TVO and Q Media Solutions introduce PULL, a new online and on-air series presented by TVO’s flagship current affairs program, The Agenda with Steve Paikin, which looks at how digital technology is transforming the world.
The online home for PULL is tvo.org/pull and features over 40 web-exclusive video interviews that engage viewers in how technology is changing the conversation in a number of areas including: social interaction, the not-for-profit sector, business, government, health care, media, and education. TVO’s summertime edition of The Agenda with Steve Paikin, The Agenda in the Summer, forms the on-air component of PULL, with anchor and senior editor Steve Paikin welcoming technology experts for in-depth, half-hour conversations every Friday at 8 and 11 pm throughout July and August.
“It’s hard for me to think of anything that is changing – and disrupting – our lives more right now than digital technologies,” says Dan Dunsky, executive producer of The Agenda. “I think the PULL series and The Agenda in the Summer content definitely help to make this complex subject accessible and will provoke some fascinating conversations.”
Consumers are reviewing, creating and advocating for better products and services. Doctors face patients armed with the latest health data and salespeople face customers who know more about their products than they do. Even big media conglomerates find themselves competing with YouTube stars for eyeballs. PULL puts these changes and their impact in context by highlighting key trends and presenting interviews with innovators and technology experts who offer real world examples of how these technologies are being applied today and discussing what the potential is for the future.
“Everyone – governments, big business, even educators used to push out information in a controlled manner,” says Q Media Solutions series producer Richard Quinlan. “Then came the digital age. Now everyone is producing and sharing ideas and information which is having a profound effect on society.”
The online exclusive interviews at tvo.org/Pull include everyone from StartUp Health founder Unity Stoakes on how sharing data can improve health and cure disease, to author Jonah Berger on how psychology drives viral success, to The Globe and Mail‘s Teena Poirer on crowdsourcing opinions for the news, and University of Southern California professor and author Henry Jenkins on the impact participatory culture is having on everything from media to education and government.
“We want to start a conversation about issues like our willingness to trade our privacy for convenience and cost,” says PULL co-producer Dorothy Engelman of Q Media Solutions. “Or ask questions like: In a world where everyone is a content creator, who is accountable and whom do we trust? Or how do I get my hands on my health care data and who can I share it with?”
Some of the featured guests on The Agenda in the Summer include author Marina Gorbis on the rise of the social economy, media guru Mitch Joel on the need to update business models for the future, Clay Johnson on applying open source principles to government, and Cathy Davidson on how classrooms are transforming to accommodate our changing world. These interviews will also be available online attvo.org/the agenda.
Viewers and visitors to PULL are encouraged to join the conversation by posting a comment at tvo.org/Pull or tweeting using the hashtag #PullTVO.
