Snow Fall & Digital Story Telling

I know, it seems odd to talk of snow at THATCamp Florida, of all places. However, I am fascinated, obsessed even, with the recent New York Times article entitled “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek” by John Branch and what it portends for digital media in particular and digital story telling in general. The “article” generated an avalanche of buzz (sorry, couldn’t resist the bad pun), and an amazing number of page views, but it also sparked a conversation about its implications. Some observers claimed that it is a road-map to the future of Journalism and digital story telling, while others were much more skeptical . The focus of the conversation has been on both the masterful way that the story was presented as well as the massive amount of resources required to pull it off.

I know that the New York Times is not your average hometown newspaper, and that their resources far outpace those available to most local print organizations. Nonetheless, “Snow Fall” represents a fascinating look at what the future of digital/“print” media might be. I would love to have yack session to sort out what to make of the importance of this article and the try to assess if it might serve as a model for a more robust future for a news medium that is struggling mightily with how to position itself for the digital future. Might it represent a potent survival strategy for print media or is it a one-off experiment by a media juggernaut that has no relevance to the real-world survival of an endangered medium? How can this model be leveraged by others? What does it mean for other storytellers working in the digital space?  Yes, I know that this is very yacky, and not exactly within the traditional realm of the Digital Humanities…  but it is what I want to talk about.

Campers, A reminder that the Hotel rooms reserved for THATCamp disappear this on Monday. There is a not a huge savings involved, to be honest, but at least the availability of the rooms are secure and the hotel is literally next door to THATCamp. So, please reserve your rooms this weekend if you are coming from out of town.

Also, we need to heat up the conversation on the website. Please post your proposals for sessions and also respond to the sessions that have been proposed already. The more conversation we have online in advance of THATCamp the better.

Cheers….

We are happy to see the registrations rolling in at an increasing pace. Soon it will be time for the more adventurous to begin posting their proposals for sessions for THATCamp Florida 2013. Honestly, it is never too early for session proposals so if any of you are ready to jump in please do so.

A quick note on our proceedings for THATCamp: as an unconference the final schedule for the weekend will be decided the morning of the 16th when we gather for breakfast. There will be a whiteboard with a schedule grid and you can all slot in your sessions when/where you feel they would fit best. Keep in mind that there will concurrent breakout sessions throughout the weekend as well as Workshops that are more formal in nature. So, as with any conference, you will not be able to make every session in full. However, unlike most conferences, THATCamp encourages participants to move about during sessions as they feel it appropriate. The schedule of Workshops that will be offered is still coming together. We will post it here when it is ready, which should be some time next week.

For a broad overview of our proceedings please see the Schedule page.

Let us know if you have any questions via Twitter @tahtcampfl or via email: markhlong at ucf dot edu, or you can always add comments and/or questions below this post.

Welcome to the Third Annual THATCamp Florida website.  The History Department and the RICHES program at the University of Central Florida, in cooperation with the UCF Center for Research and Education in Arts, Technology + Entertainment (Create), and the Center for Humanities and Digital Research will be hosting a regional THATCamp on the weekend of February 16-17, 2013 in sunny Orlando.  The gathering will involve about 75 people drawn broadly from the Humanities and will include Professors, Librarians, Graduate Students and interested parties (writers, musicians, etc.) who are engaged in sorting through the many and varied ways that our broadly shared disciplines intersect with emerging technologies.  It is our hope that the two-day affair at Create will offer a stimulating and energizing atmosphere which will foster a fruitful exchange of ideas as well as collaborative work among attendees. If you are interested in attending this year’s THATCamp Florida you will need to register in advance. We also encourage you to begin thinking about what you would like to discuss at THATCamp and to submit a proposal for a session that is designed to address your interests/needs in the Digital Humanities, broadly defined. There is a length discussion of the proposal process on the page linked above.

We are excited to be hosting another great weekend of informal conversation and learning about the Digital Humanities and are looking forward to assembling a broad and diverse group of Campers from around the state.