AgendaCamp
The idea behind the AgendaCamp concept was to marry the barcamp model with the production of a live current affairs television program in order to engage the community to help create television as the Agenda with Steve Paikin went on a five city tour across Ontario.
AgendaCamp is a unique new concept that marries the best aspects of public broadcasting and emerging social media. At AgendaCamp members of the public, expert guests, and host Steve Paikin join together face to face in a local venue for a series of workshops focused on regional economies. Any participant can propose and lead a discussion. Participants capture the event by live blogging, shooting video and uploading to Youtube, taking pictures and creating an interactive wiki. The online audience can follow the conference as it unfolds, and continue the discussion after the event.
Despite the high tech veneer, AgendaCamp is not simply about preaching to the converted. Several locations were remote in communities (including AgendaCamp Thunder Bay which took place at the Fort William First Nation Community Centre). A big part of the experience is teaching ordinary citizens how to use these new digital tools.
Over the course of the first four events, AgendaCamp has had more than 300 in-the-flesh participants including: mayors, MPPs, MPs, cabinet ministers, native chiefs, policy wonks, students, professors, factory workers, and factory owners. It has generated more than 100 user created Youtube video clips, and hundreds of wiki entries that have been viewed tens of thousands of times.
And while AgendaCamp is designed to stand on its own, the ideas generated by it have reached many hundreds of thousands through the Agenda on the Road broadcasts. Clips from the camp are rolled into the broadcast and participants are able to ask the panel questions as part of the live studio audience.
