"I hope it won't cause you too much apoplexy"

Dr. Brian Winston, originally uploaded by gorgeoux.

Live blogging: Media Futures Conference 2008. Opening keynote: Unknown unknowns, aassessing media futures, introduced and moderated by Peter Day.

I thought the Media Futures Conference 2008 taking place today at Alexandra Palace will look like last year's MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival. At least, I thought, it would be to Mashed what Edinburgh's annual meeting was to the first tvunfestival07 (the unconference). Throughout the day I hope to tell you whether my first impression is right, that what we have here today is of a different breed: more academic, more relevantly talkative, and more chilled.

So far, the level of posh media executives is quite low, though I did spot the most fashionably outrageous pair of purple shoes... on a man. The projection screen is terribly small for the audience, and I don't see how that wasn't tested and adjusted. Though this speaker has good rhetoric, great points, and a helpful presentation (invisible on the screen...) on the unknown unknowns, he reads the speech off papers!!! He is not a broadcaster, however, but a Professor (as you might have guessed) of Communications at the University of Lincoln, Dr. Brian Winston. His food for thought:

* Amara's Law: We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.

* His theory, the suppression of radical potential: New technologies are introduced insofar as they don't upset anybody. Society overrules technology.

* A few pieces of advice, which I pray to have gotten right: 1. Avoid the hyperbolic (not every new technology will bring about a revolution) 2. Be hard-nosed (the ultimate question is: so what?) 3. Stop talking about content and innovation (we all have pen and paper, but there's only one Tolstoy) 4. Finesse causality and then 5. The unknown unknowns become clearer.

I believe that, overall, he made an interesting case, well argued, yet not that round and taking far more time than necessary, which produced, as it's always the case at conferences all around the world, a delay. I have retired from the second session already. Work calls.