Sheffield Doc/Fest have delved in to their extensive back catalogue of brilliant sessions and set up the Sheffield Doc/Fest Podcast on iTunes, a weekly opportunity to listen to the best in documentary and digital impart their wisdom. One of the highlights of the sessions is from the Crossover Summit in 2009 featuring internationally renowned writer and commentator Steven Johnson. Johnson questions the challenges faced by producers of films, TV, games and new media in a world of ever-increasing ‘digitally literature’ users, finding the answer in the 18th century coffee house. These coffee houses mimic the modern need and want for cross-platform spaces, combining people’s talents and their specializations to inform new ideas and innovative technologies to meet an increasingly fragmenting digital landscape. Johnson demonstrates to his audience how we can no longer think of products as something whole, finished and complete. Products need to become platforms, places for adding onto, adapting and then adopting. Intelligent platforms that people can participate with directly rather than passively consume and expose of. Johnson uses examples of successful platforms such as TV shows Lost, social media networks Twitter and funding initiatives like KickStarter. This podcast proves an interesting insight on how cross-platform technology is the inevitable way forward in order to create new and exciting forms of communication and creativity. To listen to the podcast search for Sheffield Doc/Fest on iTunes and download.
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