Expanding the Media Network at DTLT
Back in July shortly after starting my job at UMW I began talking to Jim about the possibility of doing a video podcast. It would have to be something that wasn't relatively long, but a daily thing where we'd reflect on all manner of subjects. I had no idea that we'd already be close to hitting 100 episodes on what has become DTLT Today. It's an incredible testament to the perseverance of the department and will become an excellent volume of the collective knowledge and concerns we were facing at the time. It's a visual group blog and an amazing example for other departments and institutions. But we're not done yet. Andy Rush and I share this vision of a network of shows coming from our office. Publishing has become to easy not to do it, and with pioneers like Leo Laporte and Dan Benjamin lighting the way we have big dreams for what we can accomplish. Martha has already tested out a pilot episode on DTLT Today of a possible spinoff show called Ask Martha. I had hoped to start my next show, TimeOut, a few weeks prior but have gotten caught up in other things. But the logo and intro video are set. That show will be a daily (or weekly) reflection of the blogs posts you missed, very similar to this show but edited down to no more than 5 minute episodes. Other concepts we've talked about is a show completely dedicated to Wordpress (hell, we use it every day!), Andy has 2 episodes already on the web of his "favorite things" here and here and I could easily see that as its own show, and we've even got the first episode of a script written by a former ds106 student for a fiction show! If YouTube has proven anything in the past few years it's that people rally around good web video, and we believe at UMW that it will be one of the defacto ways that people continue to consume information on a daily basis. Get ready for the network to light up!