iDMAa 2010 Reflection

Twitter. LinkedIn. Augmented reality. I learned about all of these trends and others while at the iDMAa conferences in years past.

Every year I go to the iDMAa conference to network with digital media professors and professionals across the nation and the world.

Not only do I benefit from my interactions with programs that are a few steps ahead of mine, but I try to help new programs and new professors to benefit from my experiences of coordinating a digital media studies program for the past decade.

Every year I return to my university with a laundry list of ideas and resources to investigate and integrate into my classes.

This year in Vancouver was no different. Below I have organized my notes from the 2010 iDMAa conference at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. You may already be familiar with some of these, but odds are you will also find something new and different to check out:

Books:

How Images Think by Ron Burnett. Ron Burnett is currently the President of Emily Carr, and he gave an excellent talk at the beginning of the conference. It inspired me to order his most recent book, a fresh look at how we engage with new media.
Total Engagement: Using Games and Virtual Worlds to Change the Way People Work and Businesses Compete by Byron Reeves and J. Leighton Read

Participatory Journalism: Guarding Open Gates at Online Newspapers, an edited volume coming out in April from Wiley-Blackwell, featuring a chapter by Alfred Hermida, who spoke at the conference

The Open Brand: When Push Comes to Pull in a Web-Made World by Kelly Mooney and Nita Rollins

Websites:

SoKap, a crowd-funding site similar to Kickstarter.
SynthiaHearsPictures.com. Translates images into music. Created by R.Blank of Almer|Blank who spoke at the conference.

Euphoria, an animation engine for gaming that uses math to animate.

gpscomics.com. Just what it sounds like by Ozge Samanci

Check out the Radio lab podcasts from http://www.radiolab.org/

Visualizing.org is a great resource for professors and students to create interesting and interactive visualizations using data sets provided by the site.

Six word memoirs by Smith magazine. Takes Twitter minimalism to new levels. Also check out Six Words on the Digital Life.

Urbansignals.net, an iPhone app that is “taking love back to the streets.” Foursquare meets Match.com?

NYTimes.com tracking twitter traffic in the 2010 election

Alfred Hermida: reportr.net

the-burger-king.tumblr.com, social media example, though it seems primarily one directional.

Check out Trendsmap, realtime local twitter trends

Software & Plug-ins:

RGB Music Lab: freeware by Ken Jikojima (mentioned by R.Blank)
Free downloadable plug-in for game development: Unity

Edit flow, WordPress plugin that expands/improves the editing process of posts in the dashboard.

Desktop curtain, Mac app that hides your desktop during presentation (via Glenn Platt)

Videos to Check Out:

Vimeo visualization of 2010 MTV music awards
Old Spice guy responding to Tweets via YouTube

YouTube: A hunter shoots a bear, interactive video example, like the subserviant chicken.

Centel: World’s first cellphone commercial (shown by Amielle Tagga)

YouTube video: MOCOM 2020 The Future of Mobile Media and Communication

Thoughts/Notes:

JFK inaugural: “we shall always hope to find them” repeated over and over becomes melodic (via R.Blank)
Sometimes the interactivity should be pretty light, you end up taking bells & whistles out. Focus on the narrative. (via Shoebridge & Simons)

Nonlinear films are still presented in a linear way. It is nonlinear for the filmmaker, but linear for the audience

Check out Aristotelian v. Brecht views on drama (via Jeff Nyhoff)

In video games, what about the concept of the spec-actor

Newspaper extinction deadline – print to disappear the US in 2017, UK in 2019 and Canada in 2020. Sound plausible?

@hermida talk on iTunes U.

Hermida presentation via SlideShare.

Tagga Media has a mobile media tool, how much does it cost?

Universal Orlando announced the Harry Potter park by telling 7 people, the quickly reached hundreds of millions? Is this true?

OH in between sessions: Person #1: “I coordinate an interdisciplinary digital media studies.” Person #2: “Oh, God, I hope you’re tenured!”

Twitter accounts to follow:

@ferris_bueller
@hermida
@awsamuel

Chris Blair is an Associate Professor of Communication Arts and the Coordinator of Digital Media Studies at Union University, an undergraduate interdisciplinary program bringing together faculty and courses from the departments of Art, Communication Arts and Computer Science. Since 2003, Blair has served on the Board of Directors of the International Digital Media and Arts Association, where he currently serves as chair of the board of directors.