with Darlene Cruz at the Dean’s office who was really supportive of my plans (thank you Darlene!).  She gave me the Independent Study Proposal Form to fill out and referred me to Dr. Leslee Stradford to serve as a (mandatory) Faculty Advisor.  Leslee was generous with her time (right before running off to teach a class!) and agreed to at least look at my proposal.   If she accepts and approves, I’ll just need to get the Dean’s signature and can officially enroll in a class I designed!

UPDATE: She just agreed!  Now I just have to get the dean’s signature!

UPDATE: Marco Menéndez, the Dean of Instruction, just signed!!!  I can now apply to have my AmeriCorps Ed Award applied to the project!!!

Here’s my class design proposal:

+++++

Title of Independent Study Project
Global Entrepreneurship, Innovation & Collaboration in Creative Communities

Course Description:

We operate best together.  Working from this premise, this course seeks to answer the question:

How is global social change made where media, technology and creative people meet?

Through blog posts, photos and web video accessible at http://travel.memeshift.com, this travel abroad project will document the stories of creative communities found in European galleries, international events, meetups, barcamps, fabrication labs, and innovation competitions.  The successes, challenges and ‘best practices’ of these communities will be recorded and ‘shared back’ across social networks and other online communities here in the United States.

At it’s core, this project serves as a practicum to promote cross cultural understanding through cross sector collaboration.

Other key questions include:

• How is community-based innovation related to the economic development?
• How do artists, entrepreneurs and other ‘creatives’ support themselves doing the work they do?
• How do creative communities, spaces and networks support and sustain innovation?

Method of Evaluation
Weekly editorial blog posts on topics of collaboration, social innovation and entrepreneurship will be used to gauge the success of the student’s activity while traveling.  Interviews and stories of people engaged in relevant local communities and networks are also amenable to evaluation.

After talking with Alex Steed at the recent NY24, I was inspired to write a post about other people who convene spaces around the arts, technology and social innovation.

Here’s a few links to folks who are doing similar:

• Dan McQuillan – totally cool cat.  Met him at 1st Netsquared Conference and stayed connected ever since.  Fan of Deleuze and Guatarri.  Particle physics fan and social innovation activist.  He runs a thing called SICamp which rocks.
• Duncan Laurie – don’t know him personally, but he holds a thing called MindMeld in Jamestown, Rhode Island.  A weekend long ‘jam’ of electronic audio/video artists that get together in a *beautiful* setting to meet with each other and share, jam and learn about the connection between nature and music.  Beautiful.  Can I say that again?
• Dewey Schott – Director of Leadership Services at the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture.  He runs something called the NAMAC Leadership Institute, which is a week(?) long retreat of leaders in the field of media arts.  I used to work alongside him, but now just get to see him convene arts leaders from around the country.  Awe shucks.

What other types of space exist out there?  Have you come across any?