PSFK Conference San Francisco Speaker Ezra Cooperstein

2 comments

June 30, 2008

We’re excited to have Ezra Cooperstein, Vice President of VC2’s Development and Production at Current TV, on our “Collaboration & Co-Working” panel at PSFK Conference San Francisco 2008. Alongside Andrew Hoppin of NASA, Cooperstein will be sharing his insights on how collaboration can be utilized to engage the community.

First, who are you and what do you do?

My name is Ezra Cooperstein, and I oversee the Viewer Created Content (VC2) Team at Current TV. VC2 is the foundation of Current’s programming strategy. Since its inception, Current has been dedicated to sharing it’s TV platform with it’s viewers to create authentic, diverse, powerful, and compelling non-fiction news and information content geared toward a young-adult audience. My job is leading a talent team who facilitate the process of actualizing the vision of VC2 to bring amazing programming to air everyday.

You’ll be speaking on our “Collaboration & Co-Working” panel. Can you sum up your views on how you (and current) engage your audience and the community through co-working/collaboration?

Everything at Current is open to participation and collaboration with our viewers. While VC2 is the most prominent way that we collaborate with our consumers to create content, we continue to expand the opportunities for user participation. We recently re-launched Current.com as a social news site that puts the control of our hourly news headlines franchise in the hands of our community. Thus, the offering on TV more accurately reflects what our users think is newsworthy. The VC2 group relies on a vast network of producer relationships all over the world to help us bring compelling content to Current TV. While the door at Current is always open for anyone to submit a story, we have found that we are only as strong as the network of creators we build. Our internal producers spend lots of time cultivating connections with potential or existing VC2 Producers, and work closely with them to ensure they deliver the highest quality and most compelling content.

Five sites that provide you with inspiration: