PlanetRussell.net | Michael J. Russell

Us Now Film Premiere (US, UK & Online Simulcast)

If you’re interested in Government 2.0, Open Government and social media initiatives around the world, I strongly encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity to be a part of the Us Now film premiere and global simul/webcast Tuesday, May 12th.

I first learned about the Us Now film at the recent Government 2.0 Camp  in Washington DC, where it was screened for the first time in the U.S. on March 24th. (Thanks to O’Reilly for its sponsorship.)

Film Director Ivo Gorman as well as Justin Kerr-Stevens and Dominic Campbell of the U.K.-based FutureGov consultancy were on hand at the Washington premiere, as was Dr. Zach Tumin, who will be leading the discussion panel at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government simulcast site, as well.

From the event organizers:

You are invited to join the Government 2.0 PIC, FutureGov and the Leadership for a Networked World Program for the worldwide simulcast launch of “Us Now” – a film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the internet.

Us Now is a documentary film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the internet. It tells the stories of online networks that are challenging the existing notion of hierarchy. For the first time, it brings together the foremost thinking sin the field of participatory governance to describe the future of government.

To mark the release of the film free to views via the web, the British Council and FutureGov are hosting a live streamed worldwide launch event at 11:00 AM EDT and 4:00 PM GMT/UK time. Live coverage of both launch events will be accessible at:  watch.usnowfilm.com and live.usnowfilm.com

The Kennedy School of Government, host of one of the launch events, will also feature a panel including:

• Ari Herzog – Principal, Online media strategist and author
• Omar Wasow – co-founder of BlackPlanet.com
• David Stephenson – E-government, Web 2.0, and crisis management strategist and theorist
• Alexander W. Hunziker (auf Deutsch) – Leadership for a Networked World fellow

Moderated by HKS Faculty member, Zach Tumin

More information about the UK event, and the online streaming is available at:  usnowfilm.com

UPDATED: View the full length film below!

About the Film:

In a world in which information is like air, what happens to power?

Us Now is a documentary film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the Internet.

Us Now tells the stories of online networks that are challenging the existing notion of hierarchy. For the first time, it brings together the foremost thinkers in the field of participative governance to describe the future of government.

All of the material generated during the project will be available to view online and the project will culminate in an hour long documentary to be released publicly in 2009.

Can There Ever be “Too Many Notes?”

Is social media a wild-and-wooly (yet ultimately self-governing) marketplace of ideas? Or, can there ever be “too much” discussion of anything…including social media itself?

A proliferation of recent articles, blog posts and other communications seem to advance the idea that “There’s too much talk about ______ ,” wherein ______ is the particular technology, brand, personality or pop culture obsession du jour the individual opining personally finds most annoying.

While there’s no doubt that such statements frequently reflect a well-founded concern about reflexive groupthink, they’re also inherently problematical. Why? Because the quality and quantity of the content people create may speak volumes about them as individuals and perhaps society, but has nothing to do with social media itself. Is this blindingly obvious, or is there a greater insight to be gained here?

Marshall McCluhan’s gone. May he rest in peace. Now, the message is the medium, not the other way around. Blogs, Twitter streams, wiki entries, Facebook pages and FriendFeeds are simply a speculum vitae, a mirror of life that reflects what millions of people, in millions of places, are thinking about at any given point in time. No more, no less.

A Shopping Spree in the Marketplace of Ideas

In the ancient world, the Agora was the public marketplace in which all manner of goods and services were exchanged, and social contracts made. In the landmark 1990’s work, The Cluetrain Manifesto, a radical, new idea emerged: Markets are Conversations.

So, if conversations between free people are the new marketplaces — the agora of ideas, if you will, then –by definition– there can never be “too much” or “too little” discussion of Barack Obama, Britney Spears, theoretical physics, standard poodles, noodle kugel or anything else.

Rather, there’s exactly as much as the conversational marketplace wants there to be, regardless of whether you, I, or any other individual is interested in any given topic at any given point in time.

That’s the very nature of public discourse in a free society. Right now, there are millions of online conversations going on, ranging from the inspired to the inane, the generic to the stupefyingly specific, and all stops in between.

So, pick one. Or several. You’ll find the conversations that are right for you. You pays your money (or not, in most cases) and you takes your choice.

That’s the beauty of the human interaction that’s enabled by social media tools and technologies.

Conversations Just Want to be Free

So, can there ever be “too much” discussion of anything, then? The answer lies in the classic confrontation scene between the Emperor Joseph II and Mozart in the film and stageplay Amadeus

If conversations are the social “music” of free peoples, then, no, there can never be “too many notes.” There are as “just as many as are required.”

Besides, if someone’s going to just “cut a few” notes, the question then arises: Who’s going to do the cutting…and just which ones did you have in mind?