Judah Freed
Public Speaking

Talking About Interactivity
for Audiences Worldwide

We open with stories of a media journalist covering interactive media and evolving a sense of our global interactivity, The tale of mass media massaging the messenger leads into hard lessons learned the hard way, rescued by humor. Realizing our interactivity inspires a desire for self knowledge. Images in our heads affect the reality we create by our interactions. What we see in our minds, we get in our lives. Our visions for new media shape the media we see in our homes, schools, jobs, communities. Citing examples from the trade, we see how media visionaries have changed the world with imagination, as do we all. Every action we take changes the world for us all. Global visions yield choices making global sense.

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The whole world is awakening to our interactivity. Life on earth will never be the same. A narrowband Internet already helps induce this global sensibility, Immersion in a broadband interactive media world of Internet everywhere helps accelerate a quantum shift into global thinking. Once we know inside we are all interconnected, we see the power of our interactions to alter reality for everyone. We are not powerless. Accepting the fact of our interactivity on Network Earth, we balance freedom and responsibility more naturally. We start learning how to live responsibly free. We see that self rule makes global sense. We begin to practice personal democracy. Day by day, one interaction at a time, we transform the world.
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'Media literacy" initially meant computer operating skills. The meaning enlarged to encompass 'critical thinking' about media content. Both are essential, yet neither suffice to survive and thrive in the digital age. The meaning of "media literacy" must expand again. The term needs to convey a deeper understanding of interactivity itself, how interactions spin the web of culture, how life itself is interactive, how we create reality with our choices, by design or default, one interaction at a time, producing the world we see ourselves living within. It's interactivity in action. Equipped with deep media literacy, we are ready for life on network earth. We make better media choices. We make better life choices. We benefit the world.
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In classrooms, workplaces, homes, and on the road, lifelong learners of all ages can use global interactive media to enrich their education. A first for humanity, we are only beginning to appreciate the social impact. For quality learning materials to be available in the marketplace of ideas, we need a viable business case. Nation can't afford to go bankrupt educating people. Growing the base of learners in every generation, can generates self-renewing audiences for educational media content and services. Perpetual motion? Invest in deploying broadband as fast as feasible, ensuring public access stays open for all. Think of growing the markets by growing more educated minds,. Those applying such global sense to lifelong learning qualify as media visionaries.
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The Internet emerged as the hype balloon burst for Interactive TV. Unrealistic business plans and a still unbuilt digital infrastructure made financiers loose faith in interactive television. The vision was ahead of reality. Now a global broadband networks is coming online to carry video, data and voice with equal ease. Our homes schools, jobs and communities are being interlinked by cable, satellite, wireless, and even broadcast TV services. Interactive TV is a reality in the UK and Europe, and American "iTV" begins in 2000. The dream is coming true, making money wherever the service is available. Ignore the cynics. Interactive TV is here. Get ready.
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After Barry Diller combined the television, the computer and the telephone into the moneymaking machine called "home shopping," the buzzword was media "convergence." Today a rapid merging of media technologies is a routine reality. We can but guess where the innovations will lead us tomorrow. When people can communicate by text, voice and video with equal ease, how may this change the way we interact? The web of human culture is woven from every act of communication. As convergence continues, how we live, love, learn, work, play, and vote will be affected. Get prepared for an interactive world. Develop deep media literacy, and don't let convergence seduce you into confusion. Differentiation, personalization and privacy protection are the keys to true success for interactive media companies. In media as in life, delivering quality with heart earns the rewards.

The demand for more domain names has sparked schemes for who gets to be the claims office in the coming cyberspace land rush, who's pocketing tidy fees for registering new domain names. We now have network governance by a private committee called ICANN emplaced by the US Government, Captured by the transnational trademark holders,ICANN is illegitimate because there was never any public vote giving them power, because the board came from gerrymandered constituencies. Internet governance influences the manner of governments worldwide. Since mass media weave the cultural web, why tolerate technocracy? Why not enact an Internet Constitution giving to every "netizen" a fair voice in network decisions? Rule of law or rule by decree? Network democracy makes global sense.
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Orwell's dark vision in 1984 has become fused in the public mind with Huxley's wry vision in Brave New World. The stories are quite different. Orwell had a repressive Big Brother use media surveillance to secure state control. Huxley had elites use media soma to seduce the masses away from intelligence. Both scenarios are grim, yet is either realistic? The risks are real enough, and we can spot tendencies going both directions. However, I'd agree with Peter Huber in Orwell's Revenge, who contends an open network of networks by itself provides sufficient demand for freedom that no despots may endure. Averting the danger in advance is my preference, which is why I advocate deep media literacy based upon a global sense of our interactivity, the feeling that inspires us to practice responsible self rule.

Will machines adapt to people instead of the people adapting to machines? A "Computer User's Bill of Rights" was published in 1998 by, Dr. Clare-Marie Karat from IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorn, NY. Her sane ten-point "manifesto" is winning friends and influencing people inside Big Blue and elsewhere inside the computing industry. Trade leaders are adopting ease-of-use as a guiding principle in hardware and software design. Covering the points in Karat's "Bill of Rights," we'll discuss the implications for computing and society. When machines do as we command, will we demand to control our own lives as easily as we control the images displayed on our screens? Evolutionary thinking empowers a revolution in mass media.

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After public protests, electronic marketing ventures have reluctantly begun to adopt an "opt out" policy. Consumers can request email marketers to remove them from any "spam" mailing lists. But notice the presumption here that mailboxes belong to direct marketeers, not the recipients. The same attitudes apply to "data mining" on the Internet. Some claim that unauthorized data mining is theft. Suppose the direct marketeers are required to ask us to "opt in" before they send us solicitations? We need to honor privacy yet permit online ventures to earn a living. Why not explore our options?

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Note: This topic lends itself to a live debate with
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Advertising will become increasingly personalized and interactive. On-demand advertising on TV and the Internet may let the public avoid ads they do not want to see, in some cases blocking all advertising altogether. Imagine the feelings of power and self-determination among consumers. When people can refuse all commercial messages, advertising adapts. Marketing wizards find news ways of getting folks to pay attention. One popular strategy is offering incentives for receiving advertisements, like airline mileage, coupons, or lower media subscription fees. Advertisers with global sense realize that the best way to gain the public's attention amid information overload is to appeal to our highest aspirations for human achievement. Ads that inspire, not debase, invite us to engage our hearts and minds. Which direction will we go? Which way do you want?
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Pivotal political events in the USA and elsewhere around the world have begun with news stories on the World Wide Web. Publishers have been more ethical in some cases than others. What are the rights and responsibilities of a free press in our digital age? Do modern Internet journalists need to report the news differently than do print, radio or television journalists? And what about live news gathering? What balances timeliness and accuracy? How do journalists respond to the challenges of deadlines, sensationalism, advertising, merchandising, privacy, security, censorship? What's ahead for journalism as our world is naturalized to "on-demand news," when open access to news becomes a daily way of life? is it possible that mass media actually might fulfill the key Jeffersonian vision of openly educated people governing themselves well in open democracies?
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Modern corporations increasingly are depending upon interactive media technologies to handle their internal and external communications. All of these decentralized distributed networks subtly influence corporate cultures toward increasingly open modes of organizational management. This makes topdown managers go nuts. Corporations taking advantage of new interactive media networks that also decentralize their organizational structure move beyond lip service into real "teamwork" or "participatory management" Organizations with a distributed power architecture tend to benefits staff, customers and stockholders alike, notably more than can traditional hierarchies, benefiting the larger community, so the marketplace itself grows healthier and more creative, more robust. Openly interactive organizations make global sense.

The day is approaching when we access the Internet through smartphones with personal data assistants, even smart clothing. How will life on earth change when we are always connected to the Internet from anywhere on earth? Consider the social effects of being constantly connected to the world. How will this alter our personal identity? How will it impact our cultural and social consciousness? If we are not careful, an immersive Internet can turn into Orwell's' Big Brother or Huxley's soma. If we would support deep media literacy, world media may awajudah us to a global sense of our interactivity that inspires the mature self rule needed for democracy to work.
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. ..> Stardust Radio Interview in mp3
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Here are stories and observations from 25 years in journalism, most recently writing about interactive media. This talk is adapted to each audience. Tales can begin when a local journalist in 1976, or move into my true-life TV adventure in 1989 producing Denver's end of the very first Jason Project, (live, interactive satellite telecasts from the floor of the Mediterranean Sea). Or I can present an insider's view on the rise and fall and rise of interactive TV, what happens when the rubber meets the super hypeway. I've learned a lot about life as a media journalist covering media trade shows, and being a webmaster is both an education and and initiation into life from the absurd to the sublime. All of my stories reflect the teller of the tale, yet the narrative mirror mass media trends, allowing folks to clarify their own media values, their own media visions.

Note: The topic lends itself to after-dinner talks.

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