Stories of ThinkTech

BUILDING OUR LEGACY OF LEARNING ThinkTech is now building a Legacy of Learning Collection out of the nearly 20,000 talk shows, webinars and program videos we have produced over the past ten years. We're going to enhance our website and our YouTube search functions and playlist pages. We want to empower everyone who cares about our content, and make sure that they can find anything we've done, from the beginning. We're going to go through all of these videos, review them for content and quality and improve them for better viewing when appropriate. We're going to curate and organize them into special playlists and collections, and make sure they are good and worthy for archival research and community use under creative commons. Given the number and scope of these videos, it'll take a while and some staff and volunteer time to do what we have in mind, but we're determined to do it and confident that it will be well worthwhile. The project will provide open access o

  REVAMPING OUR SITE Given our new production workflow (see last week’s ThinkTech Story), and our increased focus on publication dates for disseminating, archiving and retrieving our videos, we’ve revamped our website. More specifically, we have added a section on the home page called Latest Productions (most recently published).   These are our most recent shows, ordered by their publication dates (that is, the dates they are uploaded and published on our YouTube.com channel ( YouTube.com/thinktechhawaii ).   We’ve also created a separate page with this section by itself.   See the top level menu to get there.   And we’ve put a short form of this section on the right side of most other pages of the site, so you can easily find. play and replay them at your convenience. And we have added a section on the home page called Most Popular (most recent top five and staff pick).   There are our current Top Five and Staff Pick talk show videos, ordered by the views they’ve received.   We’ve a

THINKTECH WORKFLOW NOTICE ThinkTech is always improving its workflow. Now, in lieu of specific “airdates” we will simply upload your shows onto YouTube as soon as they are edited, i.e., 1-2 days after you have appeared on your show. As soon as the videos are uploaded, we will let you know and send you the on demand links for the show and the YouTube playlist so that you can watch the show and share those links withyour friends and associates.. We have redesigned our website to list all the Latest Productions on the top of the homepage (just below the player) and as a sidebar on other pages on the site, so that you can find and play them on demand as soon as they are available.  This will give you better production values for your shows, make it easier for you to find, play and replay them now and in the future, make the workflow easier for our staff, and save software subscription costs. What do you have to do?  Nothing, except share the on-demand links we send you to your friends and

How News Organizations should approach AI Marty Baron, former executive editor of the Washington Post has published a book on his experience there, "Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and THE WASHINGTON POST .   Among some very interesting points he made in an interview with CNN are some suggestions on how news organizations should approach A.I.   Baron said:   “Generative AI poses huge risks but also offers some intriguing opportunities. I think we’re all familiar with the risks, especially when AI pulls so-called information out of the ether. The result is what are typically called "hallucinations." More appropriately they should be called "fabrications."   “Then he added, “But there are ways to introduce some efficiencies in newsroom operations with the careful use of generative AI. Reporters and editors are burdened with all sorts of tasks they didn’t have to perform in a previous era: search- and social-friendly headlines, photo selection, metadata, alerts,

IT'S NOT EASY EVALUATING A TALK SHOW ThinkTech is always looking to improve production values for its talk shows.  We want to make our hosts look and sound great, and we and our editors work hard at that.  We review our shows in Content Committee meetings every two weeks.  We rate the shows numerically and subjectively to get a handle on whether they meet production standards, and we often write or call hosts to let them know how they are doing and how they can improve their shows. But there's something else, too.  It's the track of the show, beginning with the choice of the subject and the selection of the title and tagline for the show,  and then writing up the descriptions on what they will want to talk about, the takeaway they hope to give their viewers, and the keywords they will post to make it easier for people to find their shows. There is, of course, the track, i.e., the logical progression of the show.  We want them to think about that before and find the best way

  Want to be a host - please let us know. Do you like talk shows.  Do you like to engage with people and learn what they know in productive conversations.  Why don't you consider talking to us about being a ThinkTech talk show host? So what does being a host would entail.  Well, most of our shows are biweekly at a set production date and time Monday through Thursday.  You would have to pick a subject and a name for the show, then recruit guests who know something about that subject, anywhere from one to say three people.  Since we do all our shows on Zoom, they can be anywhere in the world.  Our production manager would send you and your guests a Zoom link for the scheduled time, and our engineer would help you and your guests look and sound good.  Then it would be up to you to talk to them, and ask them questions, and bring out their knowledge and expertise.  Our shows are 30 minutes long and it's actually very easy to do that for 30 minutes. We've been organizing and broa