We’re deep in the planning process for V3, the Asian American Digital Media Conference, scheduled for Aug. 25 at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles with an Opening Night Reception and Awards ceremony on Friday, Aug. 24 at the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena. Most of the panelists are set and confirmed. We’re lining up performers like Jane Lui (shown here) to take the stage at the Opening Night soiree.
If you’re Asian American, a blogger, a social media maven, a journalist or just a fan of artists like Lui or David Choi or Clara C, or a reader of bloggers like Phil Yu of Angry Asian Man, Jen Wang of Disgrasian or Jeff Yang of the Wall Street Journal, you won’t want to miss this ultra-cool event.
They’ll all be there. Or V there. So don’t be square.
And, the low Early Bird price is only available through tomorrow, so register today and you can feel good about being oh-so-Asian frugal. If you’re a slacker Asian (like me), the pre-registration price ain’t so bad, only $10 more. If you’re traveling from outside SoCal, we’ve arranged for pretty good rates at the Miyako Hotel in Little Tokyo, just half a block from JANM and across the street from a row of ramen shops. Yowsa!
The V3con, if you’re new to Nikkei View, is the evolution of the Banana Conference of Asian American Bloggers, which was held in 2009 and again in 2011. It’s being presented by the LA chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association, with huge help from IW Group, an Asian American marketing/PR agency, and it covers an expanded scope than Banana. It’s not just about blogging, but instead will cover the intersection between bloggers and journalists, as well as the larger universe of digital media including video and social media.
This year, with more rooms to work with (last year’s Banana was a series of panels held in one room; B1 was one long panel in a college lecture hall), we can focus on multiple topics.
First, we’ll have two plenary sessions in the morning: One about the increasing visibility of Asians in mainstream media, in Hollywood and even TV commercials. The second plenary will be about the incredible success of Asians in video and especially, on YouTube. You’ll be able to see both of them, because they’ll be repeated (after you see one plenary, you’ll be able to attend the second session of the other plenary).
Then after a lunch break that includes a gadget demo and JANM museum tour (attendees will be fed both breakfast and lunch as part of their registration fee!), we’ll start the panels. They’ll run the range of subjects including Asian Americans covering Sports online; AAPI fashion bloggers; food bloggers; the Business of Blogging (how do you make money at this stuff, anyway?); how AAPI non-profit organizations are adapting to digital media; AAPIs’ digital presence in politics; Asian Ams in comics, manga and anime online; Asian American authors’ take on the eBooks revolution.
I’m moderating a panel called “Journalism vs Blogging: Where’s filial piety online?” that will feature both bloggers (the aforementioned Angry Asian Man among them) and journalists that will discuss how journalism is embracing (or being forced to embrace) blogging, and the role each side plays in the new media ecosystem. Should be fun — sort of a lively cross-generational throwdown.
But wait! There’s more! The Opening Night Reception and Awards Ceremony will featured MSNBC anchor-reporter Richard Lui, and very visible AAPI presence over the airwaves. Singer-songwriter Jane Lui will perform, as will up-and-coming artist Ipo Pharr. (Connie Lim, who originally was booked to be at Opening Night, had to cancel because she’ll unfortunately be out of the country for family reasons.)
The Awards will be special too. We’ll give out three awards with two to be announced, but the top award, the “Vision” award for Lifetime Achievement, goes to — ta dah! — Jeff Yang, who founded A Magazine way back n the day, has written a bunch of books about Asian America and Asian pop culture, wrote “Asian Pop” for the SF Chronicle until they stupidly cut the column, and now is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog with his Tao Jones posts (great name — did he choose it or the WSJ?).
We’re adding more amazing stuff to both days, so check back on the V3con website for the latest updates. BTW, use the hashtag #V3con for all yer tweeting — thanks!
Here’s a rundown of the Saturday sessions (you can find the official conference schedule here and a page of brief bios of our presenters here):
Plenary: Asian Spotting in the Traditional Media
David Ono, ABC7 (Moderator)
Jeff Yang, Wall Street Journal
Richard Lui, MSNBC
Joz Wang, AAJA-LA / 8Asians
Plenary: Lights, Camera, Action: Asian Americans on YouTube
Frank Buckley, KTLA (Moderator)
David Choi, Singer-songwriter
Clara Chung, Singer-songwriter
Stephen Dypiangco, National Film Society
Byte-sized bites: AAPIs spice up food blogging
Susan Hirasuna, Fox11 (Moderator)
Cathy Chaplin, Gastronomy Blog
Anita Lau, Diary of a Mad Hungry Woman
Nguyen Tran, Starry Kitchen
Facetime: FashionAsians online
Jen Wang, Disgrasian (Moderator)
Kelly Cook, Bagsnob
Tommy Lei, One Straight One Gay
TBA
Where is Asian America in Politics?
Richard Lui, MSNBC
Bill Wong, Political Strategist
Taz Ahmed, Civic Engagement Project
TBA
Non-profits and digital media: How do AAPI non-profit orgs use the web effectively?
Teddy Zee, Hollywood Producer (Moderator)
Debra Suh, Center for the Pacific Asian Family
Dianne Belli, Keiro
Eileen Ma, API Equality-LA
Koji Steven Sakai, Japanese American National Museum
The business of blogging
Ted Nguyen, Ted Nguyen USA
Sheila Bernus Dowd, Clever Girls Collective
Sonali Pathak, iVillage
TBA
Journalism vs Blogging: Where’s filial piety online?
Gil Asakawa, NikkeiView.com
Phil Yu, Angry Asian Man
Slanty, Slant Eye for the Round Eye /Slantyapolis
Alden Habacon, Schema Magazine
Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times
Getting in on the action: Covering sports in the social media era
Angela Sun, Yahoo Sports
Ren Hsieh, The Dynasty Project
Don Yee, Sports Agent
Jenn DelaFuente, Rosebud Designs, former sports writer
Skills & tools you can use: WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Posterous and more (Hands-on workshop)
Kim Bui, KPCC
Cover to cover: Are AAPIs embracing eBooks?
Naomi Hirahara, Author of Mas Arai mystery series (Moderator)
Erika Hayasaki, Assistant Professor of Literary Journalism, UC Irvine
Chiwan Choi, poet
Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, editor, author, eBooks and on-demand consultant
Comic relief: Anime and Manga in the digital era
Jeff Yang, Secret Identities (Moderator)
Colin Goh & Yen Yen Woo, Yumcha Studios
Kun Gao, CrunchyRoll
Lela Lee, Angry Little Asian Girl
For the health of it – AAPI bloggers & online media-ites who cover health
Denise Dador, ABC7 (Moderator)
LiAnn Ishizuka, Team Janet
TBA
Social Media’s impact: Is it the future of news?
TBA (Moderator)
Lisa Lee, Facebook / Hyphen
TBA
TBA
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