Bricks and Boxes

This is part of a short series of posts introducing you to Podcamp Pittsburgh 4.

Dawn Papuga is another Podcamp Pittsburgh veteran, but she recently moved to Baltimore. Boo. Half serious, I long ago penciled her into the PCPGH4 schedule for “Memes: The 2009 Year in Review.” However, some folks felt such a topic might be a waste of precious Podcampers’ time. (As if!) We took it out.

Later, Dawn comes to me all, “Anthony, you left out my memes session!!” So I found a session we could throw out and offered a few brainier alternatives we could try. She took to one in particular, which touched on all her most special talents: literary criticism and online information.

A lot of people who may not have Facebook accounts or read blogs, and even get a printed newpaper delivered every day, will shop online, make a selection, and purchase it at their mall. The data about our consumer culture, specifically our consumed goods, is too good for the tech-illiterate to pass up, and too large for the tech-savvy to navigate without strangers’ opinions.

Some reviews are less social than others, some serve a more role in indexing and findability. Dawn’s session will give an overview of the major players and forms of online criticism. (Or at least this is my best guess.)

Comments & Criticism: The central nervous system of consumerism

Dawn Papuga of Lyrique Tragedy examines the importance of criticism and reviews as a means/tool for finding out about topics/books/issues you are interested in but have no idea where to start.

Kathleen Danielson is a senior studying International Affairs at George Washington University in Washington, DC. When she isn’t studying political theory, she helps small to medium sized non-profits use social media to interact with their audiences in more meaningful ways. (She wrote that.)

Months ago, I saw the makers of a cool new gadget gave her a free sample of their product. It’s a “smart” pen. As you write, it records audio of the room (using two mics to filter the sound) and an infrared lens captures the position on the paper. You immediately get a digital copy of the audio and graphic, and by touching any area in the drawing or notes, you can jump to that point in the audio recording.

LiveScribe: Innovative tool for audio over graphic recording with web-ready playback

Student Kathleen Danielson will be showing off one of her favorite gadgets: the Livescribe smartpen. The pen records what you write along with audio and links them in their desktop program. As a student she uses it daily, and could see her reporter friends really benefiting from one of these. Come check it out and see if it might help you in your work. (No, she don’t work for Livescribe, she just like gadgets!)

Check out cool “pencasts” here. And check out Kathleen’s live demo at Podcamp Pittsburgh 4.