Todd Mundt

• Daniel Ash, VP Strategic Communications, Chicago Public Radio
• Julia Schrenkler, New Media Interactive Producer, Minnesota Public Radio
• Ken Freedman, Station manager, WFMU
• Moderator: Jake Shapiro, Exec Dir, PRX

Jake talked about public media understanding its larger role in the community - we’re more than a public radio station.

Daniel Ash: We’re far behind in implementing many of the technologies others have embraced. Why should we do it? We shouldn’t do it merely because others are doing it. We did it because of how we wanted to be positioned and how we wanted to be perceived.

We’ve encouraged staff members to establish their own blogs. We’ve not had great success getting them to do it, but one or two have. Allowing listeners to submit photos through Flickr that would be featured on the front page of the website has been extremely successful.

Chicago Public Radio is launching a new service this year that will focus heavily on social media, making use of content coming from listeners, and letting it exist on-air and online.

Julia Schrenkler: We’re willing to try everything. It’s important to remember to start small, but keep an eye on expansion. Make sure that whatever you do is useful to everyone: producers, your users, you. Julia spoke at length about a couple of Minnesota Public Radio’s efforts - Minnewiki and the communities it’s established on Gather.

When experimenting:

• Check your mission; it’s your guide
• Verify: does your audience want it?
• Identify your champions internally; they might not be obvious
• Try temporary or small things

Ken Freedman: WFMU had a highly successful message board for 8 years. As its effectiveness faltered, they took it down and replaced it with a blog. They felt it could better represent the station than the forum did. But what they discovered is that the blog isn’t there to serve the station - it’s there to serve the audience, and users took ownership of it. Freedman noted that a blog is very “radio-like” - it’s a constant stream of ideas, and the authors are “text jockeys.”