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If You Make Media, Doyle’s is the Place to Be Every First Sunday

Attendees of Boston Media Makers at Doyle's, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2014.
Attendees of Boston Media Makers at Doyle’s, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2014.

The monthly Boston Media Makers confabs in the back room at Doyle’s have forged a lot of fruitful connections over the past nine years. To take just one example, Ed Gaskin’s new book wouldn’t exist without it.

Video blogging expert Steve Garfield of Jamaica Plain has nurtured the gathering since the beginning. People from a wide variety of media fields show up each first Sunday to “talk shop and share current projects.” This Sunday’s group of 16 included bloggers, software experts, a technical writer, the founder of a well-known IT company and a producer of live comedy shows.

The format is simple: Folks start filtering in at 10 a.m. for a half-hour of mingling (no sitting allowed!), then there are formal introductions and each person gets about three minutes to introduce herself and, if they’d like, ask for the group’s advice about a current project. There’s also a keynote talk that runs a little longer, say 10 or 15 minutes. This week it was Tech Superpowers founder Michael Oh discussing drones.

In a demonstration of the value media folks find in the monthly meet-up, Oh found time to attend Sunday’s session even though he lives in London now.

Here’s a clip of Sunday’s attendees introducing themselves. It’s something Garfield does for each meeting, to help folks connect even if they don’t manage to have gotten each other’s business cards.

The meeting brings people from such varied backgrounds that cross-fertilization of ideas often occurs. Let’s pick back up on that example of Ed Gaskin’s book. The 76-page e-book wouldn’t exist if Gaskin, among whose jobs is chief operating officer for the anti-violence Ten Point Coalition, and graphic designer/marketer Bruce Jones hadn’t met.

From left: Ed Gaskin, Bill Wood and Bruce Jones at the Sunday, Aug. 3, 2014 Boston Media Makers at Doyle's.From left: Ed Gaskin, Bill Wood and Bruce Jones at the Sunday, Aug. 3, 2014 Boston Media Makers at Doyle's.
From left: Ed Gaskin, Bill Wood and Bruce Jones at the Sunday, Aug. 3, 2014 Boston Media Makers at Doyle’s.

The book started as a screen treatment, but Jones showed Gaskin how many different types of content can work well as e-books. The book, Latanya: A Story of Gangs, Girls and Guns, was ranked #22 in its Amazon.com category as of Monday.

If you’d like to attend a Boston Media Makers event, come to Doyle’s from 10 to noon any first Sunday. You can get more information and sign up for an email reminder at the Boston Media Makers web site.

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