This Fall, I had the privilege of serving as a peer facilitator for a course at the University of Washington’s MCDM program. I am continually impressed by the diversity of the program, and not just by diversity in its typical measure of gender or ethnicity (though that sort of diversity is certainly present).

I’m talking about intellectual diversity: the ways in which MCDM students and faculty approach and solve problems, skills and abilities applied in novel and meaningful ways, and outcomes that far exceed my admittedly high expectations. The student work from Fall 2011′s COM 546 Foundations course - Narratives & Networks in Digital Media – exemplifies both the challenges and the opportunities that true diversity can provide.

Course Background

As a foundational course to the MCDM program, Narratives & Networks in Digital Media had the unique position of orienting Cohort 11 students both to the theory and also the application of many elements they will encounter in the program. Taking a bit of their own advice, this course was newly revamped for 2011, and co-taught by MCDM Director Hanson Hosein and Dr. Malcolm Parks. The result for this first incarnation? Engaging discussions, relevant lectures and guest-speakers, and tangible takeaways for professionals and creatives, alike.

Students in this course witnessed the rise of the Occupy movement, the start of the upcoming nomination and election season, and the death of Steve Jobs. Meanwhile, they engaged with new tools and platforms, tried valiantly to “publish then filter,” and were brought together in new and sometimes challenging ways. Students were exposed to basic principles of digital media, and become comfortable with the central tenet of the MCDM: to effect trusted and persuasive communication, professionals need to develop a compelling narrative tied to strategic network engagement.

With this post, we would like to share some of their work, some of the process, and some of the core philosophies of the MCDM program.
Read more…

At the Great Wall (Badaling Section)

Thousands of people flooded around me. I stared in exasperation at the sign. Yet, I knew that it had to be emblematic of something about my week-long trip to Beijing — my first to China. True to my personality, I had tried to go against the tide by trying to enter the Forbidden City from the less popular north gate. But as of July 2^nd, the sign informed me, visitors to the very much once “forbidden” home of the Emperor of China, had to enter from the south, and leave by the north.

I had been happily using my Garmin GPS watch to track my weekend pedestrian expedition in Beijing.

But the thought of trudging back to the south end, only to end up back where I was presently, and then have to do it all over again to get to the subway seemed like many steps too far.

So what did I do? I skipped visiting the Forbidden City – a treasured UNESCO site – altogether. Rather I content myself with a deep hangout at Beihar Park, and then Tiananmen Square. And I spent all day using stodgy Internet connections through Beijing to download a rental of the Academy Award-winning “The Last Emperor” from iTunes for my return flight to Seattle. Bertolucci’s famed exclusive access to the Forbidden City for his film would have to suffice.

My walk through Beijing

After all, I had accomplished what I had set out to do: to get a glimpse of China for the first time, especially from a digital media perspective. My vehicle in was as a participant in transmitCHINA, where I hobnobbed with entrepreneurial digerati from both the Middle Kingdom and the New World.

Read more…

Hanson Hosein, director of the MCDM program at the University of Washington made a guest appearance on Seattle’s local NBC affiliate on Wednesday morning.  Hosein was invited to speak to viewers about his book “Storyteller Uprising” and the future of storytelling in marketing, journalism and social media.  You can see the interview below:

On June 9, 2011 I did something I didn’t expect to do a few years earlier: I officially graduated from the University of Washington with a Master of Communication in Digital Media (MCDM) degree. The reason I didn’t expect to do it is because of how I thought of myself and what I thought I was capable of, up to that point in time.

Off the top, though, I have a huge number of people to thank for “holding me up” when I was ready to fall and for joining me on the journey.  The two primary people I want to thank are my spouse and partner, Carol, and Hanson Hosein, director of the MCDM program (pictured here handing me my diploma). My journey would have been impossible without them. Read more…

“More than 90 percent of the population lives within reach of a cell phone tower,” Jessica Rothenberg-Aalami pointed out during Thursday’s Four Peak Salon “Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Markets: What’s Good for Them, Is Good for Us.” And it is exactly the reach of coverage that makes simple mobile technology a feasible avenue for development. For comparison, only 2 billion people have access to broadband and with more than 6 billion people on the planet, most of the developing world has limited or no access to data.

Rothenberg-Aalami is a coauthor of “Technology at the Margins: How IT Meets the Needs of Emerging Markets,” and was invited to the April edition of the MCDM Four Peaks Salon to discuss the changing nature of the global technology business and the influence of emerging markets on technology providers.

Jessica Rothenberg-Aalami (left) with moderator Anita Verna Crofts, MCDM Associate Director.

Read more…

All revolutions eat their young.  That’s the famous conclusion from the particular upheaval that began with the storming of the Bastille in the late 18th century.  For the last few years, we’ve wondered aloud whether our digital media graduate program is on the cusp of a communications revolution, or merely exploring some sort of media evolution.

It’s ultimately a fool’s errand, especially when you’re stuck in the foggy middle of this tumultuous change.  But change it is — with business models in the heat of disruption.  From journalism, to publishing, to music, to advertising and even to academia — as we quickly leave the 20th century mass production world behind.  Bubbles burst, value propositions turn upside down and now we must constantly question what we must to do engage in the era of an infinite choice of ideas.

The strategic decision we’ve made at the MCDM is to pioneer the concept of “community scholarship.”  Fundamentally, it’s about eradicating the walls between higher education and our community to engage in relevant, valuable partnerships that allow us to share our learning, and for us to learn through collaboration.  By doing so we want to bring a fresh look to these emerging business models, even as we enable our students to make some sort of professional or personal transformation during their time in the program.  This is the extrinsic and intrinsic value of exhorting all of us to “Make The Change” as we set aside the revolutionary talk of our previous marketing-based call to action “The Revolution is Here.  Are You?” [For more on the MCDM's origins, see this just posted article MCDM: The Beginning.] Read more…

MCDM Director Hanson Hosein and MCDM Associate Director Anita Verna Crofts along with some help from William H. Gates Sr. kicked off the Seattle hosting of the TEDxChange event “The Future We Make” convened by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  Hanson started the morning with some inspiring epic words introducing the MCDM idea to create a signature Seattle event called “Four Peaks” highlighting the magnificent activities of our region regarding: Innovation, Community, Entrepreneurship, and Entertainment. Anita followed with a short and powerful talk  “Transforming the Transaction: Food for Thought on Partnerships that Change the World.” Bill Sr. then introduced Melinda Gates who was in New York to begin the world-wide web cast of TEDxChange “The Future we Make.” TEDxChange marks the anniversary of the Millennium Development Goals: Ten years in, where does the global community stand in the work to save and improve lives around the world? And what does the future hold?   We heard from the Gates Foundation that, “Bill Sr. was beaming with pride both over his love of the Huskies, and the amazing work of his daughter-in-law.”