In his role at Yoh, he contributes to the company’s blog, the Seamless Workforce. A few weeks ago, he asked if I wanted to grab dinner, chat a bit about the region’s technology scene and record some audio for their blog.
I sure seem to like talking, so I was happy to oblige. Below, I share the links to what managed to become a three-part series
LESSON: If you’re noticed, your work will be scrutinized.
4. Potential Partners — “I don’t see the point of meeting.”
FAILURE: Turned down an opportunity to meet with a key business leader.
LESSON: In this new media environment, everyone is a potential partner.
5. Investment (sappy anecdote) — “Well, that wasn’t THAT depressing.”
FAILURE: We started Technically Philly (and said some silly things in front of important people).
LESSON: We’ve learned much, met many people and improved what we know in the space of journalism.
The presentation is also available here. See and hear the presentation from Samurai Tours here.
When we were asked for more embarrassing stories, we realized we should have also shared the story of our speaking engagement with the Women’s Press Association of Pennsylvania, in which no one showed except the organizer and former Philadelphia mayoral candidate Queena Bass. Or we could have told one of the half dozen times Sean has been under dressed when going to cover events.
It was a fun session with a few practical takeaways, we hope. If nothing else, it seemed well-received.
Some Tweets
Anthony Ruiz of Samurai Virtual Tours quotes me about being stupid
So, I was excited to take some time away from my freelancing work once a week to work with the journalism club at Frankford High School. It was a short walk, and I could just fill in the time lost at night.
I was suddenly the professional journalist half of a Prime Movers program that formerly had me as the student journalist.
I made it a half dozen Thursday after-school meetings, enough to meet the core group of seven or so students and help them launch a WordPress blog for their content, but some rather large, fairly unexpected changes have happened.
So, now I’m reaching out to a host of colleagues to fill as many of the coming weeks with insightful professional journalists (if you’re in Philly and are interested, contact me). Still, though I’ve worked with high school journalism clubs before and only worked with the Pioneer Times of FHS for a couple months, I certainly learned a thing or too — in addition to, I hope, teaching some of those kids something.
On Dec. 30, 2009, I took the 15 minute walk from my home in Fishtown to the Penn Treaty Park complex near the Delaware River and into the station’s third floor studio, as another show closed before 7 p.m.
The historic, 145-year-old Union League of Philadelphia located on the Avenue of the Arts.
A tidy and frail little old man asked me to direct him to the coat rack. To walk him around the corner from the long and elegant main corridor of the nearly 150-year-old Union League of Philadelphia was my first deed.
If nothing else, it made for interesting conversation when I made it to the elaborate second-floor President’s Ballroom, featuring thirty foot ceilings, a spectacular chandelier and portraits of dour looking old white men. For an half-hour or so after 5:30 p.m., I handled a rum and coke and ambled about the pre-event cocktail reception of the Sunday Breakfast Club, a not-quite cloak-and-dagger, invitation-only private society for organization executives.
Perhaps nearly 200 members and guests of the seven decades young group patronized the open bar, chatted and nibbled appetizers. I did the same, more than a handful of times being approached by some degree of interest in the 20-something with a broken brown belt with black shoes.
No ma’am, I’m not lost. I’m on the panel to which you’re here to pay audience.
Community newspapers in Philadelphia remain wary of the Web, if any stock is to be paid to a morning panel from a journalism innovation conference held this month at Temple University.
Technically Philly was a partner in hosting PhIJI
Their thoughts just might be relevant to community-focused news gathers across the country.
Hosted by Temple’s journalism department, the Philadelphia Initiative for Journalistic Innovation was a day’s worth of smaller sessions focusing far less about the plight of big newspapers and more about smaller, more entrepreneurial ventures. Yes, the future of news just might be a series of conferences about the future of news, but I was happy to see a greater focus on the business side of the industry.
With the help of supportive chair Andy Mendelson, Temple journalism professor George Miller put together one of the first future of news conferences I’ve seen that tried to really pay attention to sustainability through profit. There’s incredible value in that, so I was thrilled to be a part of it.
Along with my two fellow co-founders of Technically Philly, I presented twice a session called ‘Be a Publisher Now’ on free tools that news-organizations and bloggers could make use of to create become more efficient and better prepared. See our presentation slides here.
I also got the opportunity to sit in on a session focused how community newspapers were dealing with the 21st-century’s dramatic paradigm shift in news-gathering. That’s where I was left more than a little puzzled.
A panel held by Refresh Philly on the Future of Local Politics on the Web at the Comcast Center in Center City Philadelphia Nov. 2, 2009. From left: Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce CEO Rob Wonderling; pa2010.com contributor Benjamin Barnett; Young Philly Politics contributor Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg and myself who moderated. Photo by Sean Blanda
Whether Web technology and social media can have a major impact on local politics in a place like Philadelphia or if they remain secondary tools, became the major topic and a divided one at a panel that served as the November Refresh Philly meeting.
Panel member Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg, a co-founder of progressive policy online forum Young Philly Politics, seemed dogged in his assessment that the Web remains a supplementary tool to traditional campaign field operations.
Panel member Benjamin Barnett, the micro-blogger for statewide campaign news site pa2010.com spoke about the role the Web could have in boosting the profile and followship of otherwise limited candidates, most notably citywide Republican candidate in heavily Democratic Philadelphia.
The third panel member Rob Wonderling, the new CEO of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, was careful not to overstate the role the Web can play on a municipal level but split somewhere in the middle by noting its role in championing transparency and responsiveness of government.
While that discussion remained most present during the event, there was plenty more to be had. Below some other take aways, video of the event and questions I didn’t have time to ask.
Brian James Kirk (L) and Sean Blanda speaking at Rowan University on Sept. 16, 2009.
Making mistakes since 1983 | Sept. 16, 2009 | Rowan University
On Sept. 16, 2009, the three Technically Philly founders spoke to Rowan University journalism faculty and students about the necessity of entrepreneurship for young, aspiring journalists. The cheeky presentation was stuffed with insight from their young experiences. Below see our presentation notes.
