February 2007

I have gotten a lot of questions lately on my passion.

There are stories out there which deserve to get heard and moreover understood. These voices are all around the globe. Constantly present. These voices regardless of where they are from and in whatever form get lost in the incredible information noise of this modern world. If they despite this incredible noise make it, the context is usually lost or become too distorted in it’s delivered package to really make sense. These voices should get heard in the right context, so that people around the world can listen and understand them. This is the key: Most people don’t listen to the voices because they cannot interpret them. It is about simple communication and connection between people, or in more direct words, a way to create human respect between people.

These personal stories and accounts give perspectives on events around us. You see the context in which the events happen in, and see the relations between the stories and even between the events. The frustration among people in war zones is tremendous. People are tired of the fighting and the wars, especially in the Middle East. The attention the blog I put up during the conflict in Lebanon for people to share their experiences clearly points this out. People don’t feel they have a mean to tell their side of the story. The result is boiling pot of emotions, frustration, and desperation for ways to tell their side of the story. When you have seen your mother, brothers and sisters die in a carbomb or smart bomb, seen the enemy soldiers rape your mother and sister, the rational decisions seem very far away. The anger, frustration and helplessness are overwhelming to anyone, and can easily be directed in the wrong direction. I do not and will never accept violence and terror, yet the root of the problem can and must be understood. This is not a political statement. It is a human statement of freedom of speech and openness about opinions. You could even claim it as a human right of freedom of choice.

It is not about reading one story, getting the comfortable perspective on things. For sure it is easier that way. It is about listening to people, understanding the context of their experiences, seeing the real context of events around you if you so choose. Feeling their emotions, getting the colors of the story. Getting the true citizen media, the true user stories. Real people telling their unedited experiences. Most people however need help to see and grasp the context and it needs to be packaged so that it easy and quick to digest but they also need to feel part of that process regardless whether they are consumers or contributors.

The absolute right or wrong about any event doesn’t exist. It is easier and more comfortable looking at the world in black and white, and being in a mode of on or off. Seeing the real context is something necessary and essential for our future. That is why you will need user contributed media, and that is why I am passionate about inthefieldONLINE.net where we provide tools today and continue to further develop the concept and create the proper framework for it.

To provide make this seamless and easy for consumers as well as contributors you will need advanced technology. Yet technology is secondary (even though necessary for scalability) and secondary it will be for a long time. It is all about giving people a vehicle to tell their stories in the right context. Technology is the tool and framework, nothing else.

Necessary, yes. The driving force, certainly not.

… and now for the skeptics. Please explain me this to me. Why is there an enormous difference between feeling the closeness of another person and watching that same person on video? What will it take to change that? A lot right?

Let us put the human aspect of technology into the business again. It will be so much more fun.

Most of all: This is the path to the true citizen media.