Since its inception in 1996, there have been many top 3 finishers in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA for short). In the past 14 years (this year's competition has not yet concluded), only a few states have been represented in the top three of the championship. Here is a glance at which states have the best collegiate a cappella groups.
Here is the actual number of Top 3 finishes by State/Country (UK had a representative twice):
Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do?, compares current news and media to the Gutenberg Era
By Rick Thomas
December 9, 2010
Before a packed house of several hundred social media enthusiasts, professor and web pundit Jeff Jarvis gave his thoughts on what is next in the rapidly expanding world of social media at the Social Media and Communications Symposium (SMACS) held this past Wednesday in Ingle Auditorium at the Rochester Institute of Technology. His session began with a discussion on the definition of “content” and how netizens add and extract value from said content as netizens. He mused that the media’s definition of content is that it is what they make, but that the net’s definition of content states that content is everywhere.
Jarvis then followed with his thoughts on news as a process versus news as a product. According to him, the news process never starts, nor does it end. He calls for a more transparent, more collaborative news process, imploring journalists to say to their audiences, “Here’s what we know and what we don’t know – What do you know?” His vision for the future of media is one where journalists not only state what they do know, but also (and possibly more importantly) what they do not know.
Jarvis then segued to discussing process within Google, a company with which he is very familiar through writing his book What Would Google Do?, and as co-host of the weekly “This Week in Google” podcast. He proceeded to refer to the company as “masters of the beta,” comparing it to modern news in that a story is rarely truly finished when it is first published. Jarvis used Google as a model to advocate content publishers learning throughout the news process, and suggested that they say “Tell us how to finish it” as a call to collaboration with their viewership.
As he turned towards the future of media, Jarvis predicted that the future of the web is in mobile, and that connectivity to the web at all times will become ubiquitous. As a somewhat cautionary tale, he shared an anecdote about his purchase of an iPad. After he purchased the device, he sat on his coach and marveled at how amazing it was that he was watching television on its 9.7” screen. Jarvis quickly realized the folly of this when he looked up from the iPad and saw his large flat-screen television sitting in front of him, with the power off. He ended up returning the iPad and purchasing a more pocket-friendly Samsung Galaxy Tab. This story showed that while mobile devices are becoming more and more prevalent in our connected society, there would always be a place for traditional devices such as a home entertainment system.
Jarvis closed his keynote with a look at his proposal for a “Bill of Rights in Cyberspace,” consisting of the following nine values:
1. We have a right to connect
2. We have the right to speak
3. We have the right to assemble
4. We have the right to act
5. We have the right to control our data
6. We have the right to control our identity
7. What is public is a public good
8. All bits are created equal
9. The internet shall be operated openly
He expressed great concern that government overregulation will stifle what has been an explosion of information sharing in our society, stating that the public should establish principles, not governments or agencies. He also expressed his disagreement with the idea of controlling identity, stating that we cannot control what other people think of us, and that is inherently part of our identity. He noted that discrimination laws and others that attempt to regulate identity only regulate action, not knowledge. Jarvis summed it up by saying “Life is filled with assholes. The internet is filled with assholes, too.”
The expertise offered by Jarvis’s wealth of knowledge and experience in journalism, education, and technology was an appropriate cornerstone to an afternoon full of ideas and insights about the future of journalism, public relations, and media as a whole. The rampant applause showered upon Jarvis at the end of his speech served as testimony to not only his ability to teach and inspire, but to be entertaining and charismatic while doing so.
