Watch this fast-moving video to learn more about thorium-based nuclear power. It’s safe to operate, has a small environmental footprint, could be cheaply developed at large or small scales (including transportation platforms), and we could use it for millions of years at current energy consumption rates.

Imagine: all-electric transportation vehicles and systems driven by battery and/or hydrogen storage + fuel cells, with the power for hydrogen separation or battery recharges coming from thorium-based nuclear plants setup in highly distributed smart grids. Imagine a world without coal-fired power plants.

A final quote from the video:

In conclusion, this gives us options for inherently safe, proliferation-resistant, economic nuclear power that can last thousands if not millions of years. This really could be the silver bullet that enables us to power our industrial society. And this also offers real options for solving the long-term issues surrounding our existing spent nuclear fuel and ultimately preventing the formation of new transuranic waste.

“Tune in” to a special Pew Research Center conference on the Millennial generation starting at 9:00am Eastern on Wednesday, February 24.

I’ll be on the road, driving 4,000 miles from Anchorage to St. Louis, unable to watch. But if I were at a computer with a live web connection, I’d totally watch.

Public media companies and leaders need to understand how younger generations view the world. Others, like Jacobs Media, have done a good job with profiling younger folks. But we seem to forget these lessons.

So check out the webcast here.

I still need some time to wrap my head around this. It’s such a new way of thinking for public service media, yet it’s so crucial we start thinking about media as an “experience,” not just something to be passively consumed. If we’re serious about creating positive outcomes for people and communities, immersive and “authentic” experiences will be much better suited to reaching our goals than simply giving people information and suggesting they consider changing their behaviors.

In my particular case, I’m wondering what kind of “gaming” elements can be added for readers of the St. Louis Beacon to keep them more engaged, get them more informed and connect them to each other and positive outcomes for the community. Or how might we offer “points” for participants in upcoming public service media projects we’re going to do at KETC?

In any case, this is a MUST SEE VIDEO. Take the time. It’s well worth it.

http://g4tv.com/lv3/44277

In this case, the video is a revised presentation deck with a brand new voiceover track. This way, if you couldn’t see or hear the presentation clearly in the video shot at WOSU, now you can get the slides and the talk directly.

First, the video, then I’ll follow up with a final collection of links.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8326319&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=ff9933&fullscreen=1

Final Cut Presentation Material

• View the video above at Vimeo (and get embed codes, etc.)
• Download a copy of the video (MP4, 1024×768, 570MB)
• Download the final cut slide deck, complete with embedded links (PDF, 11MB)
• Download the Keynote presentation deck (requires Keynote ’09, ZIP, 85MB)

Additional Material

• Pirates, legless dogs and public media — first in a three-part set of posts on my thoughts leading up to the presentation
• Do your own work — the second post
• The Future of Public Media — the third post in the series
• Presentation: The Future is Public Service Media — the original presentation content, as given at WOSU in Columbus
• Video from WOSU Presentation — this is a YouTube video of me giving the presentation in Columbus, as provided by WOSU (it cuts out after 1 hour, however)
• Additional links from WOSU presentation — a very long list of links to articles, references and other presentations I used when preparing for the talk

In prepping my presentation for WOSU Public Media last week, I spent a lot of time reviewing other people’s recent presentations, stories, blogs, data and so on. Really, I read stuff every day related to digital media, so tracking it all back down is kind of hard. But I wanted to make sure I gathered a list of links and other resources folks could review if they wanted to dig deeper than my presentation alone allowed. So here they are, in no particular order…

From Broadcast to Broadband: Redesigning public media for the 21st Century
Discusses how public media must change to meet the challenges of a 21st century media universe. Jake Shapiro, PRX and Ellen Goodman, Rutgers; presented at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Note: The pie chart showing CPB expenditures is incorrect. There’s an extra $71M included in the TV programming slice that shouldn’t be there.

The Future of News
This was a conference held at MPR in St. Paul, MN in November 2009 bringing together journalism leaders and pundits from public and commercial media in all formats. Lots of video and other resources. Props to Julia Shrenkler for tons of work on this one.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Michael Rosenblum offers a critique of the folks that appeared at The Future of News, as linked above.

A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009 (Jeremiah Owyang)
A frequently-updated list of social media statistics, including links, for all the major services.

The Chaos Scenario (video)
The Chaos Scenario (blog / book)
Bob Garfield, co-host of NPR’s “On the Media,” has written a book and built a wide-ranging presentation on how current media companies are faced with a chaotic world that’s changing the fundamental models of media economics. It’s a long video, but a good one.

CPB will seek unified case for reauthorization
Current, 23 Nov 2009

FTC should consider policy reform to support public media
MediaShift, Dec 2009 – Jessica Clark makes a case for changes in federal rules to increase public media funding while simultaneously requiring public media do more public service work and less broadcasting.

New Public Media
The public broadcasting system is getting pressure — and ideas — from outside the system, and this is one of the more prominent sources.

Future of Public Media (Center for Social Media)

Library Bytes / Helene Blowers
Columbus Public Library’s digital strategist is one of the foremost leaders in new library thinking nationwide and keeps her thoughts — and presentations — on her blog. WOSU Public Media and stations nationwide trying to make the leap to public service media need to be working with libraries. And libraries need to be working with public broadcasters. It’s a match made in heaven and I hope to be writing more about this.

The End Game for Traditional Media (25 Nov 2009)
Public media consultant Robert Paterson writes about the point at which things change, and how public broadcasters — and all of the traditional media — are at a major historical inflection point. Great ideas, as always.

Sagan: TV Survival Means Hyper-Local Online Video (25 Nov 2009)
Diane Mermigas writes incessantly about media and especially the TV business. Here she makes the point that the TV world is about to get the same disruption that has rocked the recorded music business.

FreePress: Public Media
The advocacy group freepress has a special focus on public media issues that public broadcasters or aspiring public service media leaders should watch.

The Art of the Start (video / presentation / book) — Guy Kawasaki
Public broadcasters are old businesses, largely stuck in their ways. What we need is a wave of entrepreneurial activity. We need a startup mentality. Guy Kawasaki gave this talk based on his book and it’s got tons of fantastic advice for startup-minded people, and yes, it applies to public broadcasters on the path to public service media.

• Video (at Kawasaki’s blog)
• Book (at Amazon)

KETC
The traditional public TV station in the St. Louis area is evolving beyond broadcast. They started with a major outreach effort surrounding The War a few years back. But they built a break-out project with Facing the Mortgage Crisis — a project later picked up by the CPB and replicated to stations across the country. Their partnership with the new online-only news service The St. Louis Beacon, is also ground-breaking. Finally, they’re building a video training school for the public, getting them involved in media production and helping with distribution. Where everyone else is yapping about finding a new way forward, KETC is actually doing it. Watch them for more cues on how to tackle the mission of public service media.

Center for Social Media

The Reconstruction of American Journalism — Columbia Journalism Review
This is a major report issued late in 2009 that addresses the perceived national journalism problem and goes into some specific recommendations as to what should happen with public broadcasting. Important reading.

The Cluetrain Manifesto
First published in 1999, there are lessons in here that still need to be learned. Of particular interest are the 95 Theses.

Scan and Analysis of Best Practices in Digital Journalism Both Within and Outside U.S. Public Broadcasting — Sep 2009 / Center for Social Media

Digital Public Media Networks to Advance Broadband And Enrich Connected Communities (PDF) — 6 Nov 2009 / Ellen Goodman, Rutgers

In Service of Democracy: Achieving Public Radio and Public Media’s Potential (PDF) — Nov 2009 / Bill Kling, MPR

Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age — The Knight Commission
This is perhaps one of the most important reports on news and public broadcasting’s role in the past 5 years, maybe 10. There’s an outline of the public service media mission in here. Required reading.

Media Re:public – News and Information as Digital Media Come of Age
“a series of papers exploring the potential and the challenges of the emerging networked digital media environment”

Pew Internet & American Life Project
Tons of reports spanning years of the growth of the Internet in the U.S. Charts, analyses, articles, presentations — tons of stuff.

NPR Digital Think In –9 Oct 2009
Presentation from the “Think In” event from this fall. Good info for folks that know and don’t know NPR.

Sustaining Public Engagement: Embedded Deliberation in Local Communities
Elena Fagotto and Archon Fung

Next year’s news about the news: What we’ll be fighting about in 2010 (10 Dec 2009)

Umair Haque

This is the brilliant economist I love to quote. But he doesn’t post dry analytical papers. He a bomb-thrower for creating real, durable value rather than destroying ourselves and our world in the short-term pursuit of profits. A must-read guy almost every time, and with recommendations for anyone looking to develop real community value with media. Here are some of his best pieces from this year alone:

• Generation M Manifesto
• HBR IdeaCast: Can Good Journalism Also Be Profitable?
• The Digital Economy’s Coming Subprime Crisis (And What You Can Learn From It)
• The New (New) Mediaconomy
• The Nichepaper Manifesto

Nonprofit News Projects

I mentioned several nonprofit news projects in my presentation. Here are some links to those projects.

• Bay Area News Project (KQED + UC Berkeley)
  • at Facebook
  • covered by Mother Jones
  • covered by editorsweblog.org
  • covered by NY Times
  • covered by KQED itself (radio piece)
  • covered by PaidContent.org
• California Watch / Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR)
• ProPublica
• Texas Tribune
• Spot.us
• MinnPost
• St. Louis Beacon (in cooperation with KETC)
• Voice of San Diego
• Christian Science Monitor (it’s not new, but it’s definitely a mission-driven nonprofit, and they’ve gone all-online this year)

Books

Tribes — Seth Godin
A seminal book on the thinking of how tribes (communities) are critical to business in the 21st century. It’s not a how-to book, but it’s a fantastic why to book.

Here Comes Everybody — Clay Shirky
Shirky writes about how the Internet and its tools enable communication and communities that could never have existing before now. Lots of examples.

The Art of Community — Jono Bacon
The book is free to download as a PDF (!), and the blog keeps updating community leaders on ideas and discussion around the topic. You can also buy the physical book. This is a much more prescriptive book, explaining how to form and manage communities.

Additional links are provided inside the WOSU presentation from 11 Dec 2009. Download the PDF version and note the URL links posted on the right-hand side of pages that contain data from other sources.

UPDATE: In the comments, Tom White from the CPB noted that the math for TV production and operations noted in the presentation — stating that 84% of CPB’s annual appropriation goes to TV — is incorrect. In fact, for both FY2009 and FY2010 it’s about 67% of the total, not 84%. I based my 84% figure on the presentation slides offered by Jake Shapiro and Ellen Goodman in their November 3 talk. The figures in their presentation — on slide 15/32 — miscalculated CPB’s allocations by more than $70,000,000. I apologize for the error and will attempt to update my slides soon. In the mean time, keep in mind that 84% figure is wrong.

Last week I gave a presentation at WOSU Public Media in Columbus, Ohio, sharing with them some of the trends in media generally, talking about the economic pressures of a changing media landscape and sharing some ideas of how the station might change to meet the needs of the community in ways that transcend mere broadcasting.

WOSU was kind enough to gather a great group of people from across the company, plus one visitor from ThinkTV in Dayton and one from WYSO in Yellow Springs. (I’m not listing names here because I didn’t get permission to mention anyone specifically.) I’m hopeful some of the elements in the presentation were at least thought-provoking. One person told me afterward that he came away with three new ideas. Awesome!

I’m posting a ton of presentation links here so anyone can view and download the materials as desired. As I mentioned to a former colleague of mine, the materials are free for the taking, remixing and so forth under a Creative Commons license.

If WOSU posts a YouTube video of the live presentation itself, I’ll embed it here later. And I may just do another version of the presentation in voice-over style anyway.

I’ll start off with the embeddable SlideShare presentation, then include more links below.

Presentation Downloads

The Future is Public Service Media – Keynote (Mac) format (242MB zip)
This is the complete presentation in its native format, including all embedded videos, graphics, transitions and so on. Playback requires iWork ’09 on a Mac.

The Future is Public Service Media – QuickTime format (638MB mov)
Complete presentation in a clickable “movie” format (click to advance, click links to get to the web) that includes the complete video files inside the presentation. Playable on any Mac or any PC with QuickTime installed.

The Future is Public Service Media – JPEG images (8MB zip)
This is all the slides from the presentation as individual JPEG images.

The Future is Public Service Media – PDF (6MB PDF)
This is all the slides from the presentation in a single PDF document, readable on all computers with Adobe Reader or another PDF application.

Ha! Okay, that’s not going to happen — I can’t really tell the future, especially when it comes to public media.

But I am thinking deeply about it, and a recent post I wrote has me thinking more broadly about the future, with respect to public broadcasting / public media / nonprofit media / what have you. And that post ended with a simple question:

Are public media’s best days behind it or are they yet to come?

Like so many things in life, the answer to the question is driven by your personal history with and perspective on “public media.” But it seems to me the future is either what we make it, or we simply agree to take whatever happens to us.

That’s what I’m thinking I’ll explore with the group at WOSU: are we going to take the future, or make the future?

The Media Inflection Point You Can’t Avoid

We’re in the midst of the biggest media reshuffling in history. Literally. There are more people on the planet today than at any time in Earth’s past. And almost all those billions of people have contact with some form of media every day — print, radio, TV, Internet, and all the forms therein. The 20th century witnessed the mass adoption of electronic media (telephone, radio, TV, Internet), ending with the mass popularization of the web in the industrialized world.

Not since the adoption of the printing press and its mass-produced written material has human society been faced with such an expansion of media to the point of ubiquity. Distribution of the written word fundamentally changed how humans think, gather information, communicate, organize, share, learn and so much more.

Similarly, radio and TV have had a huge impact on human society. But they’ve simply continued the mass distribution (broadcast) phenomenon of print, in which a cloistered few control what media is produced and distributed and how it’s experienced.

In contrast, the web — with its many-to-many decentralized and self-organizing design, coupled with a capacity for storing and delivering video, audio, text, photos, and structured data — changes the fundamental ways in which we use media. Indeed, all our older forms of media are maneuvering to either combat or leverage the power of the web for themselves.

By the way, let’s remember we’ve only just begun this transformation, we’re only now starting to see possibilities of what this will do to us or for us. Today we’re raising the world’s first generation of children who will never live without the web and its capabilities. For them, instant ubiquitous communication, sharing, and participation is a birth right.

In short, the world is undergoing tremendous change because media — a force in all our lives — is fundamentally changing. The future of media is being created right now, much more so than 10, 20 or even 100 years ago.

Given these changes, do you let the future happen, or do you find a way to make the future?

(Oh, and bad news: you can’t avoid making this choice, consciously or unconsciously.)

The Future: Taking It

Public broadcasting has largely been waiting as this media revolution takes root. Waiting to see the patterns emerge. Waiting to see what commercial media companies do. Waiting to see what the audience wants. Waiting to see the “business model.” Waiting for the CPB to fund this plan or that plan or give instructions. Waiting for NPR or PBS to make it all better.

This approach assumes the future is knowable, and that it’s more knowable the longer you wait. Public media companies using this strategy are betting if they sit back and let the future happen, they can re-engage once everything “settles down” and “success” can be achieved by following an established plan.

The flip side is that if the current business model collapses (as the elderly population supporting public broadcasting dies) but the magical solution hasn’t been delivered yet, then you go out of business. “Oh, well. All good things come to an end. It was inevitable. Nothing I could do.”

The “taking it” approach also presumes a good future is achieved by repeating past success. This is music to the ears of folks that built their careers shooting big TV shows, or built NPR from the ground up, surviving lean times to reach the “safe” place they’re in today. If we just keep pumping out TV shows, we’ll get viewers and advertisers and money, right? If we just keep playing good music or running national news programs that people like, we’ll get enough money to make it and that’s fine.

Finally, using the wait-and-see approach is less messy, more predictable. Sure, as your public broadcasting company shrinks, some people will lose their jobs, but that will be a slow bleed, and you can just hold on longer than anyone else, right? Talk to someone that worked at a newspaper recently — they’ll draw the roadmap for you.

NOTE: This is the strategy in play in Alaska right now: consolidate the community-based stations into a statewide entity to save operating cash and hope by the time the reorganization dust settles a business model will be “blessed” by CPB or “proven” at other stations. It’s the classic wait-out-the-storm strategy. Only this storm will rage for a generation.

When it comes to the future of public media, “taking it” has its charms — most notably predictability and an unquestioned reverence for past success. But it’s an inevitable failure for you, for the company and for the community the public media company ostensibly serves.

The Future: Making It

Where “taking it” passively hopes for a brighter future (despite indications to the contrary), “making it” meets the ambiguous future head-on and searches for ways forward that still fulfill your purpose. Making the future, in such a time of change, also presumes the search for the “best way to do things” won’t end in our lifetimes — an acceptable approach today may not be appropriate tomorrow.

When choosing to make the future, you’ll have to accept some assumptions:

• you cannot know or predict the future with any degree of accuracy
• though you can’t predict the future, you must, however, clearly know your mission and purpose as a public service media firm — that’s what gives you certainty in ambiguous circumstances
• the present and future are significantly different from the past, so repeating past success does not guarantee future success; proposals to repeat past successes must be evaluated as if they’d never been done before
• waiting for a perfect model of the future means you’ll miss opportunities to learn and/or succeed in the present
• unpredictability of the future is scary, but guaranteed failure is scarier
• failure is fine; failure is a teacher; failure is a universal experience and can bring people together
• courage is sexier than cowardice; courage will generate more and better support via collaboration, funding and mindshare; people are drawn to ambitious projects and people

If you’ve opted to “make the future,” it also means accepting the fact that you are not an expert in what you’re doing. That might be the hardest pill to swallow for public broadcasting veterans. “Not an expert? Then why do it?” Here’s why: You can’t be an expert on the never-done-before. No one can. But you can be smart, experimental and you can ask for help. Bonus: Humility builds community respect, which leads to support.

The Best Days of Public Media

Are public media’s best days behind it or are they yet to come?

If you think public media = public broadcasting, then the best days are behind you. Broadcasting, while not worthless, is worth less — it commands less attention and loyalty and gathers less money, while the cost of operation (especially for TV) grows and broadcast loses political power to broadband. There’s a place for broadcasting, to be sure, but it’s not at the leading edge of a public media company that’s making the future. What company puts a weakening, shrinking and economically tired division at the forefront of corporate strategy? Put in the team with new ideas, courage, and a hunger for dynamic growth in the driver’s seat!

If you think public media can only succeed in a calm, cool, collected, neatly organized and predictable organization, then the best days are behind you — because the future, like the present, is messy and unknown. A public media company waiting for the future can only decline while a public media firm exploring new media horizons and new relationships will have to take risks.

But if you think we’re living in an age where public service media can achieve more than in any prior time in history, then the best days are ahead of you. Costs for media creation, distribution and collaboration are falling rapidly, and many are effectively zero. It’s easier to maintain deeper relationships over extended space and time and gather masses of niche interests for public good. There are things you can organize and do today that would have been impossible 20 years ago, and public media firms — if they choose to make the future — can create and enable tremendous value using network effects and a blended influence of broadcasting, digital media, social media and community relationships.

We stand at the edge of an ocean of opportunity — and risk — for ourselves, our companies and especially our communities. The ocean’s waters are rising as the mediated world grows. We can stand firm as the waters rise, or we can try our hand at swimming.

If we swim, we might die. But if we stand firm, we’ll die for sure.