Thanks to Peter Corbett of iStartegy Labs, Goldy Kamali of FedScoop, and the other hosts, sponsors and participants at Big Ideas Big Action (BIBA). The conference was filled with people from the private and public sectors, non profits, academic institutions — and entrepreneurs who spanned across each. They key to the program was coming up with the next BIG ideas – ones that can provide social, economic or cultural good.

The political, technological and economic shifts in the last two years have made Washington, D.C. a hub of idea generation and industry change. Look no further than Nigel Ballard, Director of Federal Marketing at Intel, who made the trip from Portland, Oregon, to talk at the BIBA conference.

Big Ideas Big Action Conference D.C. from Erica America on Vimeo.

I came across a few videos from MTV News and Gideon Yago tonight. All of the ones I found were from 2006 and reminded me of the old school news breaks MTV News used to run. Except they weren’t 10 to the Hour — they were in depth and serious. And it seems like Yago got some traction within MTV News with a project called Iraq Uploaded.

The angle of how technology, pop culture and soldier stories merge — is a way I haven’t seen the war covered. With the video I considered how unprecedented and unknown territory it is for soldiers to bring digital cameras for their Iraq tours. Apparently some guys even strapped handheld digitals to their helmets.  Don’t be surprised to see graphic stuff. This wasn’t made for Nightly News.

I heard a few months ago from the Department of Defense that the military evaluates videos recorded and uploaded in real time as a possible threat to OpSec, or, Operational Security. Same goes for blogs. This Lieutenant just had to take down his blog, while others, some active duty and some Veterans, continue to share their stories. It’s an all together an unprecedented issue for the Military. 

MTV News: Iraq Uploaded – Iraq Uploaded

For more videos like this, check out SpikeTV, Military.com and YouTube.