1. From Co-Existence to Conviviality A leap into Direct Reality By Gilbert Cattoire www.directreality.com

2. Spring 1995, Sarajevo  What were 3 journalists and a telecom engineer doing in Sarajevo in March ‘95,  with laptops and satellite phones,  building a satellite IP link ? ► A web forum between Sarajevo & the “Rest Of The World”

3. Sarajevo Alive - Sarajevo Online ► The Official Project  A gesture of solidarity with the local daily Oslobodjenje.  Official assignement was to interview a few selected personalities  Political debates were to be avoided.

4. Sarajevo Alive - Sarajevo Online ► Backed by Unesco ► & a Syndication of 30 international newspapers (La Stampa, El Pais, Süd Deutsche Zeitung, Yomiuri Shimbun, The Guardian,…)

5. Sarajevo Alive - Sarajevo Online ► The Accident  The team took the decision to let any inhabitant express themselves on whatever topic they wanted  All postings were published unedited and uncensored

6. Sarajevo Alive - Sarajevo Online ► The resulting content was a breakthrough in war journalism:  A besieged city's online diary,  updated daily,  to which people all over the world responded spontaneously.

7. Sarajevo Alive - Sarajevo Online ► Access to the service was easy  The website was updated twice daily via email  The feed was also available via a mailing list ► Emotional response was overwhelming. Internet as a medium was beyond doubt the “hottest” of all.

8. From Co-Existence to Conviviality ► Enabled by digital communications, the audience fits quite naturally as an integral part of the information process, influencing the course of events as they happen. ► Journalism is evolving away from its mandatory lecture mode to include conversations and actions.

9. A Leap into Direct Reality ► Because exposure to news is disintermediated, allowing participants to participate and litteraly direct reality from a personal, first-hand perspective, as opposed to the passive mass media experience were reality is being directed for you. ► And because this leads to no less than a new political proposition. New cultures, new social interactions are pushing people through the Internet door, from coexistence to conviviality.

10. From Co-Existence to Conviviality ►...there is more to news than zapping ►...there is more to politics than blind alleys ► Of course we all knew all this all the time. ► But where was it for so long? And where are we going?

11. From Co-Existence to Conviviality ► the Internet is an “evolution catalyst”  blogs are a perfect illustration,  Wikis (watch out for them) are even more symptomatic.

12. From Co-Existence to Conviviality ► both the offer and the demand for such direct experiences are reaching people beyond the usual sphere of “social activists”... ►... at least expanding it to a new degree

13. A Leap into Direct Reality ► “Let everyone talk, publish everything (don’t edit), favour dialogues”: the spontaneous principles that let Sarajevo Online make the news have since become mainstream with blogs. ► Making webloging technology available to anyone was indeed a genial intuition.

14. Communicate + Collaborate = Participate ► People are willing to participate if they are given the means to collaborate and communicate. ► Sounds obvious but was hardly ever the case until the Internet came along.

15. Communicate + Collaborate = Participate ► It feels good to know that there’s more to progress than the emerging reality of intelligent machines. ► We’re still in the evolutionary game, live and direct.