Steve Gillmor’s GestureLab

Today we recorded a new daily show, NewsGang Live. It is designed to take the fundamentals of The Gang and mix them with the daily flow of news and views that emerge from the NewsGang application. Today’s live show focused on last night’s Democratic debate in South Carolina, and featured members of The Gang (Dan Farber, Doc Searls, Dana Gardner) as well as Obama supporter Mitchell Kertzman and Edwards supporter Dave Slusher, plus several listeners including Chris Kelley who joined the end of the show with some Republican perspective.

The format of the show grows out of the most recent Gang episode, where Jason Calacanis gave out enough of the dial-in information on Twitter to attract some 20 additional callers, one of which, Larry Miller, joined the show and contributed both to the interesting aspects of the show and my gathering perception that the show is not working effectively to capture and nurture those aspects of The Gang and its predecessor The Gillmor Gang that endear it to both participants and listeners. Today’s NewsGang suggests that a careful mixture of various elements may produce a product that will justify continuing this work, though it is not clear to me that the members of the core Gang can work effectively together in the original structure.

On the second part of the last Gang, I clearly set out my requirements for the show. Much of the dichotomy of the show’s agenda revolves around what to some (including many of the Gang members) is seen as 2 subject domains: enterprise technology and Web 2.0. In fact, the show can, and does, frequently blend these two spaces into one, with entertaining and empowering results for Gang and audience. However, another split is more fundamental and elusive, namely the fault line between so-called new and old medias. Many of the show’s participants live comfortably and profitably in one or the other of these camps, and the conflicting business models of these domains often surface in the discord that undermines the show.

There’s been a vigorous conversation on Facebook on the Gillmor Group Wall and comments on Part II of The Gang XI. I may have too thin a skin for some of the repetition and the occasional painful dig (”passive/aggressive crap” from another Gillmor no less) but above and beyond the debate about production styles and critical analysis lies the simple truth that what we’re doing here has meaning for a lot of people, particularly those of us who keep hanging in and failing as much as succeeding at this.

So now I’m going counter-intuitive by adding a new show that may well deliver all of the dilution that I’ve tried to avoid with The Gang. Back in the Podshow days, I produced a second show as part of my contract, Gillmor Daily, that I never felt was a net positive although it did produce the much beloved Attention Deficit Theatre episodes and the first appearances of Mike Arrington before I invited him into The Gang proper. Just got a call from Tom Foremski, my compatriot at PodTech for much of 2007: he tuned in to only a little bit of the first NewsGang because, as he admits, he’s sick of the whole political topic that the first show covers.

But those of us who do find last night’s debate compelling theater may listen, and perhaps the audience will build as we veer back into the tech comfort zone. Those who explore NewsGang itself have found it an efficient rollup of the media spaces, and frankly, the goal was to harness the unique and focused affinities of The Gang community to cull the excesses of both “old” and “new” medias. I’m reasonably confident I can hang on long enough without offending either camp to achieve a critical mass in the NewsGang domain; the usage has gown ten-fold in the last month, and should accelerate as users discover and follow the NewsGang Twitter feed and NewsGang Active widgets as they are adopted by other sites.

Economically it’s a real struggle right now, but I’m as confident of the eventual outcome as I was when I started The Gillmor Gang with even less indication of its eventual power and leverage. But don’t misunderstand my confidence; it may have little to do with my personal success or the security of my family or my ability to sustain this. Already my tolerance for the debate about the debate inside The Gang has reached a breaking point. Enjoyable as the show can be even in its train wreck status, I can’t sustain the acquiescence of the divergent members for ephemeral moments in a sea of crossed agendas.

NewsGang Live was conceived among other things as a valve in this pressurized container, to bleed off the excess gas emanating from the usual suspects, particularly me, who is sick and tired of being petulant, angry, and unfortunately, right about how dismally ineffective I’ve been in managing the explosive fame of some of the Gang members and the quiet wisdom of some of the others who get shorter shrift. Hopefully NewsGang will prove as successful in squeezing out the noise as it has in doing so in the information space for those of us who were hooked on it from Day One, but we’ll see. Come Friday, I’m hopeful that The Gang will reconvene. Stay tuned.

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 at 6:53 pm.
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