June was busy for FMC staff, with panel appearances, discussions and special events throughout the month.
At the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis, FMC’s Michael Bracy and Ann Chaitovitz were joined by board member Bryan Calhoun for a panel called “In the Mix: Understanding New Music Services and the Bottom Line.” The room was so packed that we ran out of handouts! FMC also co-hosted a cocktail party with Media and Democracy Coalition and The Media Consortium to preview our upcoming benefit CD, Rock the Net: Musicians for Net Neutrality. You can listen to the NCMR panel discussion here.
That same weekend, Alex Maiolo from FMC’s Health Insurance Navigation Tool (HINT) headed down to New Orleans for PotLuckCon (formerly TapeOp), where he gave health insurance advice to the musicians, engineers and producers in attendance. There’s no footage of Alex in the Big Easy, but the HINT website has a great YouTube clip of him explaining how HINT works. Check it out.
In mid-June, FMC’s Kristin Thomson participated in Ignite: Philly, where each presenter had 5 minutes and 20 powerpoint slides — set to rotate every 15 seconds — to ignite a conversation. Kristin talked about the transition away from music as a physical product, suggesting that the future of music will likely be about access, not ownership. Watch the presentation here.
In June, FMC’s Michael Bracy also appeared at the Campus Progress National Conference in DC, where he spoke on a panel called “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Free Expression: Determining the Future of the Internet,” alongside representatives from Media Alliance, the Motion Picture Association of America, the Center for Social Media and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.