In one of the more cerebral talks of the convention, the director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship, Dan Gillmor, talked about some of the latest innovations in multimedia interactive reporting.

Dan Gillmor, director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship

The session was titled “Turning passive users into active ones.” Gillmor didn’t give many concrete tips to engage an audience, but went through some of the latest trends and ideas. Here are a few:

• News ecosystems, where professionals share content with each other and with amateurs, are the new paradigm in news. CUNY’s own Jeff Jarvis often talks about news ecosystems. Gillmor said that some news organizations will lose out in this new ecosystem, but it will be better for news in the long-run: “Species come and go. It’s painful if you’re one of the species that goes,” he said.

• He showcased some of his students’ work as example of innovative interactive journalism: City Circles is an “information platform” for riders of Phoenix’s light rail. It uses Google Maps and Twitter to offer news, events, classifieds and promotions within five blocks of every train stop. Our Tribes is a site that helps Native Americans transition from the life on the reservation to city life. It features news and maps, health and employment resources, and tribal information and connections.

• “Data, data, data”: presenting data in new and interactive forms will be increasingly important. Gillmor discussed data visualization, such as a map that shows the growth of Walmart stores across America.

• Media will be on eyeglasses, called “heads-up displays,” and will be available to consumers within the next 10 years, Gillmor said. “Italy will be a tech power in the next few years,” he said, because of all its eye wear makers.