What You Should Be Working On Now


First up, get your episode page in order. Make sure you use the Episode Template for that page. Pia, Kevin, please help with this if folks are having trouble. It's important that we all use a common template.

 
Once you've settled comfortably into your groups you should set about, as a group, coming up with the elevator pitch for your episode.
 
Once you've collectively created and agreed on it, let me know and I'll help you refine it, if need be.
 
You should have, by now, done a review of the makerculture links on delicious. Hopefully that's given you a good understanding of the Maker Culture movement in general. If you haven't done that, please do so as it is important that you and your team have a strong overarching understanding of the subject so you can intelligently place your episode in proper context.
 
With that general overview dealt with and with a solid pitch in place (and included on your Episode page) you're ready to dive into some serious, deep research on your topic. This will mean finding out as much as you can online, by making event/site visits if need be or talking to folks to get a broad understanding of your topic area. Really dive in as deep as you can so you have lots of raw material to digest. And, share your discoveries and "aha" moments with your team mates on the wiki. You should also create a specific delicious tag for your area. For example the Food group might pick the tag mcfood. Then when a team member finds a story or site online of interest he or she can just tag it "mcfood" and makerculture to flag it for others.
 
As you're doing your research, sharing it with others and discussing it with your group you should start to see some patterns and connections. Pay attention to those as they'll help you decide the very best stories to tell to explain the facet of Maker Culture you're examining. Remember, no one else, no other team, is tackling the exact area you are, so you are responsible to the whole project to tell your episode's story well and comprehensively.
 
Now you can work with your team to divide up the tasks. Each of you will be writing a 1,500 -2000 word feature, so you need to figure out what those features will be and who will do what. Do that as a group. It will not serve your team nor the project for you all to go off individually and beaver away on stories. You'll just end up with disconnected and probably overlapping pieces that are inefficient and lack cohesion.
 
You'll also be producing video clips and a 20-minute podcast and whatever other features you think will effectively tell your story. Work on those together. You'll have to make tough, intelligent decisions about what gets included in the features, what shows up in the podcasts and what would make strong video/images etc. Make those decisions together.
 
In the next week or so you won't be doing much writing (except for blog posts and notes to the wiki) but you will be doing a lot of research and team discussion. This is valuable work that will lay the groundwork for a successful project. Take it seriously and dive it. Please document your research and thoughts on the wiki. And please post to the posterous blog so we can collectively create a public diary of our progress. Let me know if I can help you.
 
cya,

Wayne 


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