Roy Christopher Conference Notes

Background:

• back in the 80's doing bicycling and skateboarding 
• made little hand-made magazines and photo copied them to hand out at shows/gigs
• current age: 40

Getting involved with cultures/experience:

• slippery slope at beginning
• did not want to get sucked into computer/media stuff; wanted to write 

"Once you get into it (media world), it's not something you can half way do" -Roy Christopher

Balancing Time:

• it's a complex mix of both; being online and offline is about equal in time devotion
• went from skateboarding to media/science

Books:

• instead of having everything online Roy wanted everything in a book

    -Why: wanted a "token" to put in his book shelf and look at as an accomplishment


Responses to book:

• Roy surprised by late response he got from book sales
• this year sold same amount of books that were sold the first year book came out

Book About- Cross pollination
"If you like a rapper, you'll like authors" -Roy Christopher

• feels that the web/media allows people to take pieces of different cultures and , put them together
• hip-hop culture is the blue print for the 21st century culture = new book idea Roy is working on
• Book in progress: The Me-diam Picture 

Technology Thoughts:

• Roy talked about when teaching in college, teachers start to teach with the basics which are pen/pencil and paper and work their way into teaching with 2.0 technology

"Beware of the water." -Roy Christopher

"What you put on mobile technology is going to be more important than the fact that we have mobile technology." -Roy Christopher

• the more we know about how things work (like technology), the more prepared we are to use them

"Program or be programmed' -Roy Christopher

• we are sometimes victims of media and sometimes we are not, it all depends-Roy's belief 
• Roy doe not want an academic job in the future after he is done with schooling 
• no smart phone because he likes coming home to see he has new things to respond to (popular) and also not enough money to play for data plans required

Future?:

• in future there will always be "big screens" (large pieces of technology); for example home desktops, televisions etc., and technology that is not to go because we can't do everything off small screens like iPods, smart phones, iPads etc.
• technology that that can't be taken everywhere with us, will NOT move and always be there at home 

My Question: Why so much need for the "to-go" technology when we can have plenty of technology at home?

Old Generation to New Generation:

• older generations should trust new generations

Explanation: Roy grew up with video games, media full of violence, movies and other technologies but he is perfectly fine as an adult today 

• youth should be allowed to explore and figure things out on their own

"Youth may be moving faster than previous generations because of technology" -Ted Newcom

• Roy believes we should not be embarrassed by our own behavior 

Final Questions:

• Is multitasking normal to us? Why or why not?

-Multitasking is a myth. When doing something he has to be fully devoted to that one thing. (Roy's response)

• How do we, new generations, feel about the fact that older generations don't trust us?

Last Comments from Roy:

• "Don't look at the future as bleak"
• there is no end to technology
• people don't have to adapt to today's technologies or modern things, it's a choice