Workgroup for structuring New Media West

[Rick Rey]

Hey all,

I want to start formalizing the group's organization and internal
structure. There are 2 major areas to consider: membership and
leadership. Let me put a few ideas out there and get everyone's
feedback. You can reply to this message or talk about it in person at
Office Hours.

Leadership: 6-10 elected council members, each representing a
different job type/function in new media, e.g. performers, editors,
producers, writers, game developers, at least one San Francisco rep,
etc. Yes, we all tend to wear several hats, but as the New Media
Writer Rep, you are primarily responsible for making sure the writer's
needs/concerns are addressed. The council leader would be nominated/
elected from within the council.

Membership: Should be open to any "stakeholder" in new media with
relatively little bureaucracy. There will be some minimum standards
regarding past experience/credits, because NMW should primarily
represent professionals who are trying to make a living in new media
or have a financial/other stake in the industry. At some point we may
have to quantify the distinction between hobbyist and professional.
The key here is "minimum standards."

Thoughts on all this anyone? The council positions I listed above were
for example only. What areas do we need to cover? Also, I want to
figure out the best way to streamline the membership process during
this initial pre-election phase. Anyone have ideas on that front?

Rick

[Lan Bui]

I see a few distinct roles needed for leadership:
Performers
Editors
Producers (is this the production crew? camera operator, director,
etc...?)
Marketers
Developers

Let's refine this list...

I think we need to self elect the first set of council members. These
people should be temporary and begin to define the roles and minimum
requirements. I think after we have standards set we can open the
positions up to voting. Only verified members can vote.

Membership minimum standards as defined by Lan Bui:
- Someone that has the intent to produce audio, video, photo, or audio/
video for distribution online (or someone that is or already has)

-Lan

[Mike Ambs]

I think those are good roles for leadership :)

And I think we need to help some people who do make online content
but... well, like me, who are struggling to keep up with all this SAG
stuff. Cause I am... slightly confident I am in the loop :P

Oh, and I like Lan's minimum requirements for membership ;)

- mike

[Rick Rey]

On Feb 20, 10:37 pm, Lan Bui <lanm...@mac.com> wrote:
> I see a few distinct roles needed for leadership:
> Performers
> Editors
> Producers (is this the production crew? camera operator, director,
> etc...?)
> Marketers
> Developers

I agree we need to separate "production" into technical & creative
roles - the question is how specific do we get, and do we attempt to
define new roles? Not sure about a "marketing" rep, so I'm curious to
hear more about it. This is a good starting starting point, thanks
Lan!

> I think we need to self elect the first set of council members. These
> people should be temporary and begin to define the roles and minimum
> requirements. I think after we have standards set we can open the
> positions up to voting. Only verified members can vote.

By self-electing are you talking about self-appointing, or a small-
scale election? My preference is to continue operating informally
until we have more pieces of the puzzle in place, most importantly a
mission statement & roadmap. Once that happens I think we can self-
appoint a few members to step up temporarily (3-6 months) until an
election can take place. Not to mention, the actual process of
writing, editing, and discussing our mission statement & roadmap will
hopefully show us who is invested enough in the group to carry this
responsibility (albeit temporary).

> Membership minimum standards as defined by Lan Bui:
> - Someone that has the intent to produce audio, video, photo, or audio/
> video for distribution online (or someone that is or already has)

Well yes, that is very "minimum" as pretty much anyone would qualify!
(how do you measure intent?). I say let's think about this issue
creatively from the standpoint of building a professional
organization. We need to balance our desire to keep requirements
minimal with our ultimate goal of having enough clout to influence
policies & practices in a money-driven industry.

Lots to discuss!

Rick

[Matt]

Hey Guys,

This is a great start!

I think that a lot of the issues discussed, leadership, membership,
elections, etc. will all make a lot more sense once a consensus has
been made about the group charter. Who is it we represent? Why are we
representing them? What goals are we meeting? Is this a group that
covers marketers? Performers? Whose interests are at stake? Depending
on how narrow or broad the goals of this group are determines what
roles leadership plays and who those leaders represent.

It's not unreasonable that the initial founders of the group put
together a basic set of goals. Once those goals are drafted, they can
be presented to the group for clarification and expansion.

These are big questions, and maybe I missed the conversations covering
this, but it seems to be step one in solidifying the structure and
intentions of the group.

What do you guys think? I certainly don't want this to get too crazy
or for anyone to feel put on the spot, and if these ideas don't feel
in step with the spirit of the group, please say so.

- Matt

[Casey McKinnon]

Here are my two cents on all of this...

Objective:

New Media West is a coalition of new media professionals in the Los Angeles and San Francisco area, who advocate fair practices in online video with the intention of maintaining equal opportunity in the field.

Representatives*:

• Producer
• Writer (Also include game writers/coordinators in this category?)
  
• Programmer (Coders, web site developers, game developpers, etc.)
  
• Distributor (For equal opportunity distribution, best encoding standards, etc.)
• Performer (On-camera talent - hosts, actors, voice actors, stuntpeople, extras, etc.)
• Editor
  
• Director
  

*Note: I think that we should be very clear that our intent is to represent the interests of web video creators - not bloggers, podcasters, photographers, etc.  True that the people we represent will probably have experience in those fields, but we're assembling primarily for web video creators.  I also don't believe that we need to start New Media West with all the representative roles chosen. We can always build more positions if the need comes up in the future.  For example, at this point we may not need to represent the light guys of new media, but as the industry develops we may eventually feel it's important.

Minimum membership standard - "Professional online video content creators":

1. Professional establishes that we make online videos for profit, or that we have established a company for the purpose of doing so
2. Online Video Content establishes the field is for videos to be posted primarily online
3. Creators keeps ourselves open to new possibilities of employment in our field (see representatives list for details)
   

Hope this helps.  Your feedback is welcome!

Best,
Casey


--
Casey McKinnon
http://caseymckinnon.com

[Cristian Olave]

I second Casey's two cents.