Preamble: not sure if i ever tidied up and sent this letter, the site is long offline and i have an archive of materials related to social / personal / *citizen* coverage of Vancouver Whistler Olympics and Paralympics 2010, much accessed from Wayback machine as very very little (including from the rights holders) still exists extant
i also have a back-up for the “Ggle Sites” used a organzing wiki and other oddities from the erstwhile wrangling – this is posted here simply to continue (or sorta close) this TNMH archive
Hello [~~~},
My name is Dave Olson, I am a writer and creative projects producer and minor league historian of kind of culture Vancouver stories :)
You may also know me from Hootsuite where I was the original marketing and community VP (now on medical leave). I am writing today about True North Media House which was a self accrediting, social media, documenting campaign from the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.
The project attracted massive attention and produced far more content than Vanoc, W-2 and the local traditional media combined — all grassroots style and using then cutting edge social techniques to amplify.
The project was featured in a film (With Glowing Hearts), PBS media shift blog, NFB, Wall Street Journal, all the local media channels – also is a topic of a PhD thesis and launched many small time media makers on to greater heights.
The website TrueNorthMediaHouse.com was a repository of resources about finding Wi-Fi, what to do if arrested, journalistic dues and don’ts, best practises and aggregation tools — plus a wide-open wiki & mailing list mechanism so hospitality houses, sponsors, athletes etc. could put the word out that they were looking for social reporters to come cover their stories/events etc.
It is clear that this campaign will forever go down as the high-water-mark of social coverage of the Olympics.
By the time London came around, the IOC had locked down again on their access and other restrictions. Of course Sochi was no improvement and with Rio last summer, there was almost a complete absence of social/renegade/grassroots/alternative/independent journalism at all.
So, all of that said… I am writing to ask if the archive would digitally archive True North Media House.com {http://truenorthmediahouse.com/} in some manner?
Each year I renew the domain but probably won’t do that forever :-) the hosting has changed and the site is currently off-line but, I’m very convinced of its long standing importance for the future.
The site is not a repository for the content for saying but rather a container for the project and includes the DIY accreditation badge, among the interesting artifacts.
You can read more about the project and the coverage produced, especially by mainstream media outlets, at my personal blog:
http://daveostory.com/category/community-culture/true-north-media-2010-olympics/
Happy to answer any questions you have of course and not sure what digital archiving interest or resources you have but I’m happy to help in anyway I can.
On another topic,… If you years ago at the museum in Vancouver, I did a talk called “Revolutions, Poets and Punks: Forgotten Vancouver Stories” — The attendees were each asked to choose a “project card” today again and research more about forgotten slices of Vancouver counter-culture history. Video from the talk is finally online and worth a watch if you ask me :-) there’s a record player, and art easel, I can’t fire and all sorts of other props to go along with the stories.
Thanks for reading and I look forward to hearing back from you at your leisure.
Yours in Storymaking,
Daveo
Addendum: since don’t seem to appear elsewhere, stashing these alternate versions of True North Media House DIY social documentation accreditation badge
