Decompressing from the DNC...

Denver hosted an amazing Democratic National Convention. The city simply sparkled.

I'm currently sitting in my hotel room decompressing from an incredibly full schedule of events, interviews and parties. FORA was able to capture some amazing content, which is currently available on our Convention page.

My favorite event from the entire week was a panel co-sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations entitled Combating Global Poverty. The panel was loaded with heavyweights, including James D. Wolfensohn, Timothy E. Wirth, Gayle Smith, Donald M. Payne, Obiageli Ezekwesili, Hernando de Soto, Tom Daschle, John J. Danilovich, Nancy Birdsall, Madeleine Albright and Ben Affleck.

I was greatly moved by this exchange. I was also incredibly impressed by a bearded Ben Affleck (Stuart refers to him as Beard Affleck), who besides being an accomplished actor, also seems to be a fine philanthropist.

We also shot some amazing interviews, panels and FlipVideo (FORA's new favorite toy) with our friends from The New Republic. Frank Foer, Noam Scheiber, Michael Crowley, Dayo Olopade and Eve Fairbanks delivered some great interviews.

Many thanks to The Ritz-Carlton's VP of Public Relations Vivian Deuschl for providing FORA a temporary home to shoot and upload our interviews with the folks from TNR, and also for being such an incredibly nice woman. The downside of hanging out at The Ritz all week is the inevitable letdown of not hanging out at The Ritz. I suppose I'll have to acclimate.

Overall, I feel our experience at the DNC was a very successful new venture and we are extremely excited to do it all over again for the Republican National Convention next week.

Until then, check out a FlipVideo ThinkTank I assembled of my trek into Mile High Stadium for Obama's acceptance speech.

I also managed to snap a few pics while inside the stadium, which are accesible on our Flickr page.

Until the RNC...

Obama Speech at the DNC

FORA.tv wraps up its Democratic National Convention coverage from Denver today. On to St. Paul for the RNC. We will be post-producing a number of DNC events and interviews, including 3 panel discussions on world affairs with a world class line-up of speakers in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations, a conversation between Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Air America/ MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, and convention interviews with the New York Times' David Brooks and writers from FORA partner The New Republic, plus Creative Coalition event interviews with activist actors.

I attended the last night's convention finale at Invesco Field. The line to get in took only several minutes, good timing. I walked the half hour from our HQ hotel to the venue, soaking in the sun and the thickening crowd of conventioneers heading for the event. The only protest was a group insisting that hell is our certain destination if we attend the event. I thought I'd chat them up to get the precise logic behind the prediction but opted instead for the free water being provided by some cheery Coca-Cola employees.

Walking arond the stadium, the only disconnect I experienced were all the concessions with Broncos (NFL) themes. Broncos fans apparently live on a diet of sausages, pizza, and nachos. I didn't get put off by the exuberant stadium atmosphere for the event. It was staged with a combination of good music (John Legend and Will.I.Am stole the show), warm up speeches, some campaign volunteer promotions (text messages!) and the Main Event.

I sat next to Phildell (combination of parents' names...likes it now, not so much when he was seven...) who scored a ticket late in the day by walking into the Westin, determined to go. He is an African-American ordained minister, married to a Caucasian (Republican) wife, former aspiring comedian in Los Angeles and whip smart political thinker. We chatted about the meaning of the event for him, recounted painful and frustrating racial experiences in his life, among people close to him. In the final moments of the speech, when the March on Washington by Dr. King was evoked, here is what he had to say..




A special tip of the hat to our director of content development Stuart Schulzke and our director of media production Trevar Mazza for producing this week's coverage. On to St. Paul!

Day 2 of FORA at the Democratic National Convention

Our first political convention coverage, with lots of extraordinary moments. Here are some:

- Gerry Baker of the Times of London walks into our interview room where The New Republic's editor Franklin Foer is interviewing AEI's Norm Ornstein. After the on-camera interview ends, the 3 of them dissect Democratic Party politics. Gerry will interview Bill Kristol and others for us later this week.
- Dinner with Tony, an Australian messaging guru and consultant to the Prime Minister, who prefers to stay out of the public eye, discussing how Kevin Rudd defeated John Howard, and how messages will be crafted in the U.S. race this fall.
- Watching TNR's second panel discussion on sustainability at our partner bookstore, the fabulous Tattered Cover. An amazing primer on the politics, science, economics and ethics of moving forward on environmental issues.
- Watching our Master Videographer and director of media production Trevar Mazza follow his videotaping of the panel with a spontaneous video blog on his FORA Flip Video camera, giving personal context to the event and the venue.
- Sharing PR and viral marketing tips with former Foran Jason Damata and watching Trevar walk over to say hello, knocking the guy at the next table in the head, then realizing it's Jesse Jackson Jr.
- Meeting Wendell Pierce, star of the HBO series The Wire (Bunk Moreland) outside the DLC party, and doing a spontaneous Flip Video interview with him on his views of citizen as essential participant in politics. You go, Bunk! Regards to McNulty, my role model.
- Getting back to our rented condo late, and overhearing Stuart and Trevar (pictured) discuss... who...has...the...key........

Today, three big events with the Council on Foreign Relations, more interviews and experimentation with gear and technology.

Day 1 of FORA @ the Democratic Convention

It's morning in America.

Well, morning in Denver anyway, as my already jamming partners Stuart Schulzke and Trevar Mazza stumble out of bed. Trevar went to bed at 2am after producing some video segments and set the alarm at 2:30 to start new importing new footage. Hotels are booked out to Wyoming so we rented a friend's condo, which makes work seem like a frat retreat (pizza delivery!).

Hot on the heels of our successful coverage of the Aspen Ideas Festival, where we produced daily highlights, and provided backstage interviews and a customized social networking widget, we are experimenting once again. We thought Day 1 would be our lightest day but ended up with:
-- interviews with Danny Glover and Giancarlo Esposito at a Creative Coalition screening
-- a briefing by New Republic editors on what's happening behind the scenes at the convention
-- a panel discussion called "How Would They Govern?" co-sponsored by Brookings and AEI led by FORA favorites Norman J. Ornstein (AEI) and Thomas E. Mann (Brookings Institution). Panelists include Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.); former senators Trent Lott (R-Miss.), Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), and Gary Hart (D-Colo.); former representative Abner Mikva (D-Ill.); and reporters David Rogers of Politico, Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times, and Dan Nowicki of the Arizona Republic.
-- At FORA partner Tattered Cover bookstore, a panel with leading thinkers on sustainability and the future of energy, including Rep. Ed Markey, Cass Sunstein, Senator Jeff Bingaman and others. Moderator Frank Foer, executive editor of The New Republic, moderated and also conducted interviews with participants for FORA after the event.
-- We outfitted several TNR writers with Flip video cameras to do backstage interviews with delegates, journalists and political leaders. We are getting spectacular footage as we try to develop efficient production systems to shoot, collect, vet and post. Watch the clips from the Hillary convention HQ with TNR's Eve Fairbanks. A great look at delegate emotions, the ambience of the venue, and the positioning of candidates.

We checked in with Gerry Baker of the Times of London who is assembling a terrific line-up of leading political observers for interviews this week. We ended up at a late night Times of London co-sponsored party, practicing our Flip video BarCam interview technique and then headed home. Gerry will also be doing interviews for FORA at the Republic Convention. He told us about a recent story he did about Obama as Biblical pilgrim ("he ventured forth to bring light to the world...") complete with his reading of the story. It is great reading and the video is hilarious.

Visit the FORA@DNC page and watch the videos as they post from the venue. Most will get to air within hours of the event, with the rich FORA experience of chapters, speaker bios, embeddable players and links, and downloads for convenient viewing/ listening.

A big day today. Stuart is at 24 Hour Fitness (new corporate membership! the benefits keep on coming!), Trevar is producing video clips, and I'm blogging and wondering who thought of breakfast.

FORA.tv is Heading to the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions

FORA.tv is landing in Denver this coming Sunday for the Democratic National Convention and then jetting off to Minneapolis for the Republican National Convention the following week.

We'll be partnering with The New Republic, The Times of London and The Creative Coalition to deliver panel discussions, interviews and impromptu coverage from each convention.

Footage will be streamed on both FORA.tv and YouTube.

Our CEO Brian Gruber and I will also be regularly updating the blog and uploading video - the first of which is embedded below.

Become the 4,000th Subscriber to the FORA.tv YouTube Channel

The FORA.tv YouTube channel currently has 3,994 subscribers. If you become our 4,000th subscriber then we'll mention you in our next video blog. Just take a screen shot with the "Subscribers" count at 3,999 or 4,000 and send it to media@fora.tv

Make it happen.

Walt Mossberg Makes the iPhone Practically Impossible to Resist

The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg isn't helping my recent cell phone upgrade dilemma - 3G iPhone or Blackberry Bold? Should I succumb to the current hoopla and buy an iPhone or wait for the Bold to drop!? Mossberg makes a strong case for the iPhone and its OS, an innovative game changer.

To see if Mossberg has the same effect on you, check out The Future of the Internet and the Rise of the Cell Phone from the Aspen Ideas Festival 2008.

Got a point of view? Check out the embed below and then shoot me an email at media@fora.tv.