We laughed, we cried: Insights from a PopTech first-timer

Have you ever felt both emotionally drained and intellectually invigorated at the same time? That’s the best way I can describe my first experience at last week’s PopTech conference, the annual showcase of visionary people, projects and ideas that convenes every fall in Camden, Maine. Read More

At this year’s Media Impact Forum, we asked two important questions: “What do we want from media innovation in the public interest?” and “How do we get it?” To explore answers, we brought together leading thinkers, funders and media innovators to share their ideas and projects for an inspired digital future. The key theme for the morning was inclusion—from providing tech opportunities for all to ensuring access to knowledge for all. Wendy Hanamura of the Internet Archive served as the emcee, and David Rousseau of the Kaiser Family Foundation as the day’s host, welcoming attendees to the foundation’s Menlo Park headquarters. Watch videos from the day here. What do we want? We started with Van Jones who masterfully grounded our conversation in contrasting stories of hatred and exclusion versus those of love and inclusion. In the agricultural age, he noted, African Americans were property. In the industrial age African Americans were also at the bottom of the economic ladder and the last to be included in industrial revolution. Now with digital age, how will we create one that includes everyone? The good news? It’s only after we have a breakdown that we… Read More

October was jam-packed with events examining how media can inspire creativity and catalyze change. From audio to visual, campaigns to games, virtual war stories to life-threatening investigations, this month offered insights on the impact of many different media forms. Read More

Media Impact Funders recently went to Camden, Maine for PopTech 18 — Rebellion. We convened a small group of funders and made our way to that very rainy and quaint coastal village for an exploration of media innovation, especially as it relates to the conference theme of rebellion and its place in social change. Before PopTech officially kicked off we were fortunate to hear from a terrific group of media innovators for a private discussion about new ways to think of media investments and their impacts. Leetha Filderman, President of PopTech; Beth Cohen, Director of Media at PopTech; Trent Gilliss Executive Editor and Chief Content Officer of On Being; Courtney Martin, Author and Co-Founder of the Solutions Journalism Network; and Sean Flynn, Director of the Points North Documentary Forum at the Camden International Film Festival got our funder group into the PopTech mindset and set the tone for an excellent few days ahead. We planned this special session as a time to explore the ways nonprofits are becoming trusted media makers and distributors, creating opportunities to communicate directly with their supporters; how innovative practice is transforming newsrooms and the way we engage with news; and how PopTech… Read More