OurTraction

The second Canada 3.0 Digital Media conference was held in Stratford on May 10th and 11th, and despite the choice to hold it in a freezing cold hockey arena, the event was able to attract over 1,500 attendees who gathered to help craft a digital media strategy for Canada as we get closer to Canada’s 150th anniversary.

I’ve read with interest David Eaves‘ thoughts on the two day event and he summarized exactly how I was feeling after I left Stratford. I have some positive thoughts but unfortunately I’m disheartened by a lot of the rhetoric coming from traditional institutions and the lack of encouragement of the grassroots communities and poor attempts to include them in honest discussions.

My time at Canada 3.0 was largely in the Creating Stream, but I did attend a few sessions elsewhere. I won’t pretend to have a complete grasp on all the conversations that took place over the two days, but I’m sure my experience was much like many others. To put it bluntly the conference did not even remotely live up to what the organizers promised on the front page of the Canada 3.0 website;

“Your voice will be heard.

Whether you’re a Content Creator, Tool Maker, or Tool User, this is your chance to influence our national digital media action plan. Become part of the discussion to ensure Canada can not only compete, but also lead the world, in today’s new digital economy.”

Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth. Only lip-service was given to honest interaction and community involvement. Throughout the event  it was clear that the agenda had been set before the event, and the sole purpose of the conference was to get industry leaders together to pay homage and ratify a predetermined outcome.

The organizers also promised “camp-like discussions”. I have experience running and attending camp-like conferences, and there was nothing remotely like that at Canada 3.0. Nor was there even the opportunity to have any type of community driven session.

When it came time to wrap up on Tuesday, the chairs of each stream were invited to present ‘action items’. These were ideally to come from the participants and were supposedly to help build Canada’s digital strategy. None of the items that were presented from the Creating Stream reflected the comments that the attendees had made publicly.  Worse yet, they all came from the first session and seemed stilted, fake, contrived, and designed to appease the traditional mainstream communication channels.

Which leads to the single most major issue with Canada 3.0. The event had the potential to realign Canada’s digital future and to create and foster new and innovative ideas, models and platforms. Instead it focused on bolstering traditional positions and industries; like the big three telecoms, television networks like CTV and Global, and mainstream media outlets like newspapers and radio. Funding announcements designed to benefit tired business models, old-fashioned copyright reform that encourages conglomeration instead of independent and innovative creative works were championed, and traditional failing ideas were propped up, solely because they were Canadian.

Not all is lost though, there is a grassroots movement, full of content creators, small industry professionals, tool makers and developers, who are all working to create a digital environment in Canada that will take us as leaders into the 21st century; we can position ourselves as innovative and relevant, ready to do business in the digital media space on a global scale. However, we’re going to need to shake off the ball and chain that is the traditional broadcaster and we’ll need to be prepared to move forward without government assistance, but ultimately we will succeed.

Titus

Titus role is to help keep our clients fluent in many dialects of social media. Titus has been a key organizer for a variety of local technology events. A true conversationalist both online and off, Titus rarely shies away from a healthy debate and is motivated to see the Internet become more social and move towards more engaging conversations. Titus is also an avid cook and would rather eat a failed recipe then throw out food. As a student, in order to save a few bucks, he would often brew his own beer.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 14th, 2010 at 3:43 pm and is filed under OurTraction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.