Brooke: It is highly likely you're reading posts I'm not, because I haven't seen the ones you've brought up. If you find links, I'd like 'em, because then I could speak from the same knowledge base as you. The PGA credits thing... I've been having a lot of sympathy for them lately, believe it or not. They had to come up with something they could *measure*, a concrete objective membership criteria. Remember we went through this same awful, awful discussion with TAG, and found it to be a losing game all around. So the PGA went with something they could measure for their purposes. And they'll change it, or they won't. But meanwhile, the film-producers community isn't the whole of transmedia, and focusing on their definition might just be giving them a lot more relative weight and authority than they deserve. The community as a whole seems to by and large recognize a bigger spectrum of transmedia, too -- I mean, people like me and Steve aren't exactly on the franchise end of things, but we're sure getting invited to enough conferences to talk about transmedia. At the end of the day, I am just not feeling marginalized.

Brent: I see what you mean about internal consistency. I think that might be more a style thing, though, than a defining point. Story universes with a consistent tone and air-tight canon are in style right now, but that might just be the audience's taste for the moment. In the future, we might see the fashion change to incorporate less certainty; think of Rashomon-style narratives, where you get a different idea of what might have happened if you consider differing pieces of the experiences. Or creators playing with a palette of distinct tones: One piece as a comedy, one as an adventure, another as horror, etc.

Ulfisch, while that does sound like an interesting and innovative project, this isn't the right venue for promoting your work. I'm leaving your comment up, but please don't link a project without adding to the conversation in the future.

Brent, you're right, and working out what a fragment is would probably be the next big debate. I don't know that I'd agree with "fractal," though. My initial reaction is that it carries an implication that each discrete fragment will have a beginning, middle, and end... which winds up excluding story told with much many smaller fragments that aren't capable of carrying that much narrative weight on their own. I'll have to mull it over a little more before I'm sure what I think, though!

Lucas: I'm glad you like the post. I do feel like there's a lot of consensus in broad strokes, and the question is all about how to exclude the things that fall off the ends of the spectrum -- epic fantasy series on the one side, and maybe stuff like Dictionary of the Khazars on the other end. Scott: I will not take that bait, for now. That way lies only needless complication.

Thanks for the kind words, Klimo! ^_^

Kevin, given that Breakthrough is a human rights group, the process we went through involved finding areas where human rights are or could be in jeopardy, and imagining a future where it all gets worse rather than better. We did a fair amount of research to make sure the future was somewhat plausible, but I'd still call it more a work of science fiction than of outright futurism. It certainly isn't an outcome I expect to see!

geologylady: I hear you on Facebook... I only have a shell of a testing account, myself, with no friends! But the game is a Facebook app at its heart, and I don't think you'd get anything close to the intended experience without it. It would be like trying to get the story of Star Wars just from collecting the action figures.

Dee, those are some fascinating numbers. I've been scanning a couple of other conferences for reference, too, but haven't done a total breakdown for all of 'em. My findings: Digital Hollywood has women in their lineup, but it looks pretty unbalanced on a quick scan (I am too lazy to count that high, though): http://digitalhollywood.com/NewYorkAgenda.html Futures of Entertainment actually does a stellar job: http://www.convergenceculture.org/events/ And ARGfest 2010 did, as well: http://2010.argfestocon.com/conference/con-schedule/ And Transmedia, Hollywood 2 is looking great: http://legacy.tft.ucla.edu/transmedia/index.cfm?action=schedule But TEDxTransmedia was 8 to 2: http://tedxtransmedia.com/2010/ DIY Days was 19 to 5: http://nyc.diydays.com/schedule/ Eyeballing PttP's 2010 London Forum puts it at about 3 to 1, I think: http://www.powertothepixel.com/events-and-training/pttp-events/london-forum-2010/speakers

Robert, what you're saying and what I'm saying have nothing to do with each other. I'm confident that you are correct, and that Alison has nothing but the best intentions, and is working very hard to further transmedia. Indeed, I'm so very sure of this that I've been saying everything in as gentle a way as I know how. Nonetheless, the list is largely male, and this in a field with no lack of amazing women working in it. This is something we have to start to address, and the longer we wait, the harder it's going to be to change. So I am raising the warning flag that there are additional criteria we need to be considering in coming up with well-balanced lists of advisors, speakers, influencers, or what have you. This is not in any way a criticism of *Alison as a person.* It is a criticism of the process that ended with this list, and similar processes being conducted elsewhere that end with the same homogenous results.

Thanks, Hollyoak and Scott! Sometimes you just get lucky. ^_^

ChiaLynn, your Twitter list sounds like a great resource. Please do link to it when you get a chance. Lksriv: Ah, your under-represented comment read as broader in scope than that to me. To unpack my statement a little: The reason I am making a list of women in transmedia, and soliciting more names, is to demonstrate that there is no shortage of qualified industry representatives available for speaking/interviewing/advising. There is under-representation at the conference and mainstream media level, yes, but not at the people-doing-the-work level. And for moving forward toward change: The first step is identifying the problem, right? The squeaky wheel... So calling attention to the StoryWorld advisory board and suggesting women who might be added to similar rosters in the future is at least a start. Obviously there's a lot more to it. I would hope that this conversation moves out of the tiny circle of my blog here -- and that it would affect hearts and minds of those soliciting speakers, panelists, interviewees. Ideally this would spur a knock-on effect where everyone consciously examines who they are considering for these roles and branches out to include new and differing voices. But hey, I'm an idealist. If anyone has a more concrete suggestion for a way to address it beyond "talking about it very loudly," than I'd be pretty darn gung-ho. I'm not personally in a position to organize conferences. What resources should exist to help conference organizers and journalists build more diverse lists of resources to draw on?