Eco April Alignment

Convener: Dan Shaw from Ashland, doing dissertation -- wants to get more video online regarding democratic dialogue, spiritualizing politics, sacred geography. danshaw.com. YouTube.com/vortexmaps.

Phil Gerson, Mary Rose, Dan Borroff, Tamara Broadhurst, Juanita Flessas, Michelle, Barbara Little, Sheri Herndon, Christy Lee-Engel, Karen McKenzie

Initial hopes and visions/intro:
Interfaith emphasis, there is already some wonderful footage of bishop charleston, david suzuki, van jones -- taking bits of the powerful language and key themes and posting them as ways of creating interest in the april events
Loves using YouTube! idea of following someone like Van Jones around with a video camera for a day, posting parts of that on YouTube
Imagines using video, slide show, etc showing this major interfaith event happening all in one place during this one month -- reminiscent of the Battle in Seattle
How to get as many people excited about mother earth and peace as about the seahawks?
to create a language that would invite people to see the synchronicity of all of these events -- sacredness of being, even more than only ecology, only social justice, etc -- how do we get that inforation out to the community?
Involved with media for 17 years in different capacities -- interested in the perspective that "this is not an event" but an opportunity for the bioregion to live into its capacity. begin to approach in sophisticated and strategic way, our media partners (major local networks etc) -- we have good contacts there -- not enough people in our communities know enough about what's happening -- KCTS etc wants "real people real stories," which we have. looking at media in a networked and strategic way.
Associated with Bastyr U, multi-disciplinary clinic. i hang out with a lot of teenagersand people in their 20s....and see the power of the different media things. i see how powerful it is to have people publish things. it's so easy and then it's available in a really fast way. i'm interested in learning more about how to leverage it.
Zeroing in on good energies and pulled in to that! a visual artist, able to realize visions into form
What's a media message that can get to the essence of each of these events, what do they mean together -- each individual event means much more than the one thing -- has pitched info to sr environmental reporter who is interested -- how do we get to convergence amongst the individual organizers?


Theme of Convergence
Indra's Net -- term "Eco-April" is too small to contain these events. Each one is a jewel. Our role is to help them lift up the jewel that they are and also create the web that holds them. Not to impose, but to help lift, and amplify.

Container and essence
Tagging can be a useful way of creating a container that holds a lot of separate things, without the separate things needing to change anything about their individual identity.
A theme for tagging or labeling: could be "awareness" -- "eco-awareness"
Other suggestions: "convergence"
"compassion" -- we are the petals of the flower of compassion -- faces on the petals, how can we each be a seed for that?

Four pieces: 1) Content 2) Timeline -- we're in a unique point in Jan working towards these events in April -- we have to find a way to create a continuing story that goes on past April. 3 )A question is: what media can we use. 4) Distribution channels.
Can we stay in a group that will stay together long enough? I am interested in asking what story can we tell

YouTube specifics
Opportunity to as a community use YouTube specifically, as long as getting copyright permissions, etc,
Need items with visual interest, photos, art, along with music etc
Need emotional content

Be able to tell people that this is a story that will continue to be told. YouTube, WiserEarth.

Question about copyright laws

Dan: YouTube is easy. Other social network platforms, also useful since they already have their audience.
Ning.com is relatively new. Useful if you have a group who are relatively technically savvy and want to collaborate. With YouTube you just set up a username/label and password and share it, trusting that no one will change stuff around. Is important to choose name and language carefully. And subtitle. For example: seattle-eco-april.com. Can also have YouTube channel, which viewers can subscribe to. Anyone who has video or info about upcoming events could get conglomerated.

Storylines
Other parallel thing that could get started: theme of synchronicity -- another storyline that can continue.

YouTube works best for personal story, people moving around and doing things, etc. A story: talking with "the audience" about what they want to go to. Step back to Battle in Seattle in '99 -- no one knew what that was about exactly, but people networked with each other about why they werre going, what they were doing. Power in talking w/ people about stories about why they're going. Ex: "all these things to choose from, what are you going to choose?"

Michelle: Already doing interviews -- would be willing to do interviews with people here. Is going to take "Nourish Your Soul" to all the networks anyway...

Suggestion: "April Convergence" and add something that speaks to notion of continuity.
An afternoon session is: How are we going to provide channels/pathways for people who attend in April to carry on.

Can we identify a couple of goals? -- Such as, inspiring people to focus on April. Communicating "beyond the choir"
Also: widening the circle by taking these energies and empowering other people. Inspiring other communities (incl spiritual communities) outside of this bioregion.

Language
NW Environment council changed their name because "environment" can turn people off.
Use the words that attract the people that you want to bring in.
What is a platform for us to continue the energies of these events? If we hold an intention in the midst of the event as a catalyst then there is more of a possibility of continuity.

Reference to Meg Wheatley's article on Taking Ideas to Scale -- networking, communities of practice, then COP can latch on to whatever comes up in the world.

Suggestion: Use the theme of 12, Seattle is known for "12" -- it's not the game, it's the game of life. We could interview people on the team about their views on earth changes, about what know about the Dalai Lama.

Language: ask, would it work from a media standoff two months down the road?

Many people have hearkened back to the Battle of Seattle.

Lot of emphasis on engaging youth for Seeds of Compassion – lots of opportunity to appeal to young people through YouTube.
Interfaith Voices of Youth.

Dan: consensus that this community would benefit from an effective use of YouTube. Let’s plan on setting something up, whatever the name will be. Should eventually settle on a common username and a password. YouTube as a placeholder referring to all the new media. Useful to bring everything onto one page. A YouTube channel can link to everyone’s individual pages, all the organizations.

Let’s get some youth to be our scouts and agents.

Request for Karen – to post artwork?

Dan: Go to DanShaw.com – will find a lot of videos, poetry, writing, Will type up a document for organizations that are interested in using the new media. If you use gmail, you can use that to set up a YouTube account. Suggestion to set up channels within YouTube: 1) videos before the event 2) of 3) after – already implants the idea that there’s more coming. If you have 5 minutes of the people who are coming, title it appropriately – “the Dalai Lama will be in Seattle in
Youas put up 130 videos, getting 1000 views a day – highly searchable, esp since it’s owned by Google.
Like having a website – you do have to promote it, put it on business card, link your Youtube site to your website. 10 minute limit, size limit. Over that, you have to pay. You need to choose a name that will grab people – it can get truncated. You need a description – also can get truncated. Will have shared profile – common logo? Need to find some common language, even if it is a disclaimer such as “no one is entirely satisfied with this description….”

Phil: Would love to take up Michelle’s offer to get interviews with people posted. Would love to work on content
Tasks: 1) is to establish the network 2) capture people’s stories, and 3) content over time.

Michelle has a YouTube account. Has an email list for events for TV show that she is launching. Will be linked to JZ Knight’s website.

The beauty and hookiness of YouTube is that regular people are doing it.

Questions…what is it we’re asking people to talk about?

Dan: bring people onto the same page – paper, web, etc. Suggests a compilation video – put all the people that have events in April in one 10 minute video.

Nothing like a 10 minutes piece to focus you!