The most interesting session at last week's We Media conference in Miami was, for me, a "pitch session" that provided 10 media entrepreneurs with a few minutes each in front of a panel of venture capital investors (only one of whom was wearing a suit).

The pitchers included a batch of non-profits and some Web start-ups already fueled with so-called angel money. The former group included Christi Hegranes, a 2003 graduate of Poynter's summer program and the founder of the Press Institute for Women in the Developing World. All of the ventures reflect, to one degree or another, the participatory dimension suggested by the We Media tagline.

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Conference archive A tick-tock on the proceedings, by Jemima Kiss "How Technology Can Help a Conference Succeed," by Mark Glaser "Wrapping up WeMedia," by JD Lasica "'Interactive'": Notes on the dual sense of the word," by Tish Grier "A Conference on Innovation Takes the Old Standard Route," by David Cohn "The Failure of We (the) Media," by Rich Skrenta

The VC guys asked few questions about how much revenue the various ventures might generate. Instead, they pushed the would-be investees to describe the outcome they believe their projects could produce. Not all that gently, they urged the people in the hot seat to tell the story of their start-ups as compellingly as possible -- why this is your passion, what difference it will make.

I'm guessing that their focus on overall outcomes, as opposed to revenue projections, did not reflect lack of interest in financial results. It was more a matter of establishing clarity of purpose -- and big purpose, at that -- as the sine qua non of any successful venture, for profit or not.

The panel also urged the non-profits in the bunch to reconsider that path and consider building for-profit companies instead of or in addition to their current plans. The for-profit theme emerged again near the end of the conference, when Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibargüen described a trend among foundations to move from philanthropy to investment. He cited the foundation established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Omidyar Network, as a leading example of this increased emphasis on sustainability.

As many failed or struggling start-ups have demonstrated in the still emerging category of participatory publishing, all the clarity in the world won't buy success without the means to sustain the initiative -- technically, financially and otherwise.

Here are ten more issues and questions that stood out for me at the conference:

Skating to the puck: Michael Rogers, futurist-in-residence at The New York Times, acknowledged the futility of predicting the future. He urged journalists and media execs to focus on two tasks: the how and why of tomorrow's journalism. He urged the group to imagine how technology might change the way people interact with news and information -- and to think hard about how the civic responsibility of journalists might unfold in the years ahead.

"From the MTV perspective, we have a unique role in normalizing certain behaviors in society -- by giving young people the wherewithal to take action, to get famous for doing good.” -- Ian Rowe of MTVDoing well by doing good: Ian Rowe of MTV characterized his job as "overseeing efforts to engage young people on greatest issues of our time -- Sudan, AIDS in Africa, education in the America, the broken traffic light on the corner." One of MTV's chief objectives online, he said, is "connecting people with similar concerns so they can take action. From the MTV perspective, we have a unique role in normalizing certain behaviors in society -- by giving young people the wherewithal to take action, to get famous for doing good."

Up from the cell phone, down from the laptop: Rogers said the most interesting news delivery mechanism will include more features than today's smart phones and a few less than laptops. He referred to this new new new thing as "the laptop replacement."

Not so much a gatekeeper as a bartender: That's the way Jason Pontin, editor in chief and publisher of the MIT Technology Review, said he thinks of editors of the future. He said he kind of likes the idea of his readers and viewers regarding him as the sort of guy they can rely on for a certain kind of experience, with a certain set of standards.

So much for pricey, expert content: Jeff Taylor, the guy who made a billion bucks building Monster.com, has started a new venture for boomers (eons.com). He has an editorial budget of $15,000 to $20,000 a month to buy what he characterized as expert articles on health, finance, love, etc. The problem, he said, is that those articles are attracting very little traffic. The eyeball drivers? Online tools and community interaction and discussion.

But how to keep that discussion on track and meaningful? Rich Skrenta, co-founder and CEO of Topix.net, noted that we still lack the kind of "robust infranstructure [required] to keep the conversation from being derailed by the bottom five percent of audience."

Here come the millennials: The conference included the kind of panel of young people that's become de rigeur at media conventions in recent years, and the conclusion was the same: Anybody who thinks people now aged 10 to 30 will eventually use (or buy) media in any way similar to the media consumption patterns of, say, those of us plotting strategy for the Poynter Institute, is surely kidding himself. A reality buttressed by data from John Zogby, as if we needed any more convincing.

Speaking of the death of print: Jason Pontin, the MIT guy, said it's time for media leaders to come to grips with the likelihood that print journalism is now in its final 10 to 20 years of ubiquity. His matter-of-fact assertion was refreshingly free of the evangelical tone that often accompanies many such predictions. 

Internet in need of a new iconic cartoon: Rogers, the futurist, argued that the old standby -- the "Nobody knows you're a dog on the Internet" cartoon from the New Yorker -- represents a fading phenomenon

screengrab from the University of North Carolina The New Yorker's dog cartoon.

online. He argued that identity will emerge as one of the most critical issues in the way human beings communicate online, and that -- despite some strong counter-trends in Internet culture -- there will be less anonymity, not more. Here's more on the anonymity question from a draft of online ethics guidelines produced by a recent Poynter conference and in this thoughtful essay by Steve Yelvington, who participated in the Poynter discussion and argues for a bigger role for anonymity on online news sites.

What does local-local-global look like? I came away from the conference thinking that the most interesting opportunities may lie at either end of the geographic spectrum. Among the pitchers to the VC guys was Mike Orren, founder of a start-up called Pegasus News that competes for intensely local news and advertising in Dallas and, eventually, other cities around the country. He and other entrepreneurs at the conference are hoping the right combinatiion of feet on the street and fancy search and sort algorithms will yield results still eluding established news organizations in their own hometowns.

Among the most intriguing dimensions of digital media are the ways it can enable intensely global publishing at the same time it powers the intensely local. I see a new cartoon taking shape to replace those dogs: On the Internet, nobody knows you're just down the street.

What's your take on these or other issues related to We Media?