Watch my interview on ‘The Blind Entrepreneur’ podcast

Be more explicit with your team when you’re offering an opinion, a recommendation or stating a direct ask. Otherwise, a teammate might not know whether you’re sharing an idea or a demand.

It’s something I’m still learning and something I shared when I was interviewed on a podcast called ‘The Blind Entrepreneur.”

Host Johnathan Grzybowski helpfully has fuller show notes on the site here, where you can watch the episode. Find it below too.

Continue reading Watch my interview on ‘The Blind Entrepreneur’ podcast

Notes on reporting a challenging community journalism profile

I bylined a challenging profile of a Philly tech community member that published on Technical.ly last week. It was a 30-interview, 7,000-word kind of longread, something different than work I’ve done before.

I felt the story was important for a local community I serve, but I also felt there were broader lessons and concepts that I believe have relevance to other small communities everywhere. Between that and my own personal interest in continuing to develop my credentials in that kind of work, I invested quite a bit of my free time to the project over the last month.

We have published other pieces of longform — see other examples here. But this was the first person-specific long read profile I’ve written — others came close but were far less exhaustive. I have some thoughts to share below. If you haven’t already, please read the piece here.

Continue reading Notes on reporting a challenging community journalism profile

Read my piece in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

One of the challenges I gave myself this year was to sharpen my humor writing. Though I like to think of myself of something resembling funny in person — would you like to hear a knock knock joke? — this is not a quality that I have developed in my writing.

So with that in mind, I took on several causes in fiction writing recently. I’m proud to say that that resulted in a small, playful item of mine being published by the Internet Tendency, the online satire site of well-known publisher McSweeney’s. I summoned my own entrepreneurship experience and coverage of other founders and startup culture: “REALLY, EVERYTHING IS GOING GREAT AT MY TECH STARTUP. I JUST HAVE SOME PAYROLL QUESTIONS.”

Read it here.

It was fun to see people I know share the piece without knowing I wrote it, in addition to McSweeney fans (and I am one) enjoying it too. It was a new experience writing for a publication I know well. I hope you enjoy.

I wrote something silly and @mcswys kindly published it. Go read it (link in bio)

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Media is a mirror: what you see says more about you than you want to admit

What a simple and common reaction: get angry at the one telling you the story.

The true job of news gatherers is to reflect the communities they serve. Media is mirror. We can and should have a responsibility in pushing for a truer understanding and taking responsibility in making those communities better (however we define better) but we still must be representative of those whom we serve.

You are our source material. So you have more to do with our editorial mix than you might realize.

Continue reading Media is a mirror: what you see says more about you than you want to admit

Beat reporters: here are some tips for interviewing efficiently and effectively

For as important as a skill as we consider source interviewing, we don’t talk much about it as being something that has changed amid so many other changes in journalism and news gathering today.

In my experience working with mostly young reporters, talking about interviewing is very much an after-thought. The assumption is you got some instruction at school somewhere and some experience at college media and then refined elsewhere. But, gosh, looking back, we leave a lot of that to chance.

Continue reading Beat reporters: here are some tips for interviewing efficiently and effectively

I was proud of the 7th annual Philly Geek Awards

From its origins, I was certainly around the Philly Geek Awards, organized by a volunteer group surrounding the local culture blog Geekadelphia, run by a handful of my friends. But it was mostly from afar, sometimes speaking and being silly with them.

In 2016, as sometimes happens with volunteer efforts, the annual black-tie-meets-cosplay event was thrown into jeopardy, as several of its organizers had moved away in a sudden and similar cycle. It had no one to lead its organization, so I volunteered our team to keep the tradition alive. It was a real risk for our organization and the brand overall, but it felt important to keep the event moving. We pieced it together, with a rushed venue relationship and tricky catering limitations, and though it was far from perfect, we kept the tradition alive.

This weekend our Technically Media team, with the support of a volunteer planning committee, brought the event back to what it was meant to be — a highly produced, sold-out celebration of passionate subcommunities with civic pride in spades.

Continue reading I was proud of the 7th annual Philly Geek Awards

Full audio from my interview of Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney during Philly Tech Week

For the fourth time, I interviewed Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney on stage, for the third time during Philly Tech Week, the event series I help organize annually. This took place back in early May: find coverage from Technical.ly Philly here.

It’s a kind of journalism I’m embracing for a community I represent.

Continue reading Full audio from my interview of Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney during Philly Tech Week