Preparing for the Radio Times episode: at the table from left, Bob Moul, myself, Roseann Rosenthal and host Marty Moss-Coane

The regional distinction that the Philadelphia technology and business community is trying to carve out for itself is integral to the continued improvement of attracting and retaining talent, and that has little to do with the fool’s errand of trying to recreate itself as a far smaller, broad-based Silicon Valley copy cat.

That was among the bigger conversation topics on the hour-long Radio Times episode on which I appeared this week, along with Roseann Rosenthal of Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital and Bob Moul of Artisan mobile.

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The small, if compelling, story of two friends and me launching and growing Technically Philly after graduating college was the focus of a feature in the winter 2013 issue of the Temple University alumni magazine.

It also included a pretty fun photo shoot of my cofounder Brian James Kirk and I (our third cofounder moved on as an employee last year), as shown above.

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This is a map of 2012 web traffic on ChristopherWink.com as displayed by WordPress. Random web traffic from 160 countries really doesn’t matter much, as a lot of it is probably meaningless image search results, but it’s a pretty map.

I like to wrap up each year by looking at what I’ve written about here. To do it a little bit differently, I looked at three different measures of content: what was the best trafficked, what got the most engagement (email, conversation, social chatter) and what I ones I most want to follow up on.

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When you first launch your venture or your organization or group or initiative, you might throw every waking moment you have at it. You log lots of hours, play many roles and simply aim to outlast any competitors. It’s a blind outpouring of time. You start by working longer.

In time, you get to know your needs, strengths and shortcomings better. You add support and focus your efforts. You do a lot of research and plenty of outreach to refine your work. You’re still logging long hours but it comes with greater savvy. You grow by working harder.

It’s here that efforts can go one of two ways. Many will grow in this way, by working hard and simply letting product and chance decide winners and losers. That can work, but the greater goal (and therefore the greater challenge) is to transition once again.

You could begin innovating beyond your origins. You could partner or compete when best suited. You might know well your market differentiation, exploit it and grow it. You succeed by working smarter.

Another in a long tradition of academic looks at the news industry landed last week with considerable attention among the new media community.

The Post-Industrial Journalism report from NYU’s Clay Shirky, Columbia’s Emily Bell and CUNY’s Chris Anderson has been far better dissected, in greater detail, by the Nieman Lab’s Josh Benton, so I’ll leave it to him. (Kindly Technically Philly is briefly mentioned in the report as a leaner version of journalism purveyors of today)

Instead, I wanted to share my three biggest concerns about journalism academia, as I had shared with Anderson this summer following a conversation I was a part of with the three authors and others at Columbia.

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Eleven University of Pennsylvania students pitched their media startup ideas at an Entrepreneurial Journalism Demo Night held in the Kelly Writers House last week. I was there by invitation of the class’s professor Sam Apple, whose reporting background stems from a stint experimenting with launching theFasterTimes.com.

The Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper, covered the pitch night here, so I just wanted to share the 11 pitches I saw.

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Today, the greatest competition for journalists isn’t other journalists. It’s the source itself.

But rather than face the continued loss of revenue to efforts outside of reporting or the looming collision of mission and audience, my industry is still focused as it always has been on besting others in their traditional ecosystem, not on preparing for the growing attention deficit online.

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For anyone who traffics in ideas, relationships and  communication (and reporters are certainly that), “one of the most important soft skills you can have is handling a high-volume of email,” said Merlin Mann in his well-trafficked 2007 “Inbox Zero” Tech Talk.

The idea here is that time and attention are irreplaceable, finite and the most valuable resources of knowledge workers. So, as silly as it sounds, managing efficiently your email is a major skill.

Yet we all get overwhelmed by the fire hose that is our email inbox (and don’t put any workforce development time to this). For an industry that needs to keep our sources organized and be able to manage relationships (and do so by emailing better), that’s a sin. As I’ve brought on a couple reporters, I’ve found myself working with my cofounder Brian James Kirk, a true student of email productivity, to coach them on better email practices.

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Relationships are a currency.

They’re worth something — friendships, acquaintances, colleagues, sources. They enrich our lives and, yes, they are integral to any success. Things get done by people who have relationships, to help guide, support, advise and strengthen goals.

This goes for everyone, but there are surely some industries that need them more than others: construction and development, politics and government and, certainly, reporting and community building. So I think a lot about the connections and people who make up community in all of its forms.

If relationships are one of the most valuable resources we have, why do we so often ignore their impact and why do three types of people so often abuse the role of connection?

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The early crowd at Thursday’s Future of College Media ONA event.

College newspapers are facing the same challenges of their commercial counterparts have had for decades but, despite their advantages, are struggling to fundamentally innovate.

Nearly 40 professional journalists, students and college administrators attended representing a half dozen universities and student newspapers attended Thursday the Future of College Media event I helped organize with Temple University Journalism Department Chair Andy Mendelson for our monthly local Online News Association get-together.

None of the newspapers represented had made any revenue outside of print and web advertising.

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