The impetus for this blog entry was the fact that several IAWTV members had expressed disappointment at not being able to attend Wednesday night’s LA IAWTV Town Hall meeting. I quipped to Mercury Men and Captain Blasto creator Chris Preska that I would be his secretary and take notes for him (did you get your bagel yet, Chris?). During the actual meeting, I would periodically check my Twitter feed, just to see if there were any thoughts being posted about the meeting…and overwhelmingly, I saw members of the web entertainment community with a desire for information about what was being discussed. Some responded with comedy (yes, Milowent, it indeed WAS announced that you will be the next host of the Streamy Awards), some came with honest and important questions that they hoped someone in the room would read and get addressed by the Board.
This proved to me that there is a great need for the discussions and issues brought up in these meetings to make their way out into the internet community at large. It is not enough that we call for transparency within the IAWTV itself, but it needs to flow outward and beyond us. Michael Wayne, current Chairman of the IAWTV, was very clear in saying that the Board of Directors of the IAWTV is only there to serve the IAWTV as a whole. I think it is equally important to distinguish that the IAWTV in turn serves the entire internet community as a whole and we have a responsibility to them, just as the Board of Directors does to the IAWTV.
But I can’t take credit for this being my idea alone. I think one of the happy ironies that has come out of this meeting is the fact that the one creator currently on the Board of Directors was not able to attend it because she was, well, creating web content. Because of this, she was able to instead share her thoughts in a more public manner. There is also a fantastic episode of New Mediacracy, which gathered some of the most vocal and passionate members of the organization and got their thoughts down in a podcast recorded directly after the meeting. And there is the always astute observations of the lovely Liz Miller at NewTeeVee, which, honestly, are much more succinct then I am about to be, so those who want a much shorter summary should just pop over there.
With that said, here are is my summary and thoughts of the night. Any opinions expressed are mine alone as a member of the IAWTV. I apologize in advance for the length.
The night began with IAWTV Chairman Michael Wayne pointing out the awkwardness of the setup of the room. He and the other board members as well as the about-to-be-announced Executive Director Elisabeth Flack, sat behind microphones and a long table, facing the rest of the room. And while it was instantly acknowledged that it just didn’t feel right, it highlighted the core theme of the evening: things HAVE to change.
And while, frustratingly, there was no official set agenda for the meeting, Michael did open the meeting with 3 goals in mind:
1) Getting everyone on the same page on how exactly the IAWTV and its relationship to the Streamy Awards was created.
2) Making it clear that this is only the beginning of the dialogue and a forum now exists for continuing discussion beyond the current meeting.
3) Begin explaining possible initiatives and outlining ways members can get involved.
We sort of got to all this in the three hour meeting that followed.
Objective 1 got off to a good start with the explanation that the Tubefilter team (long before I began writing for them) selected the original IAWTV in an informal fashion. After the 1st Streamy Awards, that initial group of IAWTV members felt that forming a non-profit corporation would best serve the organization. That is still the plan, though the paperwork has not yet been filed (Liz Miller later updated her article to include a quote from Brady Brim-Deforest on this issue: “The IAWTV is a Nonprofit corporation registered with the State of California. While we have not yet filed our application for federal tax-exempt status (the IRS gives non-profit organizations up to 24 months to file) the application is currently in progress.”)
It was off of this wave of euphoria and excitement over future prospects that the IAWTV probably hit its first major hiccup. As Michael put it: “We hoped for the best but never planned for the worst”. The board went into the second Streamy Awards assuming they would not only be as successful as the first…but more successful. Worrying about the content of the show did not occur to them. Historically, they formed the opposite way than is traditional: they formed an organization AROUND an award show as opposed to developing an awards show out of an organization.
So the glaring flaw was out on the table: the Board of Directors is not a functioning board at the moment. They have had only had 2 official board meetings, one to pick the Visionary Award winner for the 2nd Annual Streamys and the 2nd was supposed to consist of Elisabeth presenting a possible roadmap of the organization going forward. But that became derailed by dealing with the aftermath of the 2nd Streamy Awards. (It is important to note that though of course, talk of the ceremony was peppered throughout the conversation, on the whole, no one tried to rehash the nitty gritty of the ceremony itself)
This is basically the point at which people started to throw their thoughts into the conversation. People wanted to understand how it is possible for a for-profit awards show and a non-profit organization to work together, especially when there are quite a few conflict of interest situations going on. This conversation then went on to point out another area in which the organization needs to improve: in its infrastructure.
It was revealed that the current Board of Directors is slated to stay in their positions until December 3rd, 2010. This was met with mixed reactions. There were definitely indications that that may be too long for many who feel that the current configuration of the board does not accurately represent the community (something which has come up again and again). It was vocalized at one point that no one has quit since the Streamy Awards and that there is feelings that there were no consequences following. It was reiterated several times that even Tubefilter is aware that there should not be 5 members of Tubefilter on the Board. But Michael was very clear to clarify that the original reaction of feeling as if there was going to be a “hostile takeover” have passed and the Board and Tubefilter want nothing more than to work together to come up with a solution. The infamous “Rebuild the Trust” site has now been taken down. “We are all content creators…we all love drama,” Michael quipped. But now it’s time to move on and correct the situation.
This moved into discussion of some of the changes that the Board plans to implement. A member forum is now live (though there was lively discussion, especially across Twitter, of whether or not it should be open to the wider community, or at least have a section there is open). There will be monthly e-mail newsletters as well as weekly conference calls. There is still plans to create 22 Peer Groups but at the present moment, there still aren’t enough people in each of the groups to fill them. An org chart was called for, which is now available, though the list of by-laws, which was also requested, is not yet available. Update: the by-laws are also now available.
The conversation then turned to HOW these changes were going to be implemented and how soon. Another major theme of the night was the desire and need to act NOW. Many members in the room expressed frustration at not being able to make changes at a faster rate when most of us are used to working in the fast-paced world of New Media and that we specifically work in this field because of the freedom of doing it our own way and that the IAWTV needs to adapt to that. There was a call for more leadership and a Board that is more proactive. There were calls for a visionary meeting, where the exact mission of the IAWTV can be broadened upon. The current mission statement, which basically says the IAWTV is nothing more than a group of web professionals devoted to voting on and awarding the Streamy Awards, is far too limiting and not what anyone wants the organization to be (though it was humorously pointed out that at least we can take comfort in the fact that the IAWTV DID do what it was originally set up to do…it gave out awards).
The meeting wound down with an announcement of when the next meeting will be held (in a month) and the reiteration that the Board will come to that meeting with a set agenda, the most important components of which will include a roadmap for the vision of the organization (which the membership will have complete control over discussing and changing) and a proposed decision on what the relationship between the Streamy Awards and the IAWTV will be (if any).
This summary is my no means completely exhaustive. I was taking notes by hand and choose not to direct quote any members for privacy reasons (another point brought up several times at the meeting, mostly in the context of a complete IAWTV member list still not being available), besides Michael Wayne, the IAWTV Chairman. If you do have any direct questions or want clarifications of specific topics, you can post them in the comments section and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability.
If you’ve made it this far, I humbly thank you. 
Thanks so much for keeping track and writing all this out, JP!
Between you, Steve, and Liz, I now have a much clearer idea of which parts of the meeting to be frustrated with and which arts to be encouraged by.
-Jeff
From far outside the bubble, way up here in Canada, I’ve been following this ongoing drama. As a content creator I’m busy getting work done toward launching our show. Some form of new media advocacy, by way of a professional organization, will be important as the online content landscape takes shape. Among the recurring issues I’ve seen brought up in the wake of the Streamy debacle has been the insular nature of IAWTV. Beyond the questionable makeup of the board, it seems quite a few legitimate creators have been turned away and refused membership without explanation. The ‘I’ in IAWTV seems a little pretentious when the organization seems to be comprised of a handful of people in New York and L.A. Again, a mirror of the flaws of the old media, an insider clique. The real beauty and power of the web is that it is not centralized and content does not derive solely from those two locations. To imagine otherwise is to abandon credibility and the rest of the world will move on while the handful of IAWTV members congratulate each other.
You simply cannot be a representative organization when you comprise so few members in such a limited circle. Content is generated world wide and that is your constituency. To pretend that a few insiders in a room in L.A. can begin to cover the concerns and issues facing web series creators is beyond arrogant. IAWTV has to open the doors or admit defeat, it can’t be an exclusive club meeting in a room. Your problems go far beyond a screwed up award show. To be relevant, the circle must expand geographically as well as in terms of content and format. Given the technical prowess of the membership, a membership meeting should be available on uStream at the very least.
If the IAWTV is to become the professional voice of online content creators, then it simply must start to behave in a professional manner. No agenda for a meeting of this sort just smacks of a lack of due diligence and a failure of comprehension. No bylaws available to a membership, limited as it is, that has paid its dues? No available criteria for denial of membership to credible creators? No accountability or oversight for the public relations disaster that was perpetrated in the name of the organization and with repercussions that tarnish web creators far beyond the confines of New York and L.A.? Not one member of the board has fallen on a sword? The optics from this distance are very poor.
I sincerely hope that IAWTV gets its act together in very short order or it will be no more than a small exercise in vanity, doing more harm than good.
Thank you for your thoughts Lindsay. In my opinion, hearing from content creators like yourself, who truly embody the “International” in IAWTV, is imperative as we continue to try and approve upon this organization because you are very right, if the doors aren’t opened, it is doomed for failure.
But I also do have to stress that this is a two-way street. Before we can be international, international creators have to be willing to join. I know of several extremely qualified international creators who simply choose not to apply for various reasons. One of the (totally valid) reasons is that the one big incentive that was offered during this round of applications was the fact that your dues entitled you to a ticket to the Streamy Awards, which is not a viable reward to someone who lives in another country.
So in turn, we need international leaders in the industry to come forth and join the organization in order to extend their voices but the IAWTV is also responsible for fostering an environment where these international creators feel more welcome.
I would also like to reiterate that the bi-laws are now available to the membership as of this morning and a thread in the newly created forum is dedicated to discussion how exactly the membership application/rejection process worked. No movement is starting to take hold.
Hi Jenni and thank you. One of the things that seems to be a bit of a catch 22 is that the organization needs to bring in membership from further afield, yet the doors seem closed to such potential members. Currently, the six week window for application is shut until an unstated date in the autumn. Then there is the mystery of the approval process to contend with. With the doors to membership closed, the forums too are closed so there is an echo chamber left until such time as new voices are recruited. I downloaded the bylaws and will take a look at them this evening. That is at least a first step toward transparency. As Judecast, the show I am working on, builds toward launch there are a lot of details, obligations and headaches to contend with.
Like every other show, we’re scrambling to get our footing and create something to be proud of. We have our own unique issues in terms of jurisdiction, unions and guilds and no voice that speaks to the needs of smaller, artist driven enterprise. I sincerely hope that an organization like IAWTV might become that and I for one am willing to contribute where I can. As a creator in a new field, I feel that I have a vested interest in the success of my peers both locally and in other regions. Every success, every victory lends us all credibility when we approach funders, sponsors and suppliers. We face some unique challenges and we are blessed with some unique opportunities. I’ll continue to pull for the success of web content creators and for the IAWTV to get itself together. Some of the issues facing the team I work with would be far easier with the strength of a collective voice, a negotiating body.
Web creators are a pretty feisty lot, presumptuous enough to think we can create great shows without millions of dollars in pocket. I don’t imagine I’m the only interested party out in the hinterlands. I do think that IAWTV needs to make some essential changes much sooner than later. There is a will to see the state of affairs improve and the organization has been granted a goodly length of rope, here’s hoping it is used to fashion a net instead of a noose.
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