Tag Archives: v3con

Asian America, social media and baby boomers

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AARP's TEK team helped elderly Chinese at a senior center in Boston learn to use smartphones, and they were sending texts ad shooting selfies at the end of the session.

AARP’s TEK team helped elderly Chinese at a senior center in Boston learn to use smartphones, and they were sending texts ad shooting selfies at the end of the session.

This was a fun photo booth at the AARP Member Convention in Boston, which promoted an upcoming PBS series about baby boomers sponsored by AARP. Nope, I'm not actually in the series...

This was a fun photo booth at the AARP Member Convention in Boston, which promoted an upcoming PBS series about baby boomers sponsored by AARP. Nope, I’m not actually in the series…

As a journalist, I’ve been really lucky.

I started my career as a music critic and then a reporter, so I’ve always been able to write about pop culture – especially the pop culture of my generation, the baby boomers. Then when the Internet came along, I was able to move over to work almost exclusively in digital media, and these days I work in and speak about social media. And since I started writing my “Nikkei View” column and blog, I’ve been part of a growing chorus of Asian American voices (like the JACL’s Pacific Citizen, which is about to re-launch its website after a two-year hiatus!) covering issues and stories that mainstream media frankly tends to ignore.

So I couldn’t believe my great fortune last month when I was named the 2014 Asian American Journalists Association’s AARP Social Media Fellow.

AARP, if you aren’t familiar with the organization, is the American Association of Retired People, whose members are 50 years old and older. That means that this year, the youngest baby boomers are turning 50 and can join AARP (the baby boom went from 1946 to 1964).
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V3con held a digital media mirror up to Asian Americans

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The V3 conference for Asian America Digital Media, which was held August 25 in Los Angeles, was a landmark event. It was the first time that Asian American media from both journalism and the blogosphere gathered together to discuss their online presence and share their knowledge and skills.

The conference grew out of a similar event, the Banana conference that celebrated Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) bloggers. Erin and I were a panelist at the first Banana conference in 2009, and helped organize Banana 2 last year, which was produced with help from IW Group, an Asian American media and marketing agency.

For V3, which was presented by the Asian American Journalists Association’s Los Angeles chapter, I was the Director of Programming. I decided the topics of the panels and chose most of the panelists, from sessions on Asian Americans in politics (moderated by MSNBC anchor Richard Lui) to a plenary session on the increase of AAPIs in mainstream Hollywood movies, TV series and even commercials. We held serious sessions on how Asian Americans can use social media for non-profit organizations and causes, as well as pop-culture topics like how anime and manga are evolving in the digital era.

The conference was a success, with 500 attendees who filled the sessions, which were held at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. Attendees enjoyed a Friday night Opening Reception and Awards Ceremony at the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena. But numbers weren’t the only measure of success.
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Preview video of V3 Asian American Digital Media Conference, Aug 25, LA

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I helped organize the panels and awards for the V3 Asian American Digital Media Conference, and it’s going to be a hella great confab if I say so myself. Check out the speakers, performers and panelists we have lined up!

Here’s a V3con preview with scenes from last year’s Banana2 Asian American bloggers conference, which evolved this year into V3: