Listen to the full discussion about genetics, weaving, software development, democracy, risk management, and a process that encourages the inclusion of multiple points of views when making a decision. With Denise Caruso, Jesse Simons, Travis Meinolf and other guests.

The Heather Gold Show: Process Over Outcome, May 12, 2008 (mp3 file, 34 MB)

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Oprah just announced at the end of her 10 weeks with Eckhart Tolle that she’ll be continuing the Monday night webcasts as her Soul Series. This is the name of her weekly XM Radio broadcasts covering the spiritual stuff she’s most passionate about, but that she doesn’t feel the TV audience is ready for. I’ve heard her say so on the Radio show.

This is powerful stuff for the web and connecting people through talk shows online which is at the heart of the Heather Gold Show (tHGS) mission. She even used the Ghandi quote about “being the change you wish to see in the world” which I used for the first few shows.

If you want people to connect, the web is really much more the right medium than pure television.

Oprah’s basically using the web in a fashion similar to the TV medium. It’s a one-to-many show though they took questions via Skype and phone during these webcasts. These were scripted and pre-screened and structured in a standard TV fashion, but it’ a process that’s familiarized many with these tools. She had over half a million simultaneous streams.

Even with that kind of production, her webcasts made good use of the sense of all of us being together at the same time, doing the same thing. That feeling is a key part of communal prayer or meditation, which is really what was at the the heart of the spiritual study of these webcasts.

But that feeling is also at the heart of any collective connection. It’s at the heart of live performance and concerts. It’s at the heart of a live lecture or conference. It’s at the heart of sports gatherings and rallies It’s at the heart of a really great idea brainstorm and conversation. It’s at the heart of what I’m doing in tHGS.

I spend a lot of time thinking about Oprah and studying her show these days. She does television and integrated media properties incredibly well. Some of what we’re doing at tHGS is quite intentionally a subversion or inversion of what she’s doing.

The key difference to the interactive performance I practice and tHGS has developed is that it consciously shifts the form away from one-to-many. 

Oprah’s work grows from an era of top/down branding and one-to-many communication and *authority.” But authority never really was in the one other than what came from the attention of the many. The form of one-to-many ends up emphasizing the branded “expert” as knowing more than you and mattering more that you. I don’t think that’s her moral intention, but its inherent in the macroeconomics of the television system and branded person as “property” we’ve had for a while.

There is no more audience. It’s a change and it’s not. As Eckhart Tolle would say, it’s really a case of acknowledging what *is:* the inherent power and authority over self each person already has. It’s a change in recognition or consciousness.

More on what this means in the next post. Cafe Ritual is turning off the lights now.

I’ll be hosting tHGS today at Maker Faire. The theme is: DIY Relationship. How does problem solving differ from making stuff together to being a couple? Streaming live at 4:00 PDT today.

I’ll also be having a laugh at Out Loud, a queer radio show owned by Clear Channel. The official Republican line is not homo-friendly but that business/money love makes for entertaining bedfellows.

I can promise it will be funny.

Listen at 960AM KKGN in SF or online from 8-8:30pm PDT tonight.

My friend Cheryl Dahle (a woman with a great mind to speak) has alerted me that this is a question Salon and Lindsay Campbell and the newsvlog Moblogic have asked.

I think its the wrong question to ask if your goal is to have more women’s opinions spoken in public. A more helpful question is: what helps women talk on camera?

I don’t think it’s so much an issue of women not wanting to speak on camera as the way in which they are approached. This is something I think about for The Heather Gold Show (tHGS) a lot. and I do believe that its more fruitful to have a goal of having more women (and people of colour, and any form of diverse viewpoint or experience you can think of) on camera sharing their thoughts with others.

I hope on tHGS itself its much easier to talk because
-there are snacks

-there is no microphone in your face

-you’re sitting on a couch

-there are other people talking

-the whole show is uploaded so you don’t have to worry about being taken out of context

-another chick is (vulnerably i hope–me) making her thoughts known

-I am not professionally attractive

-I’m listening (seriously..i really listen and there is a whole room of people listening.

I really like moblogic. But it seems set up to grab quick clips. tHGS is 60-90 minutes. Smaller bts come out of a more nuanced conversation.
If you have a desire for a longer, more nuanced conversation, that would be tough to convey to the people you’re interviewing for moblogic, unless they already know the show and find it to be nuanced.

If someone I didn’t know (caveat: I do know Lindsay, and have worked with her, and would certainly talk to her) pointed a fuzzy microphone at me and asked my opinion in public I would assume:

-it was for television

-I will be made to look like an idiot by an editor or producer if it will get higher ratings

-the structure of the show depends on conflict and I will not be there to respond to an attack

-my appearance may be mocked

-my thoughts will be ignored or mocked

So, to simple ask “Are women less likely to speak their mind?” Misses the entire point. In law school I was frustrated the few of my female classmates spoke in class. Years later I can now see that it would have been more useful to wonder why law school was structured the way it was, if it’s goal was inclusion. Now I ask the same goal of the media..which is why I’m making my own show. Because there are so many voices and conversations I’m craving. And I’m still learning how to help people feel comfortable on camera.

Listening is an art that takes a great deal of practice. From my experience, women can more easily than men when you’re not really listening to them.

What helps you feel comfortable speaking in public / being on camera as a women?