Untitled Document

Funding Proposal #1

PUBLIC STUDIO COLLABORATORY - DISCUSSION DRAFT 7 - January 2007

INVITATION TO AN ADVENTURE
How to make the Alamo Area a smart, engaged and connected region

What kind of future we will have will be be based on what kind of information we have … to make decisions … to consider possibilities … to educate our children . . . to live our lives. As we grow in our understanding of the impact of this “information age” one point remains consistently true for all ‘ages’: when people have good information they make good decisions.

The challenge is to create a mechanism and system for the authentic and sustaining development of quality information. We have built the prototype: a Collaboratory.

We (the SalsaNet MediaLab) would like you to assist in the incubation of the San Antonio Public Studio Collaboratory prototype. A Center that will feed the growth of San Antonio’s regional information infrastructure by creating a venue that will unearth and connect the natural talents and gifts of San Antonio’s people.

SalsaNet is San Antonio’s oldest Internet organization and is the South Central Texas Chapter of the Internet Society. It is comprised of a range of talent and expertise and current and proposed projects include:

Musical Collaboration with David Darling
Documentary on “WhyVille” - Jim Bower
Texas Music Series

Texas Writers

Wings Press Bryce Milligan - shot in Carmen Tafolla’s living room.

Internet conversation shows w/call ins
Oral histories

“Knowing Home” the shape of the land we live in, its culture
and history.

Webinars on community production

all of whom are staffed by volunteers who share a vision of what is possible when talented and creative people are willing to collaborate….The purpose of Public Studio is to create a space to train and enable talented local people to produce public radio and television programming by using state of the art, off the shelf, affordable technology and broadband internet.

IMAGINE: If have a deep understanding of the place we live and the people who live in it, we can use our resources and personal energies more effectively. Local programming on public broadcasting and the web is important to how we create our future. And then through the Internet Society, we can engage in a global cultural exchange. We will show them our place and they will show us theirs. And we will learn from each other.

CONSERVATIVE INVESTMENT FOR PROGRESSIVE GROWTH

It used to cost an arm and a leg to produce high quality community media. Today, the marriage of radio and television with the internet makes it possible for local people to produce local community programming at a fraction of the cost of only a few years ago. Public radio and television audiences have come to expect very high production standards both from over the air and from the internet and the new generation of production equipment and software makes this possible. We can do it. We can start at the highest possible level The technology is ready and all that is missing is the experienced people and accessible, high quality gear with which they can practice. A co-learning environment.

Not a School – a COLLABORATORY

We have built a prototype for a networked collaboratory capable of producing broadcast quality television and radio together with companion web sites featuring streaming video and audio. We are in the process of creating distributed networked teams to demonstrate the creation of content for public television, radio and broadband internet.
This experimental collaboratory is designed to serve as a model for:
1) a shared (synchronous and asynchronous) interactive set of inexpensive tools and methods for the retrieval, visualization, and configuration of information;
2) a decentralized networked think tank dedicated to the development of advanced information technologies for the collaborative solution of community issues;
3) an shared ADVENTURE in the creation and distribution of information and its transformation into KNOWLEDGE.
The Collaboratory

Merges communications technologies to create essential building blocks for a smart region
Combines the power of networked computers, public databases, the Internet, and public television
Enhances the political decision making process by raising the level of public dialogue to stimulate socially responsible action
Networks learning communities to provide an integrated virtual workspace so that people can understand issues, provide input, and create tools for community projects.
Documents the collaborative process to so that people can see how a virtual gateway to a complex of information tools for future goals
Uses the web as a medium of interactive communication for
- Arts and Culture
- Virtual Town Hall Meetings
- Neighborhood and Regional Masterplans
- Education Initiatives
- Mentoring Circles
- Youth Media Projects
- Health and Wellness Exchange
- Stories of Successful People
- Interactive Museums
- Oral Histories
- and more…

A Collaboratory starts with discussion and ends with mutually agreed upon solutions. Each Collaboratory provides a place and a process where a shared vision can be transformed into mass media and shared with the public. Put a lot of these Public Studios around the region and together, everyone help can invent the future.

Working in collaboration with KSTX and KLRN, using affordable state of the art technology we will produce quality demonstration shows and rich web sites that will serve as training grounds for the next generation of media crafts people. We will demonstrate how to make radio and TV of the highest quality at the lowest price (really inexpensive) and we will create interactive multimedia instructional manuals letting everyone know how we did it, so they can do it too. We will search out the best ideas in the region and help give them form in the modern mass media.

PHASE ONE

First Steps . The Project is heuristic, meaning that we will learn what really works by doing projects. Our formal plans will be guides for exploration and discovery. For the first year we will focus on adapting the low cost production methodology to the intellectual infosphere of Central Texas -- allowing the regional milieu to shape the process and content.

We will endeavor to document the process by creating cookbooks (how to video manuals) which will stream from our web sites. The ‘cookbooks’ will demonstrate the creation and distribution of global distributated digital mass media. As soon as possible, we will schedule the video taping of concerts, special events and community discussions. We will hold advanced training classes on digital production using these events as content for hands on training.

Scenario #1 (possibility)

For instance we could help the members of a chamber orchestra add video cameras to the instruments and to produce concert videos for the web. We could document the process from conception through the performance showing how video can increase audience and generate income.

Initially, we will do much of our experimental production at a temporary location to assemble a crew and work the bugs out. When we feel comfortable with the production gear and have at least one high quality crew we will begin to tape on location around town. Eventually, our teams will roam the region looking for content. I can see gangs of teens armed with video shooting performances, events, meetings, design charrettes ... “the toughest gangs in Texas. But when they shoot people, nobody dies.”

We hope to create an environment where an exceptional group of young people from the high tech communities can interrelate with artists and communications professionals. We will invite professional User Groups like the Adobe/Macromedia User Group to test the latest advances in the tools they use. We will provide them the opportunity to try the latest software and hardware in return for their participation in our projects.

single resource that multiple arts venues could share

DIGITAL THINK TANKS

We will facilitate the formation of a Community “think tank” by webcasting call-in discussions, where viewer/listeners can phone in, webcam, e-mail, etc questions to specialists in critical fields.

REGIONAL VIRTUAL MEETINGS

We will set up an inexpensive system for regional teleconferencing, Many really good regional projects die because of drive time. Virtual meetings can eliminate most of the driving and help bring Central Texas together to collaborate on regional projects. We plan to create an experimental test bed to discover the highest quality and lowest cost way to do regional virtual meetings. We will then connect to Austin, Waco, San Marcos, New Braunfels and be able to participate in the Digital Convergence Initiative (http://dcitexas.org/) without spending hours on the highways.

Year one

Train teacher teams by doing projects – best local professional people will help guide the process. The teacher teams will spread the craft among their peers. Technical literacy will spread virally among regional young people.
Scenario #3 – what we could do with the proper equipment

Television series on regional writers including dramatizations of local work as well as taped panels, discussions, readings, lectures and book signings.
Songwriters LIVE – acoustic music and poetry broadcast live over the internet and thereafter available as a download.
Conversations and oral histories - interesting regional persons will share their lives and life lessons. Conversations about the past and future of the neighborhoods that make up the Alamo Area .
Location recordings at live music venues, homes, important meetings (three camera video shoots using NewTeks TriCasterPRO (http://www.newtek.com/tricaster/index.php )
Cultural documentaries such as documentation of the experiences of Somali Bantu refugees in San Antonio.
A classical music series featuring small chamber groups to demonstrate how to integrate video into concert performance.
A series on self care to help and support people who wish to live healthier lives with out spending a fortune.
Broadband Fundraising event for member organizations.

Year two – by year two we would like to have moved the project into a space in downtown San Antonio with in walking distance of KLRN. We should have a lot of projects going on by then and I will add:

“Knowing Home” - Regional awareness projects such as the AIA’s Environmental Design Charrette - http://www.salsa.net/aiasa/edc.html - and virtual museums. Citizens need to know the history (both cultural and natural) of the place we live.

Create a game out of regional planning, architecture and earth keeping. Build multi-user domains built on regional terraforms. Young people working with architects and planners will build interactive computer games based on computer models of the real world to create a vision of the future. People will be able to get into a virtual world and build building and then see what the effects will be thirty years from now.
a special series introducing regional writers for children.

Budget for year one. VERY ROUGH DRAFT

S250,000 to cover stipends and expenses of the first experimental year of SalsaNet’s Community Media Project to establish the Media Center.

These experiments/demonstrations will help to create models of technologically adept communities and generate an email list of 40,000 people who are potential donor members. By the end of year one a grants strategy will be in place and grants will have been submitted.

We need 50,000 right away to purchase gear and to sign up our first core team. and then 15 to 20,000 a month for the first year

Monthly Stipends and expenses

2,000 Pleas McNeel – project director - President Emeritus, SalsaNet. Over thirty years experience in community media production and advocacy.
2,000 James Sanders
2,000 John and Debbie walton
2,000 Bryce Milligan – project director for series on regional writers – Publisher “Wings Press”
5,000 - for hourly craftsmen – directors, camerapersons – sound and lights – computer graphics and games developers. We will pay interns at least $15 an hour so we won’t have to compete with Burger King.

5,000 for communications – high speed internet for project members, server space for streaming video, rental for KLRN studio’s for very large projects

Startup Gear

20,000 Three prosumer hi-def cameras, laptop workstation, tripods, camera dollys, lights, monitors
14,000 for stuff we don’t know we need.

Will also accept donations of production gear from the community.

When the project hatches we will hire a group of young people from the core team at professional level wages to continue the work.

Sustainability

We will use the public radio and television models to achieve sustainability - memberships, enhanced underwriting (advertising), concerts, grants and just a little revenue from the sale of downloads and a community online arts and crafts store.

We will reach out to the World Wide Web producing content anchored in creative non-violence. We will seek out intelligent content that embodies generosity and compassion. We feel that there are a least 40,000 people in the region (AACOG) who feel strongly about this approach and will be willing to support our efforts

We will produce quality content and stream it from our media portal . We will build an opt-in e-mail list of 40,000 addresses who will be invited to become members at something like $24 dollars a year

The e-mail list will also be used to promote live events, where our audience can interact such as:

Live webcast concerts at Municipal Auditorium. The Auditorium has 4,884 seats. With the center section configured to a dance floor, we could create event that would be a lot of fun for about 2 thousand people. We could do it six times a year using regional talent. A great big multicultural central Texas dance hall. Techno-chic. We will try “live” pay per view webcasts with inexpensive downloads after. I wonder what the global audience might look like. Stay tuned.

Basically, our sustainability will depend on our ability to connect with a large audience of intelligent politically active people and to serve them by providing information that rises above the political polarities.

Thank you for your consideration

/ / - - - - - - p l e a s

Pleas McNeel
President Emeritus
The South Central Texas Chapter of the Internet Society (SalsaNet)
And Director of the SalsaNet MediaLab