Radio Engage and Open Media Project

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videohead's picture

There was a public media barcamp held in Santa Cruz this weekend, and it was very interesting. The barcamp was organized by Quiddities, who is a local web development firm. KUSP (one of three local public radio stations) was well represented, as was the Santa Cruz Design Center. There were also folks from American Public Media, KQED (public media behemoth in San Francisco - radio, TV, etc.), and Peter and Kwai from Santa Cruz Community TV. (No staff from SCCTV, though.) Most of the participants were pubic media and social media activists and enthusiasts.
There was not a heavy technical or development presence, which made it distinctly different from most of the tech events I usually go to.

IMO, The overarching focus of the barcamp was identifying social media trends for public media, as a means of identifying useful features for the Radio Engage project.
Radio Engage is Knight Challenge funded (but is not a KDI project). They have chosen Drupal for Radio Engage, although there is a most notable lack of any needs assessment to lead to that determination . . . mostly it seemed a visceral reaction against Joomla (not a healthy development IMHO).

The barcamp itself was really enjoyable, although my head hurt from trying to wrap it around the incredibly broad spectrum of interests and enthusiasm for various social media threads and trends. A fantastic array of ideas was presented, and there were about 70 attendees. Check out the twitter stream #publicmediacamp or the PB wiki for more info.

From my perspective, it looks like Radio Engage is a marketing and documentation effort, not an effort towards software development.
In other words, there is a huge gap between the stations that have/can deploy social media tools/a CMS/Drupal + the Station module and the stations that haven't/can't. Radio Engage is an effort to bridge this gap.
Most of the programmers (the people putting programs on at public media stations) engaged at public media enterprises have yet to adopt the technologies and lifestyle choices inherent in using a CMS. So Radio Engage is a marketing effort to bridge the gap between Web 0/1 people and Web 2.0.

I'd be really surprised if Radio Engage does not end up using some variant of Station and/or the Open Media Project. I made a push for investigation and collaboration between Quiddities and Civic Pixel, since I think there is a natural affinity there between KUSP/Quiddities and DOM/Civic Pixel. I don’t really know the intricacies of either relationship, though . . . but I see a common pattern and a possible business model there which I think is awesome.

In my dream scenario, it would be really great to see Open Media handle the software development process, and Radio Engage handle the marketing and documentation. With a collaboration like that, I think everyone would win . . . the stations would get both marketing, deployment, and technical help, and I think the related companies would be inundated with requests for support and new deployments.

What I would hate to see would be a fork between Radio Engage and Open Media. I think there are far more similarities than differences, and I think both groups will need all of the resources that they can collectively assimilate.

Comments

Radio Engage: A little information on their Wiki

ehowland's picture

Glad to get a report from the public media barcamp. I notice that there is a Wiki on the general barcamp site. One of the pages talks about Radio Engage. http://barcamp.org/Radio+Engage. It is more philosophical than technical, but that is good as it gives us an idea of the issues they are thinking about. There is still not much info on their web site, but it is back online http://radioengage.com/ It is now mostly a twitter feed, there was more info on the site about Radio Engage between the conversion to Drupal and when it went offline, so perhaps it will recover some of that information now that their barcamp is over.

I agree that it makes huge sense to discover the technical similarities between this project and Radio Engage and build these systems on a common base. Although in my experience the cultural differences between PEG/Community Radio and Public Radio are huge, the technical differences are much smaller. Well designed modular software should be useful for both groups.

Here on the Drupal groups site, it makes perfect sense to me that they choose Drupal over Joomla or some other system :) -- also Quiddities is a Drupal shop.

I see Quiddites/Margaret Rosas has joined this group, Welcome.

Thanks for the welcome

mrosas's picture

Eric, Thanks for the welcome (albeit a few months late!). We'll be bringing Radio Engage back online to start up the conversation around our project and create more transparency around what we are up to. I'd also like to continue exploration of how/if Radio Engage can intersect with the Open Media Project.

We reached out the the

kreynen's picture

We reached out the the Quiddities folks early on to try to avoid any overlap, but didn't get a response. Glad to see they are tuning in.

It's also worth noting that Andrew Morton (drewish) joined the Open Media Project group early on. Andrew wrote the Station module, has been very active in getting media handling improvements into Drupal 7, and even posts here from time to time. We are really hoping our Timeslot Scheduler can be used as a front end for both video and audio programming, but our initial focus will be on making it work for DOM and the 6 grantees.

The Chicago Technology Cooperative has already shown how Media Mover can be leveraged for radio in the work they did on Vocalo. They have been participating in the group as well.

With both UPTV (one of the 6 development partners) and Access Davis (an alternate) also running LPFM stations as well as DOM's relationship with KGNU, we are keeping radio's needs in mind but trying to stay focused on the task at hand... which right now is getting DOM upgraded to Drupal 6 and the new tools!

ehowland's picture

How are Timeslot scheduler and Station related conceptually? I know that Station is not oriented toward automation, but it has many of the data structures and views you would need (schedule, program, playlists). Is there convergence on those data types?

The Timeslot Scheduler nodes

kreynen's picture

The Timeslot Scheduler nodes at the most basic level are just a reoccurring events. By giving the Timeslot a "theme", you are grouping those events into something that can be scheduled into based on rules. We currently have 3 rules; auto schedulable, user schedulable, and the lack of either auto or user which would indicate that this will be a manually scheduled slot. We have designed this so that additional rules can be added to meet each stations programming needs. Obviously DOM relies primarily on auto scheduled and user scheduled programming.

Auto scheduling will work basically the same way it has with scripts running to fill in gaps in content based on a shows popularity, but user schedulable slots are a new feature for DOM. In the Drupal 5 system, the autoscheduling scripts also dealt with new shows. This was in large part because Drupal wasn't aware of what was already scheduled in our Princetons. Now the Broadcast Synchronization module keeps the Airing content type populated.

So when a user adds a Show, we look to see what Timeslots that show can be scheduled into and then query those Timelsots for existing Airings to find the first opening with an equal or greater duration of the new Show.

I don't see any reason why the Timeslot Scheduler couldn't be adapted for radio's needs, but don't look to us to do that work any time soon. Our focus for the next 8 months is to update DOM and do as much as we can to improve this system for our 6 development partners. Quiddities's $327,000 NewsChallenge grant was to to create a turnkey web site for radio news organizations. We were hoping to work with them on the common parts of our projects, but that didn't happen.

If there is enough interest is seeing an updated version of Station that is compatible with the Open Media System's content types, I'd hope you'd try to contract/coordinate with drewish to do that work. I don't think there are many people more qualified to meet the needs of radio with an eye on where Drupal 7 is headed.

Radio Engage

mrosas's picture

Hi all,

As this thread indicates we are charged with creating a Drupal install profile for radio stations. This profile will include the station module.

We have been following the progress with the Open Media project and looking for overlaps. While the projects have some similarities, they also have some fundamental differences. One of the primary goals of DOM is content creation. Radio Engage does not have this same focus on providing users with tools to create multimedia content. We'll have more to report in coming weeks as we finalize the module set for Radio Engage and the functionality.

deproduction's picture

Margaret,
Our Drupal tools have no relationship to content creation, so perhaps there is a misunderstanding. From my understanding of how community radio stations and community TV stations operate, there is a lot of overlap, and the modules we're creating are being developed in such a flexible way that they are also being used by Public Libraries, Community Technology Centers, Schools, and more. The modules don't care if its an audio file or a video file, and other organizations with far more differences than ours are leveraging our work effectively.

I hope you and KUSP can learn from the $500K+ wasted by us and MNN on similar projects, where the product that was created had ZERO community support. Here in Denver, we spent a couple hundred thousand dollars on setting up a Drupal solution that just as well could've been proprietary or written in a custom programming language. We didn't put in the legwork to ensure that the larger Drupal community was benefiting from our work, we didn't collaborate with the other developers. We just used and tweaked their stuff, injected custom code without collaboration, and hard-coded a lot of variables that were only relevant at DOM.

In the end, we had a functional website that did what we said it would do, but we would be forever on-the-tit of the firm we hired to build it, because nobody else in the Drupal community was maintaining it. MNN just recently finished their project, after nearly 2 years and perhaps $250,000 invested in staff and contractors. They've now released a station management module (in Drupal 4.7) that is so myopic in its focus on the needs of a single station (MNN) that it would be easier for other stations to start from scratch than to make the MNN code work well elsewhere.

I think most developers prefer to bury their head and code, because good developers (like you surely have) can build to their exact needs more quickly and efficiently than trying to deal with the politics of incorporating their work into others. I've struggled with that with our developers, but in the long-run, having a community of developers maintaining and updating your work pays-off, as I know you already know. From the beginning, I've strongly felt that your grant and ours could be combined to benefit each other significantly, though I should've pushed harder for you and I to get clear on each others' deliverables. My first post on the Idealab site was designed to keep you appraised of our goals (as we discussed in our first meeting), but that communication never really continued, and despite requests to have my developers in communication with yours, I clearly haven't put in the requisite effort to ensure any effective collaboration.

I fear there's a chance that the work you're doing will have minimal impact beyond KUSP. If we hadn't received our KNC grant, we'd be in a similar situation, but with the grant, we took the first 6 months to re-build our tools so they are truly flexible and useful outside of our environment. We're leveraging the work of pre-existing modules and contributing code that is being utilized by a wide-range of developers for uses we had never intended. We're now implementing the modules in 6 stations and learning more about the best approach for making the tools work in diverse environments, as that is the only way to predict the challenges that are met in each of these use-cases and develop the modules to be flexible enough to work anywhere.

In December of this year, we'll be working with the maintainers of the Project Module to make a robust and comprehensive "packaged install profile", that will work ideally for TV and Radio Stations, but also have utility for Community Technology Centers, Schools, Libraries, and more. We'll likely have at least 10 stations actively using and contributing to the development of those tools, and each of them could greatly benefit (and benefit from) the involvement of Quiddities and KUSP.

If you were interested, we could both lay-out our upcoming deliverables, examine which overlap and develop a concrete plan for collaborating. For example, one area that DOM's plan is weak and ill-prepared for is documentation and evaluation.

Tony Shawcross

Whatever your first issue of concern, media had better be your second, because without change in the media, the chances of progress in your primary area are far less likely. http://denveropenmedia.org

overstated budget

ericG's picture

just to clarify fact.

you state

MNN just recently finished their project, after nearly 2 years and perhaps $250,000 invested in staff and contractors.

I'm a bit shocked to see you inflate the price so much since we gave you such detailed info on the real numbers when we met in DC.

for the record, the MNN project was built on a budget of 70,000, not $250,000. If it was $250k it would be a very different set of code.

I think Tony is taking some

kreynen's picture

I think Tony is taking some liberties with these numbers too. I'm not sure how much money changed hands for the code, but that isn't the total cost of the project. I've only been aware of this for a little more than a year, but I know that we've already invested a measurable number of hours in looking at the code, meetings with MNN, and correcting misconceptions that resulted from hype.

I imagine that if we add up the numbers of hours of staff time on MNN's side, the total cost would actually be more than $250,000.

$150,000?

deproduction's picture

I pulled that number out of my ass, and it could easily be double the real number. I'd estimate Jacob spent 500+ hours on that project, Forest and other MNN staff have surpassed that, whether developing the scope or providing administration or testing, etc. I'm certain that their staff time investment in the project is at least as expensive as what they paid OpenFlows.
I want stations to realize the full costs that get wrapped-up in these efforts, and I want them to learn from our mistakes. Perhaps this project was not a mistake and in the end, it will be perfect, but it certainly wasn't what was intended. In 2005 and 2006, we coordinated with Jacob to split up the various needs we both had, and we agreed all development would be complete by fall 2006. It ended up being released more than two years later, and if there are any lessons to be learned from the process, I want to do what we can to let other people learn from them.
For example, my organization spent at LEAST $100,000 on our initial DOM code-base. It was functional, but more than 90% of that code was trashed and represented no value to us beyond a great learning experience. My personal guess is that MNN's experience will be similar.
The goal is to share the lessons and share the value of these experiments, including money that only "bought" us a lesson in what not to do.

Whatever your first issue of concern, media had better be your second, because without change in the media, the chances of progress in your primary area are far less likely. http://denveropenmedia.org

anticipation of information

kvmrbutton's picture

John Button
Webmaster at kvmr.org

I've been watching this project to release something since it started about a year ago? and am glad that some info about Radio Engage will finally be released.

John Button
Webmaster at kvmr.org

Points of collaboration

gusaus's picture

I'm wondering if there's been any collaboration between these projects. How could a project based learning program compliment to these and the overall 'drupal media' effort?

Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions

Gus Austin

There are certainly attempts

deproduction's picture

Gus,
We're certainly attempting to collaborate, as there is clearly some reinvention of the wheel happening here, and its a shame that even projects within the same Knight News Challenge program are overlapping without collaboration... and other Knight projects that have a LOT of synchronicity. PCulture's project, a couple of the KDI projects, and of course, the Quiddities project.

Thanks for your work to document the "drupal media" efforts and identify more opportunities for cooperation. Your awareness of these projects would make you a great Candidate to help drive any of the new Public Access initiatives in LA. I was there yesterday and its looking like they won't receive any viable proposals by their deadline. When we launched here in Denver, our proposal required about double the funding they had originally slated for startup support, and I believe in LA, they would at least entertain proposals requiring as much as $1million for startup and $400K in ongoing Capital support. That's about double what we get here in Denver, and we've been able to build one of the country's top community media organizations.

All they need in LA is someone willing to step-up and drive the effort. We would be a huge support, as they could just replicate our model and leverage the legwork we've done in many areas. Do you have anyone in mind?

Tony

Whatever your first issue of concern, media had better be your second, because without change in the media, the chances of progress in your primary area are far less likely. http://denveropenmedia.org

gusaus's picture

Tony,

Great to make the connect! I think most other people in your group know me all too well (my apologies). Assuming you already know some of the back story, we're just a bit of clarity/funding away from helping facilitate collaboration, training, and documentation for some of the projects listed here by interfacing with our home grown project learning program (Drupal Kata) and the Drupal training/collaboration space (Drupal Dojo). The great thing is how a collaboration w/ Open Media gives us a great project to build on and a testing ground for a regionally based training program.

In terms of overlap - it sounds like Radio Engage has a lot of the same general goals, needs, and good intent. From an outsiders view, it's been my observation that it's really hard to find the points of overlap, let alone collaborate if you're not spending a great deal of time getting to know the community and being very pro-active. For a majority of people/companies, even if intentions are good, the economics of consulting (even if it's for a community project) usually prevail over/compete with devoting resources towards community time. There also is a political dynamic to the community that can make it both highly rewarding, but often times very hard for those without the proper development cred to make a difference. I don't want to sound like a whiner, but I've learned a lot from being in thick of some ambitious community efforts and have come to realize that funding is absolutely necessary for stability and sustainability.

The great thing again is community projects such as Open Media and Radio Engage provide a unique opportunity to create a project based training program from the ground up that will generate much needed talent and some extremely valuable tools. By building off/contributing to the Open Media Project, the Drupal Dojo will provide a very open collaboration platform and curated learning repository.

If you look as the physical locations of teams involved in the OMP, Radio Engage, and the Open Learning and Collaboration portal (Drupal Dojo site will be one instance), we have a pretty good cross section of communities and Drupal user groups to work with and provide products and services. If I can get the support I need (some key issues), we're well on our way to creating a wide range of community value.

Consider me your driver in LA - we already have a great group of people coming together and a wide range of industries we could cater to.

Looking forward to working with you all!

Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions

Gus Austin

Engaging Los Angeles

gusaus's picture

I had a few conversations at our local meetup. Feedback was very positive after doing my best to explain what these projects were (or let alone exist). It illustrates the disconnect between projects, the community, and the real world in general. Another reason why interfacing w/ the Drupal Dojo (to facilitate collaboration and promotion) and complimentary learning initiatives (training and documentation) will do a great deal of good for the projects, Drupal, and those who will eventually benefit from these tools.

Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions

Gus Austin

Open Media Project

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