Day of the Deployed

If you haven't heard by now, October 26 is now the National Day of the Deployed. This is actually the sixth year that North Dakota has celebrated this day and was the first to do so. Forty other states soon followed and now in 2011 it has become a National day of recognition to honor those who have been deployed, are about to deployed and who are serving all over the world.

At Bismarck State College this past Wednesday, the 26th of October, we held a ceremony to honor these brave men and women and to give thanks to the people that made this day happen. Senator John Hoeven, who sponsored the bill along with several other senators, including Kent Conrad was there for the celebration.

I had the opportunity to stream the event live on the military page on Bismarck State College's website. We streamed it so that people all over the country could view it and feel part of it. That is what makes streaming video so cool, it is usually free and if its done right, its like you are there. We were hoping for better streaming numbers, but did end up with 104 viewers from six different states.

One of the many things the ceremony included, was a Skype conversation between a deployed soldier and his family. His six-year-old son was there and surprised his dad with a poster he had made. I wasn't in the room at the time, as I was in a room across the hall directing the show. I could imagine that when the little boy told his dad that he loved him and that he was proud of him, that some people got a bit teary eyed. I got pretty choked up and had a hard time telling the camera operator what kind of shot I needed.

I think social media can play an extremely important role in keeping friends and family contacted as they go through tough times like being deployed and serving our country. Whether it is a simple status update on Facebook, a Tweet or maybe even a Skype conversation, I think any of them make life easier for both the soldier and the loved ones. This is definitely a benefit of Social Media and the World Wide Web.

9/11 Symposium

For those of you who read my blog two weeks ago you will recall that I am involved with a upcoming symposium on the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Its called September 11th: Ten Years Later, Impact on the Heartland.    

New new media will play a large roll in this event. If you visit our homepage on our website, you will find that we have a Twitter feed. One can also like any articles that they read on their Facebook page. Another way of new media is streaming live video. You can watch the live stream here. The symposium is set to begin Friday, September 9 at 8:30 am. We are going to be streaming all day until about 6pm. We will also be streaming Peter Bergen to a private audience. Peter Bergen was one of only a few who ever interviewed Osama Bin Laden. Then Saturday, September, 10 we again start at 8am and will go until 6pm.

Some of the other new media we are using is Skype. We have purchased to iPad 2's and have sent them one of them to Washington D.C., New York City, and Pennsylvania. We have a reporter who will be live at each location and will let us know whats happening at the sites of the crashes. The iPad 2's have both a front and rear camera so the reporter will be able to switch between the two cameras to get the appropriate shots. We have 3G running on all the iPads so as long as we have a strong cellphone service we should be ok. However, we are dealing with technology and we never know what can happen.

During the live streaming video, you will see graphics on screen, along with Powerpoint presentations, videos and a lot more. It will be a couple of long days, but it will be interesting listening to all the wonderful speakers we have coming.

Remember to check out the stream if you have sometime this Friday and Saturday.