Pamela Rutledge

One of many anti-SOPA web pleas The NY Times article ( In Fight Over Piracy Bills, New Economy Rises Against Old ) by Jonathan Weisman on the proposed anti-piracy legislation in Congress  highlights the conflict between old and new business models. The battle of the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) bills signals the changing times.  It suggests that public understanding of media use is shifting.  It highlights the reallocation of  political heft, dollars and lobby... Read Full Story

The following are the notes from my presentation as part of a panel on “Communicating in the New Normal” at the College Board 2012 Colloquium held in Newport Beach, CA January 7-9.  I was part of very august company: moderator Phillip Ballinger, Assistant Vice President for Enrollment and Director of Undergraduate Admissions at University of Washington at University of Washington, Marie Groark, Executive Director of the Get Schooled Foundation , and Millree Williams, Executive Director for... Read Full Story

The film, A Dangerous Method , is an ambitious effort to portray the complex and tumultuous evolution of the relationships and theories among the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, his protégé Carl Jung, and the patient-turned-psychoanalyst, Sabina Spielrein.  The movie is beautiful and engaging but not very satisfying.  But then, it is based on the untidiness of real life, and titans of western thought though they were, Freud and Jung were still human beings.  The film is well worth... Read Full Story

Transmedia storytelling is not just for telling stories. Thanks to social technologies, the principles that drive transmedia storytelling ensure that it will emerge as the basis for effective communication and engagement. Transmedia — using multiple channels of communication and technologies — is unique in that it allows stories and messages to be constructed in the same the way we make sense of the world around us. Transmedia storytelling works like the brain thinks — constructing holistic... Read Full Story

The Wall Street Journal reports that reverse mentoring has finally cracked the workplace so that senior executives can learn more about technology, social media and the latest workplace trends.  Great idea, but reverse mentoring won’t work.  It violates the very premise of a social media environment that it purports to address.  Mentoring must be about a two-way flow of information and respect.  What organizations need is collaborative mentoring. Reverse mentoring is exactly the wrong way... Read Full Story

Transmedia storytelling is rapidly becoming the new ‘must have’ in marketing and entertainment.  Its adoption is slowed, however, by the confusion over what exactly it is.  Like most things, there are lots of definitions, but with transmedia storytelling, it’s easy to be distracted by the promise of the wide array of tools and get caught up in the romance of ‘building out a storyworld,’ — and end up overlooking the substance.  Good transmedia storytelling starts with the story. The story... Read Full Story

Social media has redefined “participatory” in all kinds of ways.  Social technologies and easy-to-use tools have changed fundamental assumptions about how we interact with everything, not just each other.  It’s time we get used to the idea that kids these days think media is for interacting and not watching.  Parents can take comfort in knowing that interactive technology, when developed well, allows a child to actively engage in their own learning.  One such app, Wendy’s Giant List of Things... Read Full Story

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model, developed in 1948, resonated across many disciplines, from business, technology and education to its field of origin, psychology.   It spoke to potential and to positive conceptualizations of human motivation.  As popular and widely applied as this model has been, however, insights from the use and adoption of social technologies like Facebook and Twitter, combined with increased knowledge about brains and networks, show that our understanding of Maslow’s... Read Full Story

Hollywood’s remake of the film from the bestseller “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is scheduled for release just before Christmas.  It comes on the heels of the 2009 Swedish film versions of the Stieg Larsson’s Millenium Triology*.  While not exactly family fare, I loved Larsson’s books and I’m not the only one eager to see how Director David Fincher handles the material.  The marketing build-up to the December release, concern about the explicit sexual violence, the casting intrigues, and... Read Full Story

We need a new name for ‘transmedia storytelling’. It seems like all the excitement about big transmedia storytelling projects has made it the buzz term du jour. But somehow, in all that excitement, the fundamentals have become obscured. It’s important to remember that in ‘transmedia storytelling,’ that ‘transmedia’ is an adjective. ‘Storytelling’ is the noun. The transmedia part of transmedia storytelling is like building a musical score the way a conductor employs different instruments in... Read Full Story