Thanks to Jim and Robert

I recently had lunch with Jim Feeley, one of the long time moderators of our beloved Doculink. He rode his bike to the UC Berkeley campus where I work, and as he was locking his bike to a parking meter pole, I pegged him as an athlete. But that assessment was quickly overshadowed by a better term, “Connector,” described in Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point as someone gifted with the ability to bring people together.

While we were waiting for sandwiches, Jim mentioned several people in the documentary world, some of whom I knew and some I didn’t. I also discovered that Jim was brimming with fresh ideas about our contemporary documentary scene.

So I change my mental label once again, and decided to use a term from the popular marketing book Purple Cow, “Sneezer”.  In a world where “idea viruses” spread quickly through our society, a “sneezer,” I explained to Jim, is someone who excels at spreading the germ of the idea to the masses. Jim is such a guy.

As he conveyed his desire to see more posts on Doculink about issues relevant to our contemporary documentary world, I marveled at his desire to be of service. We agreed that while the technical information on the forum was extremely helpful, the posts that really got our juices going and engaged us intellectually were those pertaining to storytelling issues, new distribution strategies, trends and other big picture topics.

Jim, Robert Bahar, and other volunteer moderators to Doculink have been so helpful to both first-time and veteran filmmakers in providing us with information, ideas and community.

So while I know I’m not the first, I wanted to give a big shout out to say thanks! If you know others who have contributed to Doculink, please feel free to piggyback on this post so we can acknowledge them too.