Collaboration, Community and Culture

We've uploaded the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds mini-documentary to YouTube. The original high-res file is broadcast quality of which we're incredibly proud. Unfortunately, the compression quality of the YouTube version is nowhere near as nice as it looks in high-resolution. But it gets the idea across.

Compliments to the team at Ill Clan Animation Studios especially Paul Jannicola, Kerria Seabrooke and Frank Dellario whose commitment to quality and collaboration remains unparalleled in what is still a very new industry -- machinima video productions. They really moved this video from something potentially ordinary to something that captured the true visual beauty of what we saw during our year on this project. Because machinima video production is still so new it is considered a bit of a novelty by the film and broadcast industry. In addition to top notch creative work, the Ill Clan's level of attention to detail, such as lighting, resolution and story is unparalleled. The work that Paul, Kerria and Frank have recorded inside Second Life is competitive with much of today's top quality animation. See their serial, oft-times hysterical soap operatic "Tiny Nation" for an example of their high productions standards (and comedic timing). Note to Hollywood: Option these folks.

As one viewer told me on Thursday after seeing the documentary, the beauty of the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds documentary video helped them understand how the sacred is manifest in Second Life.

Note particularly how Paul and Kerria's camerawork captures the gleam on the marble inside Second Life's Al Andalus mosque.

Thank you Ill Clan!

When Will They Turn Against Us?

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

P.W. Singer

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Just Like Astro Boy.

Last night, when we launched the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project, our friend P.W. Singer could not be with us, although he was projected onto the wall during a video we showed of "LIVE FROM DOHA," (produced by Dancing Ink Productions with the Brookings Institution from the US-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar last February). While we gave our presentation, P.W. was on The Daily Show talking about his book, WIRED FOR WAR.

"You just blew my f&%$#%* mind!" bleeped John Stewart, who framed the work brilliantly and gave P.W. a chance to talk about robots at war and the cultural differences of robot-perception: American enemy robots are always zapping something, Japanese people tend to glorify robot dominion.

People are always talking about "my generation this," or "my generation that," the "slacker" generation, the "greatest" generation, the flower-children, the "whiner" generation, the baby-boomers, generation X, generation Y, the "beat" generation. I've never had much of a sense of generational belonging. When I see a Rubik's Cube I think back to the eighties, it's true. But I've never had a sense of shared culture, a feeling about what it is, exactly, that connects people of my own generation aside from the fact that we're the same age.

I recently found myself at a party hosted by a couple in their late fifties. Most of the guests were the same age. We went around in a circle and each person stated what they hoped would be the most memorable characteristic of their generation. Mostly, they talked about the spirit of rebellion and protest in the sixties, with some people feeling that it was a true and authentic expression of that period and others recalling it as delusional. As the circle closed in on me, I feverishly struggled with my inability to define my own generation. That, however, was not the question. The question was, for what characteristic would I want my generation to be remembered. My answer, in brief (that night I'd had a bit of champagne and my answer might have been more monologue than bullet-point): I want my generation to be remembered not just for philosophical leadership on the relationship between human consciousness and machines, but for hardcore investigative work on the subject, particularly within the digital culture.

Watching P.W. Singer on The Daily Show filled me with a sense that the hope I stated that night for my generation actually might also end up being our defining characteristic. Had he been a complete stranger to me when I watched the clip, I would have become an instant fan. But I've known him for several years, and he is very firmly of my generation. I could not have gone as far as I did when conducting a six-month investigation for "Big, Easy Money: Disaster Profiteering on the American Gulf Coast," had it not been for the perspective that P.W. offered, and the help he gave me during that time, nor would I have ended up in Doha.

"When will they turn against us?" John Stewart asked.

"I always thought that's what happened with Stephen Colbert," deadpanned P.W. Singer.

I still remember when video killed the radio star, and now, we've all got to be camera ready.

Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds: Digital Release

Cover page from "Digital Diplomacy" the policy recommendations from the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project.
After the launch of the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds event in NYC at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, a man named Pablo whom I've seen serving wine and food at all the events I've attended there since becoming a Senior Fellow came over, held my hands and said, "I've been here for 22 years, and in all that time, I have never, ever, seen anything like this. This was just amazing."

Carnegie Council President Joel Rosenthal's introduction to the policy recommendations, called "Igniting the Moral Imagination" is excerpted below:

The Carnegie Council is made of bricks and mortar. Yet, in recent years we have attempted to transcend the confines of our New York City headquarters. Planting our flag online in the form of websites, blogs, YouTube videos, and iTunes podcasts has led us to make connections with some unexpected, even unconventional partners. But this is the new, networked world we live in.

Call it Ethics 2.0.

In my many discussions with Joshua Fouts and Rita J. King over the course of the last year, I have often been reminded of an observation by the great British historian and author Arnold J. Toynbee. “Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm,” he declared, “and
enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, which takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that
ideal into practice.”

It has long been the Council’s mission to harness the power of ideals such as freedom and justice in ways that ignite the moral imagination. With this report, Josh and Rita have illuminated a new path–a definite intelligible plan–for practical public diplomacy in an area of supreme urgency. Furthermore, they have done so by elevating humanity’s most distinguishing feature: the imagination.

Enthusiastically adventuring into the virtual frontier of Second Life, a space where identity can be separated from the binding limitations of geography, culture, and religion, Rita and Josh have planted their flag in the name of public diplomacy. Visitors to this new landscape are afforded the freedom to explore, the opportunity to connect, and, as Josh and Rita demonstrate, an outlet for political frustrations.

The Carnegie Council is committed to supporting policy entrepreneurs like Josh and Rita, even if it means following them into unfamiliar lands like Second Life. I commend them for their effort. I applaud their doggedness in attempting to liberate the Internet’s potential as a force for cultural dialogue, and I look forward to the implementation of the recommendations contained in this report.

Joel H. Rosenthal
President, Carnegie Council for Ethics in
International Affairs
New York City
December 18, 2008

Other ways to participate:

We hosted an introductory session in Second Life on January 30 and will host another event soon.

We will also answer questions in Twitter today (follow @EurekaDejavu and @josholalia. If you have questions you'd like to pose in Twitter, put a #DIP hashtag at the end. To participate in the discussion (we are going to be available at 3 pm EST to respond to questions and find out if Twitter is actually a good medium for this effort!) Go to Tweetchat and visit the DIP chat stream. We will also check for other questions in coming days and weeks as people have a chance to review the project.

REVIEW THE UNDERSTANDING ISLAM THROUGH VIRTUAL WORLDS PROJECT:

Three products came out of this project, policy recommendations, a mini-documentary video filmed inside virtual worlds and a graphic book that chronicled the project.

1. Policy recommendations, "Digital Diplomacy: Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds" which will be submitted to the Obama Administration can be downloaded here.

2. Mini documentary machinima "Collaboration, Community and Culture." A short documentary machinima video produced by Dancing Ink Productions and ILL Clan Animation Studios, can be downloaded here in high resolution (warning: 1gb file).

We've also uploaded the low-res video to our YouTube page. Resolution is nowhere near as breathtaking as the high-res version.


3. Graphic Book "Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds" See below viewer for the graphic book, or click here to download the pdf. You can also order a hard copy of the graphic book from print-on-demand Blurb.com. Dancing Ink Productions will not profit from the sale of the book. The posted price is Blurb's at cost price.



Join us on Facebook, Flickr and YouTube.

Everyone's an Avatar

Coca Cola's new "avatar" commercial.

As we prepare for tonight's Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds release (digital release to follow this evening), I just received an email from our friend Patrick Huyghe, proprietor of Anomalist Books and the choice The Anomalist blog, who sent us this link to a Coca Cola commercial for the Superbowl which, in a funny way, shows how each of us is an avatar ... or at least might have an avatar version of ourselves. And that's really what the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project was all about self-expression, art, culture, storytelling and new narratives toward richer cultural dialog through virtual spaces.

Also recommended, Jimmy Fallon's recent interview with The Guild's Felicia Day in which she teaches Jimmy how to play World of Warcraft.

Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds Launch is Fully Booked

Response to the January 29 release event for the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds reports has been overwhelming and has exceeded the space limitations at the Carnegie Council.

If you RSVP'ed on Metaverse Meet-up or on Facebook only and not via the Carnegie Council website, you may not be guaranteed a seat.

The virtual version of the Understanding Islam release will be the following day, Friday, January 30 at 1pm Eastern. To RSVP for this event, please send an IM to Dee Elcano in Second Life. Space is limited for this event.

The Second Life event will screen Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds machinima, created by Dancing Ink Productions and ILL Clan Animation Studios as well as digital copies of our policy recommendations and graphic book.

If you can't make either of these events, we will be taking questions via Twitter at 3pm Eastern on Friday, January 30. You can follow us at @eurekadejavu and @josholalia. The Twitter hashtag will be #DIP.

Digital versions of all the reports will be made available January 29.

The American Patchwork Heritage

This podcast--an assessment of Obama's first five days in office, was just posted by Mitch Wagner, the Copper Robot.

Mitch Wagner and I also had a conversation in Twitter about @barackobama's Inauguration Speech (see readers' comments here in the New York Times). Mitch was pleased to hear the statement:

"For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers."

I am also glad for those among the Non-Believers who have worked so hard to achieve categorical status amid Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus. Nevertheless, I hope that if President Barack Obama delivers on his promise and gets re-elected in a landslide next time around, he chooses to include seekers--those who are neither religious, nor non-believers--as part of the American patchwork heritage.

Dancing Ink Productions' Illustrious Artist-in-Residence, Mencius Watts

Tonight, the Dancing Ink Productions website was updated with this statement (check out the tag cloud, too!) A few hours later, I visited our island in Second Life and discovered that our artist-in-residence, Mencius Watts, had installed "Bob Box v3," which illustrates in a dazzling, iconic way, exactly what I meant about the fluid edge between the "physical" and the "virtual."

John Fillwalk [AKA Mencius Watts] is an associate professor in electronic art at Ball State University. He works and instructs in a variety of time-based and digital media including video, installation, imaging, interactive art and animation. He received his MFA from the University of Iowa in intermedia and video art in 1990 and has since received numerous grants, awards, and fellowships. He is also the artist-in-residence at the Center for Media Design at Ball State, funded by the Eli Lilly Foundation. Mencius Watts collaborates in Second Life with Taggert Alsop. They also created the mesmerizing Flickr Gettr.

These are no ordinary bouncing cubes that you see here.

Proximity sensor triggers streaming media
Live video of Atlantic Ocean
Spatialized ocean sound
Physical scripted boxes - collisions, resets etc
Color of boxes change per direction of SL sun
Spashable water - jump in!

So I jumped in.

While I took snapshots and listened to the sounds of the ocean, Mencius explained that the cubes are dark because it is night in North Carolina. The cubes are rigged to a beach camera there.

If I come back during the day, he said, I will be able to see people walking on the beach.

Right now, somebody in North Carolina who is likely fast asleep will cross paths tomorrow with the beach camera. That person, or people, will end up on these cubes of ocean. I'm thinking of the Richard Wilbur quote from the wall of the Audubon Aquarium in New Orleans:

All that we do is touched with ocean, and yet we remain on the shore of what we know.

If anyone wants to visit the site to see people walking on the beach in North Carolina, ping me in-world.

Virtual Islam: Peace, Love, and Some Understanding?

If our posting volume seems low it's because all energies are focused on preparations for next week's January 29 release of Understanding Islam through Virtal Worlds.

Until then, take a look at this article by Religion Dispatche's Bill Berkowitz in which he interviews me about the project: "Virtual Islam: Peace, Love, and Some Understanding?"

The Copper Robot Shows Some Serious Human Consciousness

Eureka, left, and a surprisingly insightful--one might say brilliant--robot by the name of Mitch.

The Copper Robot, Mitch Wagner, was still wearing his white tie from the Inaugural Ball at SL Capitol Hill (nice coverage, MTV), when he dropped in at the Imagination Age, the Second Life office of Dancing Ink Productions.

"I had an insight tonight," Mitch announced.

And boy, did he ever.

Before he went to the Inaugural Ball, he encountered "Palestinian protesters." This isn't the first time avatars have gathered in Second Life for the same reason. As a "staunch supporter of Israel," Mitch resented the presence of the protesters at SL Capitol Hill, until an insight flashed in front of him. Isn't this exactly how we'd rather have people expressing their feelings, without violence?

Yes.

I showed him the Flickr Gettr, created by artist-in-residence at Dancing Ink Productions, the dazzlingly creative John Fillwalk, AKA Mencius Watts. The Flickr Gettr is one of the search tools at the American University in Cairo's Virtual Newsroom (click here to see the Inaugural Broadcast or here to read about the event).

To use the Flickr Gettr, seekers type a word or phrase into a projector at the center, which then illuminates the air with images tagged with a match. The above search was for "happiness."


"In San Francisco," Mitch said, "We lived around the corner from a little store owned by a couple I believed were Palestinians. And we got along fine. I used to go in there every Friday night ot buy a pint of Chubby Hubby Ben & Jerry's ice cream. And we'd talk. We bought bread there and the other things you buy at a corner store.And then the Israeli-Palestinian conflict heated up again and I started feeling weird about the nice couple that owned the corner store. And then I said to myself, this is crazy. They are not terrorists. They are SELLING ME ICE CREAM."

Abandoning the Pretense of Objectivity

At one time in American history, parents and children spent more quality time together in their living rooms because, well, somebody had to get up and turn the dial.

"How opinion journalism could change the face of the news," by Michael Kinsley for Slate raises the debate about how to interpret an irrevocable and extremely exciting, though painful, industry-wide transformation. It contains one extremely helpful guideline for anyone who is committed to documenting some aspect of the human condition. In these times of digital fluency, responsibility for one's own message should be taught at a very young age.

"Abandoning the pretense of objectivity," Kinsley sagely notes, "does not mean abandoning the journalist's most important obligation, which is factual accuracy. In fact, the practice of opinion journalism brings additional ethical obligations. These can be summarized in two words: intellectual honesty. Are you writing or saying what you really think? Have you tested it against the available counterarguments? Will you stand by an expressed principle in different situations, when it leads to an unpleasing conclusion? Are you open to new evidence or argument that might change your mind? Do you retain at least a tiny, healthy sliver of a doubt about the argument you choose to make?"

Each person with broadband access and access to equipment has the capability to become a broadcaster, which means that in a very few years, people are going to start to realize that panache matters. Creativity matters. The style and flair, the simplicity, the interactivity, the helpfulness, the sincerity with which a message is delivered also matters.

"Consider Anderson Cooper, CNN's rising star. His career was made when he exploded in self-righteous anger while interviewing Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu after Hurricane Katrina and gave her an emotional tongue-lashing over the inadequacy of the relief effort...In short, he's acting like a human being, albeit a somewhat overwrought one. And now on CNN and elsewhere you can see other anchors struggling to act like human beings, with varying degrees of success," Kinsley wrote.

The world is learning together, quite suddenly, how to act like human beings with varying degrees of success, and it is no mystery then that the cult of personality will save or make the careers of a new wave of multi-platform anchors. The endurance of this paradigm, however, will be short-lived. Most print and broadcast media missed the obvious signs of the Internet's importance, and mistaking a fleeting phenomenon for a long-term trend could be the death knell many dodge in the transition due to brand recognition and earnest effort. The anchor of the near future will not be struggling with his or her own humanity, but rather, media outlets will begin to choose more fully developed human beings to thoughtfully deliver news. If lazier forms of journalism die off as the skills required to thrive in the profession evolve, all the better.

The Power of "Unique Signatures"

The New York Times published Brian Stelter's, "Can CNN, the Go-To Site, Get You to Stay?" The challenge, he notes, is to make CNN.com more distinctive, as currently, the home pages of the top mainstream news sites look almost identical, down to color schemes and photo choices. Last year I decided to abandon all television and cable television and see if having the Internet rigged up to a massive screen would do the trick for me. Yes and no. On election night, I added "Write a letter to CNN about the fact that the potential for CNN.com is barely being tapped," to my list of things to do in the New Year.

Obviously, one aspect of sharing news will never change: the quality of the message matters most of all. Every tragedy of international scope takes place in someone's hometown, and as the people of the world are increasingly joining the digital culture, they all become "citizen journalists." How prepared people are for this responsibility will depend largely on policy reform. It is not a matter of new media crushing the old, or the old standing up for what's good and true in a supposedly dying profession. There is no old media and there is no new media. There's simply an evolution in human capability and the collective ability to interpret and reflect on what it means to be human. The biggest adjustment that needs to be made is around that core idea.

This blog post was inspired by the constant conversation on Twitter about what is and is not "journalism." @jayrosen_nyu, @you2gov and @scobleizer, today in particular. You can follow me on Twitter too, or comment below on the industry-wide transformation of the news business.

Perfect Pitch, Wrong Tune

Image: A mural in the city of Jennings.

When People magazine asked President George W. Bush to reflect on the moments he revisits most often, he mentioned the first pitch that he threw during the World Series of 2001.

“I never felt that anxious at any other time during my presidency, curiously enough,” said Bush.

I watched that pitch from a special vantage point, and I have long believed it to be the only perfect moment of the Bush Administration’s reign.

Most people don’t start their journalistic careers in a war zone. I started mine in Cooperstown, New York, a town famous for the National Baseball Hall of Fame. As a child, I visited Cooperstown every summer with my family. We spent a week at Beaver Valley Campground. All year long, I hoarded quarters so I could lose myself in the Pac-Man arcade machine in the game shed next to the pool. I never had enough coins because the ghosts kept moving faster and faster until--game over. Cooperstown always smacked of vacation to me. Being a cub reporter at a local weekly, I thought, would be a fantastic way to catch a glimpse of the cycles of life in a place I’d always loved. It was April 2000, before the switch to digital cameras had been made in that small, local newsroom.

During my nearly two years on the job, I interviewed hundreds of fascinating individuals, many of whom had some tie to baseball. My very first article was about the groundskeeper at the famous Doubleday Field, which I could see from my third-floor kitchen windows. With binoculars, I could watch games. A League of their Own was partly filmed there. The groundskeeper had just won an award for his fastidious work keeping the park pristine.

“Joe Harris,” I wrote, “has the best grass in town.”

With those words, my career as a journalist launched. While I worked at a weekly, I also became a freelancer for various magazines and I wrote a cover story for the Village Voice, “Terms of Service: Sweaty Scenes from the Life of an AOL Censor.” I was put on assignment by The New York Times Travel Section to photograph Cooperstown for an article written by Elisabeth Bumiller. The image chosen for the piece was of the third base line being raked post-game while teammates huddled in the background. By then, the small weekly had switched to digital photography but The New York Times had not. I had to break out my old metal-bodied Minolta to do the assignment, and even in the few months since I’d grudgingly made the transition, I’d lost my ability to compensate for the broken light meter. My editor had taught me how to work with light and shadow, from which all great stories, and the images that illustrate them, are ultimately composed.

Cooperstown is a Republican enclave, full of old money and opera lovers who gather each summer within various pavilions along the shore of Lake Otsego, also known as Glimmerglass, thanks to the literary legacy of the town’s most illustrious historical resident, James Fenimore Cooper. In Cooperstown I interviewed countless baseball greats, including Cal Ripken Jr., and I once spent an afternoon with the famous dilettante George Plimpton, who asked me to submit a short story to the Paris Review.

I turned down an opportunity in Cooperstown to attend a kickoff fundraiser down the street from my new office for future President George W. Bush. I couldn’t accept the idea that he might become president, and I didn’t want to have to shake his hand. My reason for disliking him then seems almost downright trifling when juxtaposed against the evidence that my hunch was accurate. I found the environmental record in Texas, coupled with the record-breaking number of executions that took place during his tenure as governor, proof enough that it was unwise to choose him for president. Having grown up in a house with parents who placed special emphasis on Freud, Shakespeare, Lao Tzu and Machiavelli, I was also disturbed by the lingering implications of the first failed Desert Storm and the daddy issues stamped all over it. But we all know what happened. He became president, and then 9/11 changed everything.

NYC firefighters had been invited to the Baseball Hall of Fame to watch the World Series game at the Grandstand Theatre. In fact, many families across town hosted firefighters and their families, feeding them and trying to cheer them up. Along with everyone else in the theatre, I held my breath as President Bush, bundled in layers of protective kevlar and a bulky coat, took his place at the mound.

Throwing a perfect pitch isn’t easy, even for a professional player. My family had first discovered the Baseball Hall of Fame because my brother had his heart set on being a major league pitcher and he wanted to visit the sport’s high shrine. I have seen my brother throw perfect pitches, but he practiced for hours, weeks, months, years. He did not have to perform in layers of protective armor in case terrorists or assassins decided to kill him in front of a stunned global audience of millions. I couldn’t believe the president had been talked into attempting such a completely improbable stunt of physical prowess and zen-like meditative poise at a time of such chaotic misery, confusion and general pandemonium. Paper leaflets seeking the missing or dead were still fluttering all over downtown Manhattan, and that was the least of the mess.

President George W. Bush threw a perfect pitch and the moment was documented in a photograph that was blown up to poster size and propped up on a easel when White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer came to the Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown to give an intimate talk about the president’s reaction in the minutes, hours and days after he was first informed of the attacks. I met Fleischer after the event, and I asked him if I could interview him again. He agreed. During the interview he told me that he was the catcher when Bush practiced pitching, and that the president called him Ari-Bob.

The town’s most famous attraction is the Baseball Hall of Fame, which was directed by Dale Petroskey while I lived there. Petroskey served as the assistant press secretary during the Reagan Administration. As young men, Fleischer and Petroskey were on the same baseball team. Dale Petroskey, whose ire was raised by anti-war comments made by Tim Robbins, made the news by publicly canceling a 15th anniversary screening of Bull Durham on April 7, 2003. Tim Robbins responded two days later, on my birthday. (I remember the date because it also happens to be the day when the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled in Firdos Park.)

This exchange was documented by Tim Robbins in The Nation in a piece called “Tim Robbins vs. the Baseball Hall of Fame.”

“...We believe your very public criticism of President Bush at this important--and sensitive--time in our nation's history helps undermine the US position, which ultimately could put our troops in even more danger,” Petroskey wrote. “As an institution, we stand behind our President and our troops in this conflict. As a result, we have decided to cancel the programs in Cooperstown commemorating the 15th anniversary of Bull Durham.”

Robbins responded: “As an American who believes that vigorous debate is necessary for the survival of a democracy, I reject your suggestion that one must be silent in time of war. To suggest that my criticism of the President puts the troops in danger is absurd...You are using what power you have to infringe upon my rights to free speech and by taking this action hope to intimidate the millions of others that disagree with our president. In doing so, you expose yourself as a tool, blinded by partisanship and ambition. You invoke patriotism and use words like freedom in an attempt to intimidate and bully. In doing so, you dishonor the words patriotism and freedom and dishonor the men and women who have fought wars to keep this nation a place where one can freely express one's opinion without fear of reprisal or punishment.”

This battle became national front page news, but it was really a local story. I heard through the grapevine that the morning we published the story, Petroskey and his wife found themselves out in the early morning darkness, delivering those newspapers. One of their kids was a newspaper-deliverer and had woken up sick.

I listened to George W. Bush say goodbye to our country. He took the opportunity to school us one last time on his binary impressions of good and evil and to project an enduring image of himself as an unflappable good sport, following his own conscience.

“Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere,” he said.

I waited then, just as I waited for the World Series pitch. Surely, I thought, he must realize that in addition to the over 4,000 American and coalition soldiers who have been killed since he landed in his combat costume to announce that his “mission” had been “accomplished,” the United States is responsible for the documented deaths of over 90,000 Iraqi civilians.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, I hoped that President Bush would say something to at least acknowledge the violent legacy of his administration, but he didn’t. He didn’t even mention Hurricane Katrina, another area in which I have particular journalistic expertise.

In eight years time, Bush’s ability to lead by example lasted exactly as long as it took for a baseball to leave his hand and cross home plate. Covering his administration in various capacities over the course of these last eight years was a black, exhausting task, and the work ahead means there’s not going to be much time to mourn before we start to organize.

Short Clip from the AUC Glassman Event

We've posted a short, highlights version of the Monday, January 12 discussion with US Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy James K. Glassman. You can download the raw file here.

Video of the Inaugural Broadcast from the AUC Newsroom in Second Life

Here's the video archive (QuickTime format) from Monday's event in Second Life, featuring US Undersecretary of State James K. Glassman in conversation with a group of Egyptian political bloggers in the inaugural broadcast from the Virtual Newsroom of the American University in Cairo.

A high-resolution broadcast version is now available.

Press Release from American University in Cairo re Glassman

American University in Cairo has just sent out the following press release about this week's event with James K. Glassman ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 14, 2009

U.S PUBLIC DIPLOMACY CHIEF TELLS EGYPTIAN BLOGGERS BUSH POLICIES, NOT COMMUNICATION FAILURES, RESPONSIBLE FOR NEGATIVE U.S IMAGE

Photo: Second Life avatar of James Glassman, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, during virtual dialogue with Egyptian bloggers in AUC Virtual Newsroom.

January 14, 2009, Cairo, Egypt -- The head of U.S. public diplomacy says Bush administration policies, not a failure to communicate America’s message, are responsible for negative attitudes toward the U.S. in the Muslim world.

The comments from James Glassman, who steps down Friday from his post as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, came in a unique dialogue with Egyptian bloggers in The American University in Cairo’s new Virtual Newsroom in Second Life, an online interactive environment.

“There is no doubt the views of the U.S. were influenced by the policies the U.S. adopted. Now is it a matter of us not explaining our policies well or people not liking what we are doing? I lean toward people don’t like what we are doing, but I do think we can do a better job of explaining our policies,” Glassman, a Bush appointee, told the bloggers.

Glassman said the biggest lesson he has learned in his seven months in office is that the U.S. must “avoid hubris,” which has sometimes characterized the America’s approach to the world.

“The U.S., like any other country, will follow its own interests ultimately, but we’re not doing a very good job of listening or respectfully hearing what they have to say. That as a criticism of this administration is an apt criticism,” he said.

GAZA

The virtual dialog brought together the bloggers, based in Cairo, and Glassman, who was speaking from Washington. It came against the background of the current conflict in Gaza. Challenged by the bloggers, he defended the U.S. decision to abstain from voting for a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, but said that position does not mean the U.S. opposes the measure. “Even though we abstained, we actually support the goals, but look toward what Egypt is doing as potentially the most effective way to obtain a durable and sustainable ceasefire,” the undersecretary said.

Asked whether apparent support for Israel’s actions in Gaza hurt America’s relations with the Muslim world, Glassman rejected the idea that the Bush administration “has been lenient” toward the Jewish state, but acknowledged that American interests “tend to align with those of Israel.”

“I think the U.S., not just the Bush administration, Americans are big supporters of Israel. That is just a fact for a number of reasons, partly because it’s a democratic country,” he said. “The vast majority of Americans have an affinity for Israel.”

That relationship, he said, also extends to policy. “There is a general recognition, especially in many Arab countries, that the hand of Iran is behind what is going on in Gaza and here is an area where the U.S. and Israel clearly have the same interests as, by the way, do the vary majority of Arab nations.”

Several U.S. public diplomacy chiefs since 9/11 have sought to “rebrand America” through television commercials and slick packaging. Glassman rejected that tactic. “I don’t think that my job as undersecretary of state is to improve America’s image. I don’t see this as a PR job. I think there has been too much focus on this idea of image burnishing or image building,” he said.

“One of the things that I’ve learned is that the best way to advance American interests is not to preach or yell or scream at people and not to constantly try to blow our own horn but to do a better job of respectfully listening,” he added.


NEW MEDIA

The “virtual” meeting with the bloggers, viewed online by a global audience, was part of a larger USAID-funded project to help Egyptian bloggers better understand the U.S. political process. The effort is coordinated by the Kamal Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research at The American University in Cairo, which sent eight bloggers to the U.S. to cover the elections. The AUC Virtual Newsroom was created as a venue where Arab journalists can meet virtually with experts and officials around the world.

Glassman has spearheaded the use of new media for what he calls Public Diplomacy 2.0. He says the interactive nature of the internet facilitates the kind of open dialogue he believes is crucial to winning support. “These tools are frankly anathema to violent extremists. They run cult-like organizations where it is important to seal off people from any kind of criticism of outside influence,” he said.

Glassman rejected criticism that his efforts to communicate U.S. policy on the Gaza crisis have been too focused on new media at the expense of mainstream news organizations. “We have certainly done what we can to have discussion about what’s happening, but sometimes the traditional kinds of techniques of PR, issuing press releases standing up and doing press conferences, I’m not so sure we have a lot of people listen to that,” he told the bloggers.

EGYPT

He also defended U.S. policy toward Egypt. “Are we happy with everything the Egyptian regime is doing on the democracy process? Absolutely not,” he told the Egyptian bloggers, who suggested support for “authoritarian” Arab governments was undermining attitudes toward the U.S.”

As evidence of U.S. displease, he cited U.S. protests to the Egyptian government for preventing several Egyptians from participating in a youth gathering organized by his office, and criticism of actions against pro-democracy activists such as Saad Eddine Ibrahim and the detention of former presidential candidate Ayman Nour, but added, “I don’t think just because we have concerns that we should break off relations with Egypt or any other nation that does not uphold the highest standards of democracy.”

Glassman said he did not expect the approach toward Egypt, or the essentials of U.S. Middle East policy, to dramatically change under in Obama White House. “In general, if you look at American history you don’t see abrupt foreign policy changes from one administration to another,” he told the bloggers. “There is likely to be more continuity than change,” adding that during the transition from the Republican Bush administration to the Democratic Obama team there has been “a degree of cooperation that I think most people around the world would find very surprising.”

Since he is a political appointee, not a career diplomat, Glassman steps down a few days before President-elect Obama takes office. It was evident to the bloggers that he was sorry to end his tenure so soon. “I would personally like to work for the new administration, but I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he said.

The American University in Cairo (AUC) was founded 90 years ago and is major contributor to the social, political and cultural life of the Arab Region. It is a vital bridge between East and West, linking Egypt and the region to the world through scholarly research, partnerships with academic and research institutions, and study abroad programs. An independent, nonprofit, apolitical, non-sectarian and equal-opportunity institution, AUC is fully accredited in Egypt and the United States.

###

Contact Information
Name: Lawrence Pintak
Office Phone: +202.2615.3484
Email: lpintak@aucegypt.edu

Name: Rehab Saad El-Domiati
Office phone: +202.26153705
Cell phone: +2016.8815048
E-mail: rehabsaad@aucegypt.edu
Web site: http://www.aucegypt.edu/media

Rita J. King on Cover of Time.com

Cover of Time.com

What fun! Our own Rita J. King is quoted in an article in Time magazine (that was running for a while on the cover of Time.com) about the current conflict in Gaza, "Facebook Users Go to War over Gaza." She has a number of quotes. Here's a nice one:

In fact, because online forum participants rarely know one another and often live on different continents, threats are rarely serious. Partly for that reason, King maintains that online exchanges — even ugly ones — facilitate communication and understanding. "The Internet removes the threat of physical harm and thus offers an unprecedented opportunity for the development of new ideas for conflict mediation," she says.

Round Up, Al Jazeera's CC, Parag & PD

Al Jazeera's Kuala Lumpur Offices, December 2007, Image by Joshua Fouts

Still catching up after yesterday's successful event from the virtual newsroom of the American University in Cairo with James K. Glassman the US Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy, which was noteworthy -- at a minimum -- in that it was the first time a US Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy appeared in a virtual space via their avatar. Hats off to Mr. Glassman for taking the risk and encouraging the State Department to move confidently into use of modern technologies for outreach. Glassman also had an interesting exchange with the Egyptian bloggers, which resulted a back-channel Twitter thread that the bloggers conducted outside Second Life and the global chat channel. We'll write more, including video and trascript. In the meantime I've done a bit of catch-up on my backlog of readings.

Al Jazeera Releases Creative Commons licensed images from Gaza.
This is amazing. I've been tuning back into Al Jazeera since the amazing series by Josh Rushing and the ongoing conflict in Gaza. For all the criticism against them, Al Jazeera continues to surprise. And I'm excited to follow this more closely.

My friend Parag Khanna has kicked out two new columns in the past week of note:

In January 8 op-ed "Don't squander worldwide feeling of hope for America" (co-authored with BDA's Keith Reinhard" he pulls out a point we've been keen on for years and I'm really pleased to see expressed with regard to how to fix the US public diplomacy enterprise. The essay is an easy read and while it replicates some previous ideas, namely that an independent public diplomacy organization be created, he emphasizes the value of facility with technology, especially:

we need a nimble new tech-savvy, nonprofit organization that more readily can combine public- and private-sector expertise and resources in areas such as new media and state-of-the-art communications. This organization needs to be outside the State Department in order to attract nongovernment actors who could help repair America's damaged reputation but who may not want to be officially associated with U.S. foreign policy.

As a great follow to the above, in a January 12 essay, An Agenda for Obama's CTO (co-authored by Ayesha Khanna) which offers advice on which and how President Obama might choose a CT:

Who might assume the CTO role? Among the reported contenders are Hewlett-Packard CTO Shane Robison; Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf; and Vivek Kundra, CTO of Washington, D.C. But plucking a well-known executive as the government's tech guru will not substitute for continuous public-private collaboration to ensure that innovations are adapted to the government setting. Areas where discussions would be especially useful range from building energy-efficient infrastructures such as green data centers and cloud computing to providing citizens online government services using Web 2.0 technologies.

And, just in time for government appointees and the inauguration, the GAO releases what has been an almost annual call for the past several years for improved investment in US public diplomacy in a press release listing top "Urgent Issues" for the next president and Congress.

Oddly, though I've now seen a number of lists gossiping about upcoming appointees at the State Department, noticeably absent from those lists have been predictions about the public diplomacy appointments. I've been in a number of conversations where I've seen names floated, none of them surprising, which was kind of a disappointment. (We need innovation in public diplomacy, not conventionality.) Given the constant call for focus on public diplomacy, and since public diplomacy is now, still officially in the State Department why aren't the foreign policy blogs mentioning public diplomacy candidates? To wit, in Hillary Clinton's confirmation hearing today soon-to-be-Secretary Clinton mentioned as one of her priorities "smart power," which is yet another evolved state of the term public diplomacy that has gained traction since I first heard it floated back in 2004.

Reminder: Join us at 11 AM Eastern for AUC's Virtual Newsroom and James K. Glassman

Second Life avatar of James K. Glassman, US Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs

Join us today, Monday, January 12 at 11 AM Eastern for the inagural broadcast from the virtual newsroom of the American University in Cairo featuring a conversation with James K. Glassman US Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy. The event will be streamed live to the web.

CLICK Here to register to view the event.

Click here to watch and participate in the event.

Josh Rushing "On War"

Screenshot from "On War," Joshua Rushing's series on Al Jazeera English, which is posted on YouTube

Catching up with my friend Josh Rushing's work tonight. I highly, highly recommend you take a look at his latest reports for Al Jazeera English, posted in their entirety on his YouTube channel. His latest series is called "On War" and his lead report visits the site of the My Lai massacre forty years later. It is a moving story in which he takes a US soldier who was involved in the massacre back to the scene -- the first soldier to return.

Josh was catapulted into celebrityhood during the first Gulf War, when as a Marine spokesperson, he became the de facto face of the United States to the Middle East through the then-new Arabic language satellite news network, Al Jazeera. His story and that of the early days of Al Jazeera are chronicled in the documentary, "Control Room" by Jehaine Noujaim.

A few years later, when Josh took a job as a correspondent at the fledgling Al Jazeera English, people reacted with suspicion. But I had no doubts that he was going to succeed. Josh, unlike any of his peers who joined Al Jazeera English at the time, including the venerable David Frost, who created quite the media stir when he signed on to Al Jazeera, understood the significance of what he was doing when he was doing it. By "when," I mean, Josh understood his moment in history and, more importantly perhaps, his moment in technology. Immediately upon joining the network Josh took to the social networking sites -- he created his on YouTube channel and his own Facebook page well before these sites had reached their apex, and cross posted all of his reports to the sites. (I can't find him on Twitter, but we'll work on that.) Josh Rushing was one of the passionate early adopters who understood that the Internet was ultimately going to become the premiere journalistic medium.

I visited the Malaysian offices of Al Jazeera English in Kuala Lumpur last Christmas, situated atop the breathtaking Petronas Towers with stunning views across the tropical capital. I interviewed their managing editor who described the job as one of the most supportive journalistic newsrooms he'd ever been in.

Back to My Lai. I first met Josh Rushing when I was at USC. Josh had just returned home back to Los Angeles after having left the Marines. We first met in Geoff Cowan's office when he was Dean of the Annenberg School. As I was typing this, I recalled mention of Geoff Cowan, during his time as a 1960s attorney, having some role in the My Lai Massacre story reaching the attention of journalist Seymour Hersh. A quick google lead me to this ... (click to enlarge)

From "The American Experience in Vietnam" by Grace Sevy, shown above.

In the words of my favorite anthropologist, Kurt Vonnegut, "And so it goes ..."

Coverage of Second Life Protests in Israeli Regions

Screenshot from New World Notes, edited by Wagner James Au.

Further on the ongoing coverage of virtual world and social networking reactions to the ongoing war in Gaza. As Second Life's Crap Mariner and Prokofy Neva blogged and noted in our comments section, in addition to the Second Life protests against the attacks in Gaza about which we blogged on December 29, unrest and tension has also manifested on Israeli regions of Second Life.

Second Life's original embedded journalist, Hamlet Au, has a good story up today about continued protests and discussions in and around the war in Gaza -- this time on some Israeli sims. (Sims, for readers who aren't familiar, are plots of land in the virtual world of Second Life.)

From his original post:

Last week when Israel began launching guided missiles at Hamas targets in Palestine, however, SL Israel became a flashpoint of another kind. As the airstrikes pounded Gaza, so did protesters, teleporting into SL Israel, waving flags.

"Lots of people yelling," Beth Odets tells me. "They were going on and on with slurring obscenities about murderous Israeli forces, etc." She gives me a screenshot taken during the incursion, festooned with anti-war or pro-Palestinian signs, some depicting dead Arab children.

Since our post on December 29, we've been following the growing dialog in and around the Twitter community, about which we'll blog more later.

Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds report to release January 29

The cover of the graphic report.

[Update: Readers can download digital versions of all the findings here.]

After a year of research spanning four continents and interviews with dozens of people across the virtual world of the Internet Dancing Ink Productions is pleased to announce the release of our findings from the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project on Thursday, January 29 at 6 PM Eastern at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. Space is limited so please RSVP to attend the event.

The report will include a trilogy of deliverables, including formal public diplomacy policy recommendations for the Obama Administration; a broadcast-quality short machinima documentary; and a graphic book chronicling the people, places and findings of the project.

On Friday, January 30 we will hold a discussion in the virtual world of Second Life and via Twitter to discuss and release the findings. More information about that will be posted later. For those who cannot attend the live event, all of our reports will be downloadable via the web.

Dancing Ink Productions is grateful to the Richard Lounsbery Foundation for funding this groundbreaking project and the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs for hosting it. We are also profoundly grateful to the worldwide residents of Second Life for opening their cultures, hearts, homes, places of worship and creativity to us on this quest.

Working in Second Life

Tonight was a particularly interesting one for me in Second Life. First I worked with Jessica Qin on Alem Theas' IBM office space, which is shaping up to be one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in Second Life.

Jessica Qin, IBM's lead virtual architect, whips up some steps and textures in the blink of an eye. I've been watching Jessica work for over two years now, and the novelty never wears off.

Alem Theas gazes down at Grady Booch and then gets to work on the beach.


After Jessica and Alem signed out I teleported back to the American University in Cairo's Virtual Newsroom, which is designed by Dancing Ink Productions. We will host the inaugural broadcast on January 12, 2009, at 8 am SLT, which is 11 am EST. Register now to join the live discussion.

Hey, Check out this Funny Blog Post about YOU!

"Yes, We Can Twitter." Image credit: comicbase.

Twitter is abuzz tonight in the wake of a "phishing scam," with a tweet that contains the words: "Hey, check out this funny blog post about you!" and a link.

Is the lure of a "funny blog post about you" enough of a reason to click on a link from an unknown source? Sure it is. But why? What primal urge does that conjure in us, a desire to know something "funny" (to whom?!) that has been written about us.

This got me thinking about Facebook. I recently read a hilarious and depressingly accurate blog post by someone who quit for the same reason why I never started. Facebook too often feels like a high school dance. No. Worse--it feels like being sixteen and watching incredulously with your friends from the corner of the gym while two middle-aged parents try to teach the kids a thing or two by swing dancing. They've got as much right to be there as everyone else, don't they? Sigh. This doesn't mean that all Facebook-using adults act like adolescents, but rather that the interface supports the temptation so much that it makes it nearly impossible to avoid those who do.

I have a Facebook account, and I've had one for some time, but there's no picture of me and I've never accepted an offer of friendship. I have, however, reconnected meaningfully with people from every era of my life with whom I share special memories after they've contacted me or I've contacted them via Facebook (if you don't accept friendship and try to message people directly, however, Facebook threatens to shut you down.)

I hope to see some of my old friends again, and I know some of them want to see me, but we don't need the same level of involvement we once had when we were pinning our softball caps to the backs of our heads so we could hairspray our bangs into place while our coach, my father, screamed at us to take our positions.

To me, Facebook feels like an platform best suited for people who have grown up using the Internet and connecting digitally with complete digital abandon--to mixed result. Facebook is a game-changing tool for enhancing global youth movements and as an outlet for greater self-expression and intellectual exploration of other people and cultures. For this and many other reasons, Facebook won't lose relevance anytime soon.

"Twinfluence"

As a platform for adult professionals, however, Facebook lacks the desirable level of nuance, which is one of the most mature and satisfying aspects of human relationships. Twitter, by and large, is a far more intriguing platform that treats users like adults capable of self-organization. The fact that each post can only contain 140 characters (including links and hashtags that allow people to follow conversational threads) only makes it more interesting at a time when people are experiencing information overkill and perhaps just as deadly, follower fatigue, by which I mean, constantly being inundated with posts in a flabby debate about the importance conferred on one by one's followers. Does more followers give one greater "authority" or "influence?"

Nobody comes close to @barackobama's follower count, but the Obama camp recently lost another 5,000 of its over 153,787 followers. @andrewkneale believes this is because they stopped tweeting after the election and lost momentum. (Change.gov tweets too.) While it's highly unlikely that the President-Elect ever himself tweeted, the sudden absence of posts did coincide with the removal of his Blackberry.)

"Shutting down email access would also be strange for a presidential candidate who reported the Guardian. "During the campaign, he had almost 130,000 friends on Twitter."

There's no reason why people who were already adults before the advent of the Internet need to regress in order to thrive in a new global culture and economy. Platforms arise and fall but the Internet is one virtual world that allows for reflection and enhancement of the physical world that we all share.

Dominating the leaderboard just so people listen to you about how much influence or authority that confers will leave "leaders" in a lurch when a platform they can't get master, at least, numerically, arises. The true value of social media platforms is the ability to connect more deeply and meaningfully while truly embracing change, not just as empty rhetoric, but because the only benefit of getting older is, after all, getting wiser.

Netanyahu Tweeting Now

Benjamin Netanyahu signed up for Twitter and tweeted the link to this video to show where a 39 year old Israeli mother of four was killed by Hamas rocket fire. This is only one of many such videos that have been released. The intimacy of seeing leaders so candidly talking about their perceptions of violence is extremely helpful--for all people on all sides of an issue. Social media is humanizing both sides of the current violence in Gaza.

At 11 am EST on January 29, 2009, Dancing Ink Productions will host a special live webcast with a live chat with all audience participants, featuring Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James Glassman and eight Egyptian political bloggers who recently covered the American presidential election. Register here to participate.

Thank you @xenijardin for the link to Josh's post about Israel's use of Twitter on Boing Boing.

Virtual Kristallnacht

A burning synagogue in Second Life depicts Kristallnacht.

In December, we took a tour of Second Life's Virtual Kristallnacht, a project of the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum led by Involve. Boliver Oddfellow, avatar of Drew Stein, directed the project. While we explored, he told us a story from his own life.

As a child of 5, he visited Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and his mother, who is Jewish, slipped her neck into one of the nooses hanging there and slipped it back out, "on her own steam." This project, he said, is his answer to a moment that has haunted him all his life.

The tour was interrupted by an avatar (who, it must be noted, had registered that very day for residency in Second Life, suggesting that he had heard about the project and his sole reason for joining Second Life was to harass people at the site) who continuously followed us around screaming, "Big Jew Lie!" while we tried to listen to mixed media recordings of people who experienced the violence and atrocity of that night firsthand. This person was banned so that we could continue to explore the heartbreaking sim.

The project successfully curates mixed media to stellar effect and puts visitors in the role of journalists witnessing the tragic Night of Broken Glass.



In the next few weeks, I will finish interviews I've been conducting with a Jewish couple from Hungary, each of whom lost most of their family members to ethnic cleansing. In the last decade I have interviewed hundreds of people: combat veterans from various wars, individuals who have survived war and violent atrocities, prisoners, prisoners of war, nuns in prison for civil disobedience (protesting violence) and many others who know from experience that once violence has been permitted to arise it is difficult, and often impossible, to put an end to it without more violence. Peace is not the absence of conflict. At the end of the year, as Israel attacked the Gaza Strip in retaliation for rocket-fire from Hamas, Joseph Kony was leading his Lord's Resistance Army, a Christian rebel group, away from a military offensive through towns in Uganda. Just to show they meant business, the LRA hacked over 200 people, mostly women and children, to bits along the way.

It is my belief as we head into a new year that it will become far more difficult, as global transparency and accountability increase through use of the Internet, to justify the root causes of violence that lead to burning synagogues, mosques, churches, schools, hospitals and communities where lives unfold. It remains to be seen, however, how access to information about current violence will alter the way people react to it, or struggle to put an end to it.