Convergence Week - if you're happy and you know it clap your hands

It was Convergence Week at BMS last week which explains why everyone looked so stressed out. If you just mention the c-word to some journalists it sends them into a spasm in much the same way 'multi-media' used to. I think it is mainly the thought of having to do EVERYTHING. Or perhaps they don't really know what it means. "I am not a knob twiddler. I am a human being!" That sort of thing. A basic definition is: the technology driven unification of different media channels. But convergence is a buzzword that has been distended to also mean everything from corporate strategies to technological developments to job descriptions.

Sad geek warning: the subject came up over lunch with Chindu Sreedharan (at BU polishing up his PHd on the role of the media in conflict situations, with special focus on Kashmir). He doesn't mince his words in a piece for the Poynter Institute where he quotes Rich Gordon, journalism professor at Northwestern University. "No longer can journalists assume that just because they work in one medium (say, a print newspaper), they don't need to worry about how their story should be presented in another (on television or the Web) ... On the other hand, we are not necessarily moving into an era when a single journalist needs to do it all ... There will always be a need for specialists who do one thing particularly well."

Something tells me I'll be coming back to this one. I'm interested in your views so tell me what you think.