Tickets are FREE but space is limited. Registration is NOW OPEN.

Full speaker list and program coming mid February. We are still looking for projects and speakers. Those interested please send a description of what you’d be interested in sharing to work [@] workbookproject [dot] com

Topics include

Prototyping the future – tapping technology to tell 21st Century stories
Story Architecture – a primer on how to tell immersive stories that move beyond a single screen
Measuring Engagement – a look at current and emerging ways to measure success
Experiential learning – where storytelling, collaboration, and technology combine to ignite the imaginations of students.
Transmedia and Activism – using storytelling to mobilize and effect social change.
Collaborative Writing – tapping a collaborative process to unlock richer storytelling.
Building Value - a look at collaborating with those formally known as the audience
What are you working on and what do you need? – attendees can take the mic and share what they are working on.
Your Digital Footprint – a look at the realities of data in the 21st Century.
Digital Literacy – a look at how to bridge the digital divide.

Open Design

Those who attend DIY DAYS will be given a unique opportunity to build a collaborative storyworld. The storyworld and the prototyping that is done throughout the day will be released under a creative commons license as well as being prepared as an experiential learning kit. This will be accomplished through a number of special collaborative exercises.

Wish for the Future – the second chapter in a participatory storytelling trilogy, Wish for the Future will provide attendees of DIY DAYS an opportunity to experience an open design process. From collaborative writing, to experience design, to rapid prototyping exercises – attendees will be able to step into an open design process that invites the imagination of many.

World Game – join the Buckminster Fuller Institute as they run a number of World Game simulations. In the 1960′s Buckminster Fuller proposed a “great logistics game” and “world peace game” (later shortened to simply, the “World Game”) that was intended to be a tool that would facilitate a comprehensive, anticipatory, design science approach to the problems of the world. The use of “world” in the title obviously refers to Fuller’s global perspective and his contention that we now need a systems approach that deals with the world as a whole, and not a piece meal approach that tackles our problems in what he called a “local focus hocus pocus” manner. The entire world is now the relevant unit of analysis, not the city, state or nation.
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Time Machine Rooms – a collaboration with Story Pirates will enable a co-created storyworld that is lead by the imagination of elementary school children. The students will represent a voice from the future as well as prototyping a number of inventions from the future.

Writer’s Room – a writer’s room works throughout the day taking in variables from attendees that will impact the creation of an open storyworld that will fuel the end of the day performance.

Rapid Prototyping Room a partnership between Parsons and the Makerbot community will power a rapid prototyping room for those who attend DIY DAYS enabling them to turn ideas about the future into something tangible.

Occupy – step into an open design process around an official OWS conflict resolution application. From paper testing to conflict resolution role playing, participants will be invited into a collaborative design process.

Transmedia Talk

This Workbook Project podcast features in-depth conversations about transmedia narrative, theory, strategy, finance, and distribution with transmedia practitioners, from award-winning agency leaders to fresh independent artists. Past guests have included: Andrea Philips, Mike Monello, Jeff Gomez, Lance Weiler and Brian Clark. At DIY Days, The Transmedia Talk team will record on-the-spot interviews, fireside chats, and casual drop-ins. All content will later be posted at WorkBookProject.com. Transmedia Talk is Nick Braccia, Dee Cook, Haley Moore and Robert Pratten.

Nick Braccia is a Creative Director at G2 in NYC and has also managed teams in LA and SF to create content programs for EA games Dead Space 2 and Dante’s Inferno. Currently, he leads digital creative initiatives for the NFL, Hertz and Pepperidge Farm Goldfish. Since 2001, he’s explored his passion for immersive narrative, contributing to Dave Szulborski’s ARGs “Catching the Wish” and “Unnatural Selection” as well as multiple games and apps for Random House. He hosts of the Transmedia Talk podcast.

Dee Cook was elated to discover the world of interactive storytelling because, at that moment, she finally discovered what she wanted to do when she grew up. Dee finds herself most at home with her sleeves rolled up and the grease of a good story under her fingernails. In the last several years she has written, designed, and consulted on a score of alternate reality games, extended realities, and marketing campaigns, including World Without Oil, Dead Space, True Blood, and Verizon’s My Home 2.0. She has also spoken at SXSW and ApolloCon about alternate reality games.

Haley Moore is a freelance creator whose passion is telling stories through objects. She has planted her art for Alternate Reality Game players to discover online, at dead drops, and in encounters with real world characters across the U.S. Her work includes Dave Szulborski’s games “Catching the Wish” and “Monster Hunter Club,” interactive installation work for TEDxSMU, and many stand-alone object stories. She has also presented at ARGFest-o-Con on the art of creating story artifacts. Haley is a co-host of the Transmedia Talk podcast.

Robert Pratten is CEO and Founder of Transmedia Storyteller, an audience engagement company and provider of Conducttr, an interactive marketing and storytelling platform. He has more than 20 years experience as an international marketing consultant and has established himself as a thought-leader in the field of transmedia storytelling. He is author of the book Getting Started in Transmedia Storytelling: A Practical Guide for Beginners.

Oct 27th help us empower at-risk kids and reboot education.

We’re looking for some talented hackers in the LA area to take part in an exciting hack for social good. The goal is to create prototypes that places education directly in students’ hands in an effort to unlock creativity in at-risk students.

On Oct 27th we’ll be staging a hackathon in association with the Mozilla Foundation, DIY DAYS, the WorkBook Project, Open Access Week and UCLA.

The goal is to develop prototypes that help to reboot education.

Prototypes will be presented on stage on Oct 28th at the close of DIY DAYS in front of an audience as well as a special panel of angel investors, NGOs and educators.

DETAILS:

Hackathon takes place Oct 27th (11am to 10:30pm)
@ Charles E. Young Research Library on UCLA’s campus

Come with a team or come and find a team to work with. This is a social hack that is intended to be fun and for a very good cause. The goal is to help reboot aspects of the educational system, find ways to empower students and learning while at the same time having fun.

Food and drink supplied by your friends at the Mozilla Foundation.

BUT ITS NOT JUST FOR HACKERS

It’s not enough to bust a hack—you need to spread the word.

We’re inviting creative people of all stripes to help communicate what the teams have made over the course of the hackfest.

Bring a camera, bring your thinking cap, and help the teams advertise the fruits of their labors.

Will you make a movie-style trailer for their hack? An web-based interactive intro? A slidecast?

Help these ideas spread by catching the world’s attention. Everyone of all skill levels is welcome.

SPACE is limited so if you are interested in taking part please send an email to work@workbookproject.com with the subject “hack for social good.”

A message from Caine’s Arcade director Nirvan Mullick

I’m excited to premiere “Caine’s Arcade” at DIY Days, a mini-documentary about an elaborate cardboard arcade made by a 9 year old boy in his dad’s used auto parts store. Caine had almost no customers until the internet joined together to make Caine’s day. Caine will be at DIY Days in person to staff his cardboard arcade, and will also be joining me on stage to answer any questions. Come and get your Fun Pass!

9 year old Caine spent the summer building an elaborate DIY arcade out of cardboard boxes inside his dad’s used auto parts store in East LA, and dreaming of having lots of customers come play his games. Unfortunately, the auto store gets almost zero foot traffic, so no one came to play. Then one day, the internet found out about Caine’s Arcade, and decided to surprise him with some unexpected customers, flashmob style. Caine’s Arcade shows what can happen when imagination meets cardboard, inspiring the internets to help a 9 year old’s dream come true.

For more on Caine’s Arcade

You can see photos of Caine’s Arcade on his facebook page:
www.Facebook.com/CainesArcade

http://twitter.com/CainesArcade

What David will be doing at DIY DAYS

Ownership vs. Access in Edutainment

UCLA professor David Shorter maps the uneven terrain of Open Access in the academic and filmmaking environments. Discussing his previous work with developers, programmers, directors and screenplay writers, Shorter will offer some models of effective collaboration while discussing some common pitfalls of doing it yourself. This case study presentation will encompass both the digitization of scholarship as well as the production of intelligent entertainment. As academics look to engage new technologies, they find themselves having to discern the “sharing” from the “possessing” of their knowledge. And as directors and writers look to engage scholarly knowledge, they begin to recognize that the seminal moment of storytelling begins with the ideas and creativity of scholars and artists who have a right to profit from their labor.

DIY DAYS asks David

What are you currently working on that you’re excited about?

I have been working on a phone application and website database that will provide tribal users the ability to connect with each in order to revitalize their language and build virtual communities across geographical distance. I’m also very methodically working on my memoir of growing up in rural New Mexico surrounded by aliens, psychics, and ghosts.

What are some of your favorite sites and / or mobile apps and brief why?

Consistently facing my computer, or in my workshop space at home, I rely on music more than coffee to stay awake and energized. Additionally, as a writer, music strongly influences the tone and voice I inhabit while drafting my prose. So I’m digging Stereomood since the query is based on emotions. It’s intriguing that your emotion for “rainy day” might be the same as mine. But that assumption drives the site.

What are you currently watching, reading or playing?

If it comes into my world, it’s through personal contact, or reading, or surfing the web. Accordingly, I’m interested in the webinar or webseries, such as “Aim High.” And if networks like ABC were to make the smart, stylish shows like “Pan Am” free for the watching, I’d be on their sites weekly. Reading wise, it helps my creativity and thinking to have the latest issues of “Lapham’s Quarterly,” “Beautiful Decay,” and my very dog-eared copy of Lao Tzu’s _Hua Hu Ching_.

For More on David and his work visit

Sites:
www.davidshorter.com
http://hemi.nyu.edu/cuaderno/yoeme/content.html
http://www.amazon.com/Will-Dance-Our-Truth-Performances/dp/0803217331<
http://version.org/contributors

Eager to try her hand at producing, she landed assignments as Line Producer on feature films including Desert Blue (1998), starring Kate Hudson and Christina Ricci; But I’m a Cheerleader (1999), starring Natasha Lyonne; and Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her (2000), starring Glenn Close, Cameron Diaz, and Holly Hunter. Brown would soon take on the role of Producer on critically acclaimed, awarding-winning feature projects from HBO Films, including Stranger Inside (directed by Cheryl Dunye, 2001, World Premiere at Sundance Film Festival); Real Women Have Curves (directed by Patricia Cardosa, 2002, winner of Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Award and Special Jury Prize for Ensemble Performance); and Everyday People (2004, Jim McKay). She also executive produced, in association with Sony Screen Gems and Pathe International, In the Cut (2003, directed by Jane Campion).

Embraced by industry peers, Brown received the Motorola Producer Award at the 2003 Independent Spirit Awards, and her alma mater honored her with the 2003 Distinguished Young Alumni Award. She also serves on the board of the FIND / Film Independent.
In 2001, Brown launched her own production company, Duly Noted Inc., where she continues to produce original film projects by emerging and established filmmakers. Demonstrating a continued commitment to championing challenging independent work, Duly Noted Inc. has seven new feature films in development and production, with producing partners that include HBO Films.
Currently, Effie’s latest film Rocket Science won the Sundance 2007 Grand Jury Prize for Directing and will be released theatrically by Picture House.

What Effie will be doing at DIY DAYS

Blending & Bending; Throwing the Movie Making Playbook out the Window

With more energy than two electrons colliding, the fiercely independent producers Effie “Hollywood: Brown and Zeke “DIY” Zelker team up to discuss, debate, listen and learn on their two very different approaches to creating cinema. In today’s creative environment producers need to adapt their approach to tell compelling stories that do much more than jump off the screen. Effie and Zeke are in the midst of producing a multi faceted, multi phase project blending and bending the rules between truth and fiction to create in today’s interactive world.

DIY DAYS asks Effie

What are you currently working on that you’re excited about?

Two things

(1) Zeke Zelker and I are about to launch a multi platformed feature film that will traverse the Alternate Reality Gaming world, Radio (launching new acts) and good old fashioned story telling all the while being funded by Branded sponsors.

(2) * this will most likely have a big announcement in the trades in the next two weeks. Hence why I am being a little vague. I am a part of the producing team that has been commissioned to produce 10 webseries (125 episodes in all) about the lives of women in different walks of life. What makes this series different from the rest is that it will be directed and starring A list Actors and Award winning directors. It is sort of their chance to dip their toe in the new media world. Okay…that’s all I can say about that…I’ve probably already said too much.

What are some of your favorite sites and / or mobile apps and brief why?

(sigh)…that’s one of the reasons I am participating in DIYDAYS. There always seems to be something new and exciting out there. I have been in the throes of making content so I don’t have time to search out new sites etc. You tell me something good to check out.

What are you currently watching, reading or playing?

I am currently reading and watching anything I can get my eyeballs on that is about women of color and genre…preferably action and sci fi. It’s time we had our own heroines again! Ya know… but with a new millennium spin to it – as sexy and righteous as they were in the 70’s Blaxploitation but with a Sara Conner/Ripley badassness in the mix.

For More on Michael and his work visit

Site:Duly Noted Inc.

What Michael will be doing at DIY DAYS

Interactive, Gamification Powered Networking

Michael will discuss the implementation, successes and failures of his Interactive, Gamification Powered Networking experiment and installation, both of which will be available to attendees at the event.

DIY DAYS asks

What are you currently working on that you’re excited about?

We’ve been working on a good deal of client projects lately – Complex, data-driven pieces that have really ended up being a lot of fun. But, as interesting as those are, I’m most excited about extending things outside of the computer. This summer I built an SMS controlled, fully-automatic Nerf Machine gun mapped to a live audience for real-time gaming. That was a blast, but I’m looking for a new project to top that.

What are some of your favorite sites and / or mobile apps and brief why?

In terms of favorite sites, it’s always changing – Really for me it’s wherever I can find the information I need for whatever I’m working on. O’Reilly Books has a tremendous online book resource: SafariBooksOnline.com. I’ll also admit that I’ve got a TheSuperficial.com habit, but only to keep current on what’s happening in the real world.

What are you currently watching, reading or playing?

I’m currently watching archived horse races online at the Daily Racing Form website, drf.com, and reading past performances from thoroughbred races. I’ve always been fascinated by the vast amounts of data and complexities of horse handicapping. Last season I won a handicapping contest at Santa Anita and placed second in another. This season I’m looking forward to testing a new data modeling and mapping technique – It’s looking heavily at workout times, coupled with positions and times between the 2nd and 4th furlongs, but it’s all very hush-hush, so that’s really all I can say about it…

For More on Michael and his work visit

Site:TedX UCLA

What Antero will be doing at DIY DAYS

Experiential Learning

Join Joel Arquillos (826la), Jamie Salka (Story Pirates) and Antero Garcia as they share how they are utilizing experiential learning to engage students of all ages within and outside of the classroom.

DIY DAYS asks

What are you currently working on that you’re excited about?

Aside from finishing my Ph.D., I’m currently wrapping up research on an alternate reality game I developed for high school English students called Ask Anansi that guides student critical literacy development and civic engagement through the use of mobile media.

I’m also excited about an upcoming white paper I helped develop called “Service and Activism in the Digital Age: Supporting Youth Engagement in Public Life.” Related to this work I’ll begin researching the potential of civics-based geocaching with youth in New York.

Finally, I’m looking forward to continuing the work I have been doing preparing for the 2012 Digital Media and Learning Conference (http://dml2012.dmlcentral.net/) and contributing to the National Writing Project’s Digital Is resource (http://digitalis.nwp.org/).

What are some of your favorite sites and / or mobile apps and brief why?

My life is organized around the app and website TeuxDeux and I spend an unhealthy amount of spare time scrolling through the pages of unread content I have culled on the Read It Later app.

I’ve been appreciating the way young adult author, John Green has been leveraging social media to engage and inform his audience of readers (http://johngreenbooks.com/) and I routinely learn something new from the Unquiet Librarian (http://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/).

What are you currently watching, reading or playing?

On a longish flight I recently finished reading Cathy Davidson’s Now You See It, Pittacus Lore’s The Power of Six, and started reading Errol Morris’s Believing is Seeing.

I’ve been playing Carcassonne and Pandemic lately. I like both games’ twist on classic boardgame tropes. In between teaching and driving, I’m sometimes (okay pretty often) playing Super Stickman Golf, Trainyard, and Continuity.

For More on Antero and his work visit

Site:The American Crawl

What Henry will be doing at DIY DAYS

If It Doesn’t Spread, It’s Dead

Distribution has historically described a process for spreading media content which is top down, planned, and controlled and which independent filmmakers had trouble entering. Circulation refers to an emerging, hybrid system where the spread of media is partially shaped by the authorized and unauthorized behavior of consumers. What new opportunities does this still evolving world of spreadable content pose for those who create media outside or on the margins of the established industry? How can indie media makers more effectively court online communities who may be invested in their work? And what is the value of sharing content rather than seeking to tightly control its afterlife?

DIY DAYS asks Henry

What are you currently working on that you’re excited about?

With my co-authors Sam Ford and Joshua Green, I am finishing up my forthcoming book, Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture, which will come out from New York University Press in Fall 2012. This book reflects the conversations we’ve been having between academics and industry over the past seven years through the Convergence Culture Consortium and especially through our Futures of Entertainment Conferences at MIT and the Transmedia Hollywood events that have been hosted jointly between USC and UCLA out here in Los Angeles. We hope this book will spark more reflection and conversation about the shifting relations between media producers and their publics and especially help those who have been locked out of established industry practices to recognize and tap into the value of spreadability for extending the audience for their work.

What are some of your favorite sites and / or mobile apps and brief why?

Right now, I am getting really excited about the possibilities of expanded ebooks for all kinds of publishing. Right now, we are simply trying to reproduce the experience of reading a printed book on the Kindle or the iPad, an experience which, apart from making it easier to carry our books around when we travel, does nothing to enhance the reading experience. In fact, they had trouble reproducing the sidebar features from my Convergence Culture book on the Kindle, even though they were designed to create through print the multithread experiences we have on the web. But, the folks at the Annenberg Innovation Lab are starting to explore how books can become media-rich experiences with new affordances and new relationships with their public. So, most of my favorite apps at the moment are still under develop, but these guys are doing things which will knock your socks off. And I am excited to be now starting work on my next book project which will be born multimedia and will be serialized, chapter by chapter, as a series of apps for the iPad.

What are you currently watching, reading or playing?

My habits as a media consumer are expansive, so I always have trouble answering questions like this. This summer, my passions for silent films have been seriously re-awakened, especially through my attendance of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts’ extraordinary Summer of Silents series, and I am working my way through the box set of Murnau, Borzage, and Fox films (how geeky and obscure can you get). At the same time, I am eagerly anticipating the launch of the new fall television series — including the return of The Walking Dead and Castle, not to mention the launch of Persons of Interest, Pan-Am, 2 Broke Girls, and Prime Suspect. On the independent side of things, my favorite from this summer was the low budget British scifi film, Attack the Block, though this summer was spectacular for genre movies across the board. And as for comics, I would pimp for The Unwritten, Locke and Key, and Daytripper (in terms of major publishers) and Special Exits and You’ll Never Know (in terms of independent titles).

For More on Henry and his work visit

Project:@henryjenkins
Site:Confessions of an Aca-Fan

What Christy will be doing at DIY DAYS

Spiral Worlds: The Art and Craft of Writing and Experience Design

In the 1950s and 60s, painters, dancers, sculptures, architects and writers played and created together. Now we’re seeing this emergence again, but with coders, designers, writers, musicians, video makers and so on, playing and creating together. In this session, I’ll share a part of my own journey in this space: how I work with both writing and experience design. I’ll draw on playwriting, screenwriting, interactive writing, and prose, along with interaction design, user experience design, and service design to illuminate the approach I use.

DIY DAYS asks Christy

What are you currently working on that you’re excited about?

I’m currently developing my own playful story, and inventing a web-navigation method to experience through. The project is a result of working on and researching transmedia projects over the last few years. I’m inventing a way of experiencing the web that combines the accessibility and emotional impact of audio drama with active navigation. This presents a lot of compelling design challenges (I wouldn’t have it any other way). AUTHENTIC IN ALL CAPS is a comedy drama about the zany obstacles we face when being ourselves.

What are some of your favorite sites and / or mobile apps and brief why?

I haven’t used a RSS reader or email subscription to a blog for…years! I now get all my reading through referrals, and so I therefore don’t frequent sites anymore. I guess the best next step then is to share some of my frequent go-to people for interesting links. @labfly for some great links to interactive theatre and general ever-friendly demeaner; @[…- I’ll send the link when I find it!] for links to a great range of interaction design articles; @ibogost and @ playstayxian for non-stop acerbic observations about gaming, and any person silly enough to believe their own legend a bit too much; as well as @lanceweiler for fringe tech emergences.

What are you currently watching, reading or playing?

I watch and read a variety of things for the sake of entertainment. Those are more serendipitous. But I also consciously delve into certain types of projects that are by certain people. For instance, I’ve been rewatching a lot of old comedy TV series from by Ken Levine, Dave Hackel and Mary Tyler Moore, because they combine comedy and profoundness with such grace; also gutsy stand ups like Bill Hicks and Louis C.K.; as well as the always funny Miranda Hart and Dylan Moran. I’ve been checking out HTML 5 projects, to see the variety of capabilities around; as well as playing mobile audio games and listening to BBC radio dramas. After all that, what I’d love to be doing is going to chamber music sessions and having drunken card games.

For More on Christy and her work visit

Twitter:@christydena
Site:Universe Creation 101