Hacking the Conference Machine

Let's say you work in Hollywood. Or the contentious zone where Net-based tech and Hollywood overlap. And you have an agenda: transforming the whole entertainment industry.

Now let's say there's a conference with the same overlapping circles — Digital Hollywood — and the same agenda: transforming the industry. What would your subjects, your "tracks", be? What would your topics be? Who would you want for speakers and panelists?

Well, there is such a conference, and there is such an agenda. Digital Hollywood runs from September 19-21 this year at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel.

Here's a sampling:

Monday, September 19
9:00 AM - 10:15 AM
Track I:
OnDemand Television – All-Access All the Time – From the Basic DTV Package, the Premium Package to the PVR Enabled Viewer
Albert Cheng, SVP of Distribution Strategy & Operations, ABC Cable Networks Group
Paul Colichman, Chairman and partner, Regent Entertainment and President , here! TV, LLC
Jeffrey Pollack, Managing Director, Broadcasting & New Media, NASCAR Digital Entertainment
Edward Lichty, Vice President, Business Development, TiVo
Laurie Lawrence, OnDemand & PPV, NBC Universal
Julia Veale, Vice President, Business Development, Showtime Digital Media Group, Showtime Networks Inc.
Aditya Kishore, Media & Entertainment Strategies, The Yankee Group, Moderator

Track II:
Embracing the Connected Consumer - Entertainment, Content and Technology - From the Digital Home to the Mobile and Wi-Fi Universe
Ty Ahmad-Taylor, Director Strategic Planning, Comcast Online
Scott Smyers, Chairman, DLNA Board of Directors, Vice President, Network and Systems Architecture Division, Platform Technology Center of America, Sony Electronics
Tom Powledge, Director, Product Management, Consumer and Client Product Delivery, Symantec Corporation
Julian Humphreys, Vice President, Marketing, TV & STB, Philips Semiconductors
Brian Cooley, Editor-at-Large, CNET.com, Moderator
Additional speaker to be announced
For Session Description & Speaker Bios Click Here

Track III:
Getting the Bling Bling: From Ringtones, Ringtunes, Advertainment to Games & Custom Branded Experience
Bryan Biniak, Senior Vice President/General Manager of Wireless, AGInteractive & President, Agmobile, American Greetings Corporation
Matthew Feldman, co-founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, Versaly Entertainment
Carolynne Schloeder, CEO, Moderati Inc.
Robert Tercek, Executive Vice President, Programming & Chief Strategy Officer, MFORMA
Scott Campbell, US Media & Communications Industry Advisor, UK Trade & Investment, Moderator

Track IV:
The Value of Celebrity Brands in Brand Integration
Benjamin R. Mulcahy, Partner, Entertainment & Media Group, Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, LLP
Ken Hertz, Senior Partner, Goldring Hertz & Lichtenstein LLP
Ken Solomon, Chariman and CEO, Tennis Channel
Robert Hollander, President, Brand Sense Partners
Mariana Danilovic, Managing Director, Hollywood Portfolio, LLC, Moderator
Additional speakers to be announced

10:45 AM - Noon
Track I:
Mobile Games: Advertainment & the Custom Branded Experience
Jeff Nuzzi, Director, Global Marketing, THQ Wireless
Andy Riedel, General Manager Games, Infospace Games
Minard Hamilton, Executive Vice President of Sales and Brand Partnership, JAMDAT Mobile Inc.
John Cahill, Director, Games Operations, Yahoo! Inc.
Disney Mobile, speaker to be announced
Russell G. Weiss, Partner, Morrison & Foerster LLP, Moderator
Additional speakers to be announced

Track II:
Hollywood and the Digital Consumer: How Technology, Content and Services Establish the Next Level of Consumer Entertainment Experience
Blair Westlake, Corporate Vice President, Media/Entertainment & Technology Convergence Group, Microsoft
Jeffrey Calman, EVP, VOD & PPV, Warner Bros.
David Bishop, President, Worldwide Brand Integration, Sony Pictures Entertainment
Ira Rubenstein, Senior Vice President, Sony Pictures Digital, Moderator
Additional speakers to be announced

Track III:
Mobile Music & Video Make-Over – As Mobile and Entertainment Industry Merge – TV, Music and Movies
Bruce Gersh, Senior Vice President Business Development, ABC Entertainment Group
Graeme Ferguson, Director of Global Content Development, Vodafone Group Services Ltd
Lucy Hood, Senior Vice President, Content, News Corp.
Rob Chandhok, Vice President Engineering, QUALCOMM, MediaFLO
George Linardos, Sr. Business Development Manager, Branded Content, Nokia
Ralph Simon, Co-founder Zomba/Jive & Chairman, The Mobilium Group, Los Angeles & Chairman, Mobile Entertainment Forum, Americas, Moderator

Track IV:
IPTV Emergence – The Broadband, Telco, Cable, Studio Content & Technology Strategy
James Henderson, Vice President Corporate Development, Charter Communications
SBC, speaker to be announced
Tom Flanagan, Executive Director, Broadband Strategy, Texas Instruments
Derek Kuhn, P.Eng., Senior Director Marketing and Business Development Media and Entertainment, Alcatel Strategic Solutions & Chairman - Broadband Service Forum, Moderator
Additional speakers to be announced

12:00 Noon – Sponsorship Available
VIP Lunch: Entertainment Financing and Packaging: The Future of Film, TV, Broadband and Wireless

12:30 PM – 1:45 PM
Track I:
Transforming Television: Challenges and Success Strategies for the Future -- From HDTV, Interactive TV, PVRs, VOD and Beyond...
Tim Hanlon, Senior Vice President/Director, Emerging Contacts, Starcom MediaVest Group
Saul Berman, Partner and Global Executive, IBM Business Consulting Services (BCS), Moderator
Additional speakers to be announced

You get the picture. Literally.

This is no less top-down and producer-to-consumer than it ever was. The topics are all about leveraging existing models in cool new ways using new tech. The only speakers are vendors and industry insiders. Follow the money — back to the sponsors.

Nowhere a clue about what original ideas, or technologies, or appoaches, or anything, might come from the digital side of Digital Hollywood, except from big vendors like IBM.

Of course, there are plenty of openings there. Maybe if we fill them with some of our people, the story will be different. But given the thrust of the topics, it's hard to imagine. Still, I know some of the people involved with Digital Hollywood. Their minds aren't closed. They're just dealing with a system that has enormous flywheels, in a community that has been talking, mostly to itself, for years.

What we need here is independence. Which is the larger context for everything anyway, already: for IT, the Net, open source, DIY-IT, independent development, and what Dave Winer (an independent developer) calls "users and developers, diggin' together".

The independence that matters is from vendors, true. But at a higher level what we all need is independence from the usual ways vendors spend money. And from the usual reasons.

We learn far more lately from each other than we do from the Usual Suspects. The distribution of knowledge is far thicker in the audience than it is on the stage. But both audience and stage need to recognize that fact.

This doesn't mean we fire the sponsors, the organizers or the usual suspects. It means the artist formerly known as the audience assumes power in the system.