More than 80 events celebrating technology and innovation in the Delaware Valley are taking place over the next few days as part of the second annual Philly Tech Week presented by AT&T and organized by Technically Philly.

We first introduced this second year last fall. I am enormously proud to follow the work we managed last year.

Proud to say that popular alt-weekly Philadelphia Weekly put a feature story about my Technically Media colleagues and I on its cover this week.

Thanks to freelancer and ReadWriteWeb scribe John Paul Titlow for the interest, PW editor Nina Hoffman for editing and young Karrisa Olsen for taking some photos. A few others are here.

Under different leadership, this is the same publication that not too long ago poked some fun at us.

Find the story here or browse the issue here.

Find the nearest free wireless internet hotspot in Philadelphia by using Connect Philly, a new mapping and text message tool we at Technically Philly released last week.

The tool, which can also be reached by ph.ly/connect,

The tool, which is meant to be a part of the digital access conversation, was unveiled formally with an event in City Hall, featuring Mayor Nutter and a panel discussion I moderated on improving access and literacy online for low-income Philadelphians.

Conceived by my colleague Brian James Kirk, who was helped by developer Jim Smiley, Connect Philly followed coverage sponsored by JLab and was sponsored by the Knight Foundation, in addition to data partnerships with Freedom Rings, PlanPhilly, the Free Library and others.

The Inquirer, KYW and others covered the tool’s launch.

It should be added that I was particularly proud of my colleague Brian James Kirk, who conceived of the project, brought together a data set despite push back from multiple sources and put together the event. He’s a star, what a journalist should look like today.

When pitching your venture or product, send a business or technology reporter a three sentence email, explaining in super simple language (a) what your project is, (b) why it matters and (b) who you are.

That was one of the better received recommendations I made while presenting for the Lean Startup seminar held at the Venturef0rth incubator in Callowhill, Philadelphia this weekend.

See my presentation slides above or find it here. My colleague Sean Blanda has a post giving broad advice here, which includes a great list of questions to be prepated for, though I was a bit more specific to the 30 entrepreneurs in the room on starting the conversation. Details on my slide below.

1. Understand the pipeline: (1) niche news that will offer early users and support, (2) regional legacy news that will offer broader users, (3) national media that will offer scaled users and branding
2. Nobody cares about what you do as much as you do: so don’t act like anyone should and keep it simple when explaining or talking about it.
3. What is your nut?: have a short 10 words to describe your business in language that a 10-year-old can understand.
4. Design matters: Reporters first judge your project by what your website or application looks like.
5. Know the publication: take a few minutes to understand what coverage they do. Have an example of the specific type of coverage you want to have, so you know they do it.
6. Get an intro: Though it’s not necessary, an intro by a respected PR executive or someone else who has a relationship with the journalist is an enormous help.
7. Do not pun in your subject line: Don’t be cutesy, don’t try to entertain the reporter, just give information he or she would need. In truth, the subject line should be fully explanatory: “Company name: 3-5-word explanation, 3-5-word reason why it’s cool”
8. Send a three sentence email: what is it, why it matters, who are you?
9. Have a demo ready: so we can see or experience whatever you’re selling before we write about it.
10. Reporters are weird about ethics: so understand they appreciate transparency, will question the legitimacy of your claims and should challenge your assumptions.
11. What is next?: to get new coverage, have a new angle or a time hook, which is something that makes a story timely.
12. Reporters want your thing to be cool: Otherwise you’re wasting they’re time, so, in fact, reporters are mostly your friends. They want your thing to be the coolest ever, but they’re going to ask tough questions and be hard on you because their byline goes next to the story.
13. Have sweet video and photos: Your story will get a larger audience if you help the reporter with a better looking story.
14. Your press release is to inform, not acquire coverage: No longer is your press release the way to sell a reporter on a story. Instead, they’re a repository of all the relevant details. At best, it’s something to link to in your email.
15. Have product codes for readers: Try to acquire users and get as much attention out of the story.
16. Other coverage: good. Same coverage (in same market): bad: You need new market coverage, new angles to get new coverage. Same story with competitors will kill stories.
17. No, you can’t read the story before it publishes: So don’t even ask. That’s the independent, ethical streak of any good journalism outfit.
18. If your venture succeeds, they’ll come to you: Never forget that you need a good product to ultimately succeed, no matter the marketing.

First, let’s acknowledge that three years is not a terribly long time.

Still, I’m proud that three years ago last month, Brian James Kirk, Sean Blanda and I launched a blog to cover the technology community of Philadelphia. Three years later, we are full-time employees of a growing business with a good reputation.

In that time, we’ve had some accomplishments that are worth being proud of. It’s been a learning experience to be sure.

First, our organization is changing in lots of ways.

Most positively, we’re thrilled to announce that we made our first hire, Technically Philly’s first dedicated reporter Yael Borofsky, whom we hope will continue to help grow our local technology news flagship.

More recently, we announced that Sean Blanda, one of my co-founders, is leaving the company June 1. He’ll retain a small ownership stake — so, no, this isn’t an ugly breakup — but is leaving as a full-time employee as he hopes to pursue other interests. He helped start this business and surely there are few better people in this world with whom to start an idea from inception.

Additionally, in a more subtle move, we’ve changed our original tagline — Covering the Community of People who use Technology in Philadelphia — to one meant to convey our interest in going beyond coverage to being involved in the solution: a Better Philadelphia through Technology. Not long after the second annual Philly Tech Week, a proud growth point of its own, we expect to be making perhaps a few more exciting announcements.

For now, I wanted to share some of what I’ve learned in our first three years.

1. Launching a company with three founders is good for a lot of reasons, particularly when the roles of technology, business and operations are filled. This is also a godsend to reduce conflict and solve differing opinions. As you develop, focus the business and bring on other staff, this becomes less important, but it is a great way to start.
2. Write everything down, particularly when it regards to money, ownership and goals. This means meeting notes, partner agreements, business plans, goals and objections. Have it all in a place that be shared and searched — email and Google Docs are a fine start.
3. Run meetings with a hawk-like eye for efficiency, because you are all busy and this also establishes a culture of getting things done. We are pretty over-the-top with our staff meetings, which are weekly and long but replace the need for any other work interruptions. Excessive meetings and conference calls are where productivity goes to die.
4. Have awkward, difficult conversations with your partners, which includes talking about money and work share and output and goals and dreams and the rest. If you haven’t had some tough conversations a year in, then you’re missing something. Every time, the sooner we had a harder conversation, the better. When having those conversations, prepare with concrete examples.
5. Come with solutions, not questions, to your co-founders. Discussion and creativity are good, but if you’re bringing up a problem, always have a recommended solution, even if it isn’t the route that is taken, you need to have some thoughts for next steps.
6. Don’t give up your day job until you have to, because the revenue won’t come quickly enough and rushing into investment is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. As an alternative, there is no better time to launch a project than when you are unemployed or underemployed, which is when we launched TP. Give it your all while you look for other opportunities.
7. Set goals constantly, both for your weekly to-do list, your quarterly projections and your yearly resolutions, and, as noted above, write them all down and hold yourself and your colleagues accountable. With each year, we set monthly goals that govern the path toward where we want to be at the end of a given year. Many we miss, some we hit. Regardless, it helps serve as our rudder for the big picture.
8. You will be wrong or outvoted and often both, which is particularly important for having three founders so there is a clear democratic process. There were some projects or ideas that I really wanted to move forward but couldn’t win the support of my two co-founders. Those ideas died and rightfully so. We can all get better at letting go.
9. Celebrate independence, as one of the perks of having multiple founders is being blessed with people other than you who are devoted to your business. The three of us instituted a policy where we wouldn’t send more than one of us to the same meeting or event unless totally necessary. We did weekly check-ins on some projects, but mostly, we gave each other great independence and ran our portions of the business. This allowed us to discover ourselves and move quickly.
10. Create boundaries so you can still be humans outside of work, as your venture will become the primary focus every waking hour and you often launch with people with whom you are friendly, it is important to create balance. Though the three of us started as more friends than business associates, we all carved out personal creative projects outside of work and lessened our social time together so work could stay work.
11. Don’t delay thinking about the future, which we tried to do by making Technically Philly a published product of the business Technically Media. More details from our end to come in the next few months, but the importance is to have some fun by thinking about the future of your company.
12. Stick to your goals, plans and dreams, because while they will change and some will be smartly dropped, many will be worth pursuing. In May 2009, just three months after launching TP, I stood in a BarCamp NewsInnovation session and said that I was tired of the news funding conversation being only limited to advertising — we would pursue events and any other avenue that made sense. Three years later, that’s where we get most of our revenue.
13. Be excited, because if entrepreneurship is drag, you’re going to lose.

In order to develop a baseline, I did some estimating and created some crude graphs roughly looking at where my story ideas have come from in each of the first three years of operation.

In late 2009, I was interested in projecting out what types of content a hyperlocal news site might aspire to have, and this feels like a sensible follow up. I should be clear, of course, that these numbers are entirely made up, based on nothing more than a brief perusal of archives and memory.

In short, the two biggest trends I feel have happened are that (a) we rely considerably less on other media than we did when we started and (b) many, many more people reach out to us directly than in the beginning. OK, that may seem obvious.

Perhaps more interesting is my overall assessment that, despite what I might want to believe, relatively few stories are based purely on a hunch, a thesis or an idea of mine. They happen — and I’m proud when they do — but, like journalists have always been, my role is still more to give context and connect dots.

Find the graphs and breakdowns below.

Year One: 2009

Email pitches and press releases: 10 percent

Following up on social media: 10 percent

Other publications: 30 percent

In-person pitches and events: 20 percent

Original ideas: 5 percent

Followup: <1 percent

Outreach to new people: 25 percent

Year Two: 2010

Email pitches and press releases: 15 percent

Following up on social media: 15 percent

Other publications: 20 percent

In-person pitches and events: 20 percent

Original ideas: 5 percent

Followup: 5 percent

Outreach to new people: 20 percent

Year Three: 2011

Email pitches and press releases: 30 percent

Following up on social media: 15 percent

Other publications: 10 percent

In-person pitches and events: 20 percent

Original ideas: 10 percent

Followup: 5 percent

Outreach to new people: 10 percent

A year ago, I felt scattered. I wanted to focus in 2011, and I think, as a full-time employee of my own business with clearer goals and objectives, I have accomplished that.

As detailed below, I feel very proud of the success I had in meeting my professional resolutions for the year. So, it’s important to me that I do so again, which I also did below.

In them, I’d say the theme for my 2012 is RISK.

It’s time to risk fast or succeed for me professionally. I want to be more aggressive in business and outreach, now with a more stable company and clearer focus.

I’ll set goals to do so, but it’s also worth reviewing what has been a wonderful year. Here are some professional milestones not included in my planned resolutions below:

• January 2011: Launching Technically Media, a consultancy that publishes Technically Philly and launched that month a new blog strategy for the National Constitution Center.
• February 2011: Philadelphia magazine covered a multimillion dollar journalism effort at Temple Unuiversity and referenced that we at Technically Philly helped conceive of its structure. (I offered other strategy around the effort and wrote about a similar effort.)
• March 2011: I helped develop the strategy around OpenDataPhilly.org, an open data catalog built by Azavea and unveiled in April during Philly Tech Week.
• April 2011: I was invited to attend the Hardly.Strictly.Young conference on news innovation at the University of Missouri.
• April 2011: Addressing Philadelphia City Council, regarding Philly Tech Week.
• May 2011: NBC 10 listed me as among 20 locals who are worth following on Twitter.
• June 2011: I was invited to attend an intimate Aspen Institute roundtable on news innovation.
• July 2011: I spoke about technology issues on local NPR affiliate WHYY several times, like here, here, here and here.
• August 2011: Alumni magazine or not, I had my first glossy print feature published in the Temple Review.
• September 2011: With the generous support of the Center for Public Interest Journalism, I attended the national Online News Association conference in Boston.
• October 2011: I released a particularly large piece of journalism around a bottlenecked city data set.
• November 2011: Yes, I finally got a smart phone.

Below, see my 2012 resolutions and a review of how I did with my 2011 goals too.

MY 2012 PROFESSIONAL RESOLUTIONS

1. JANUARY: Hire a full-time employee  — We have continued to grow Technically Philly, and I am looking forward to announcing our first reporter hire.
2. FEBRUARY: Post here at least weekly — I want to continue developing thought and sharing my work here, ideally finding other like-minded individuals to grow something of an audience.
3. MARCH: Speak more precisely —  I’ve worked at this for years, but particularly having listened to dozens of recorded interviews this year, I want to strive to speak more precisely, ask and answer questions more succinctly and, as always, talk more slowly, particularly during source interviews.
4. APRIL: Social entrepreneurship — In an effort to grow the discussion around a Philadelphia regional distinction for entrepreneurship, I want to move the dialogue forward, including perhaps an Inquirer op-ed, an event series, and other ways to grow dialogue.
5. MAY: Impact local journalism community — Either attacking the new for bigger audience or better connected practitioners.
6. JUNE: Expand to a new market – It’s time to try risking in another place, and this will coincide with a new redesign and new branding for Technically Philly (and its network), in addition to a face-lift for Technically Media.
7. JULY: Regularly volunteer – I want to get involved in more service.
8. AUGUST: ONA national — Move forward the conversation to bring a national Online News Association conference to Philadelphia by 2014.
9. SEPTEMBER: eBook — I plan to be involved in the release of an eBook of some kind. I have a few ideas scattered and moving slowly, so I’d like to make something happen by next fall.
10. OCTOBER: Begin coding — Very crudely, I’m among the many who are going to dive in a bit on programming basics with Code Year.
11. NOVEMBER: Profit — Consulting work and Technically Philly should be in the black (and beyond), no excuses, and early revenue for our expanded market, through partnerships, events or otherwise.
12. DECEMBER: Reflect and plan — As always, I want to dedicate some time to plan for a bigger impact the following year, including potential strategy for expanding Technically Philly.

REVIEW OF 2011 RESOLUTIONS

1. JANUARY: Work full-time for myself — I am very proud to say I started 2011 as a full-time, salaried employee of my own business.
2. FEBRUARY: Post here at least weekly — I posted nearly 200 times here this year, and I have increasingly focused on developing strong ideas and sharing work I’m proud of, including some particularly strong ones here.
3. MARCH: Organize contacts — In preparation for my smartphone, I have continued to keep detailed contacts, which helps tremendously for sources and business outreach.
4. APRIL: Complete big journalism project — First introduced in October 2010, I led a small grant project for hyperlocal news site NEast Philly on embattled former state Rep. John Perzel.
5. MAY: Host major regional event — I helped lead the plans, strategy and implementation of the first ever Philly Tech Week and began plans for its second iteration next April.
6. JUNE: Lead major grant project – I introduced last year Transparencity, a large-scale grant project focusing on growing the conversation and coverage of the city’s open data movement, including some journalism in which I took great pride.
7. JULY: Regularly volunteer – I had a few starts and stops in the volunteering space, but I  did take an interest in mentoring a couple younger students with whom I had previously built relationships.
8. AUGUST: Have physical office space — I had expected that we at Technically Philly would need to get our own office space, but our relationship with Temple University has persisted, giving us great Center City office space.
9. SEPTEMBER: Monthly multimedia skill use — In addition to experimenting a bit more with Story Shuffle, I have continued to take a lot of video for my work with NEast Philly and play otherwise with multimedia, particularly with my new smartphone.
10. OCTOBER: Focus online presence — After a couple years of old WordPress.com sites, I deleted many and self-hosted though that mattered: including My Life to Do List, my senior thesis on the Philadelphia Republican Party and the writing I did while in Tokyo. I dumped some lame social media accounts and put greater focus on building audience @Twitter.
11. NOVEMBER: Business reorganization — For taxes and organization, I dedicated a filing cabinet drawer to my Technically Media business and focused our documentation.
12. DECEMBER: Update my print portfolio — I added a few online clips to a binder I keep around of my journalism work.

A journalist salary bubble may still be lurking somewhere beyond the newspaper right-sizing of the past decade.

We at Technically Philly are in the process of hiring our first reporter — to begin as an independent contractor expected to make something like $30,000 in a 12-month period. That’s a respectable, entry-level salary for a young, hungry reporter in a big market.

Unless you think otherwise. A freelancer friend of mine gave me a little grief, said she had a $30,000 salary when she started in 2004, expecting the total to have gone up in the ensuing years. I tried to remind her that in the years since she started, the momentum on subscription declines and advertising reductions have accelerated, not to mention a recession that stalled, if not shrunk, salary growth.

In short, her argument seemed to redouble my confidence that our small startup, for-profit technology news site was doing alright to budget $30,000 for a young reporter who would focus on reporting, social media and outreach. Her argument did something else though. It made me think there may still be shocks left in this generation-long restructuring in news from higher-yield print monopoly to lower-yield, online competition.

Starting reporter salaries at the Philadelphia Inquirer are something in the arena of $35,000, with benefits, as I understand it. Updated: See the Guild contract details here [PDF]. That’s not great money for a storied big market newspaper brand, but the Inquirer is a union shop so, as I’ve been told, the guild has a structure not unlike you’d expect for a civil servant: steep pay increases with years in.

A business columnist there might be getting north of $130,000, if I understand correctly. It sounds like an experienced reporter for another business publication in town is making between $70,000 and $100,000. Now I’m not suggesting that reporter salaries were ever at that level on average, but I am pointing out that at most legacy brands, there is a pay structure that ties back to a big yield print world.

A friend of mine is jumping from a well-paying, newspaper-backed administration job to a social media-driven role with a big foundation-supported journalism outfit. His salary is probably somewhere in the $60,000 to $80,000 range.

That’s just my concern.

The old pay structures that can grow reporters into six figure salaries are being maintained because of culture, union and logistical concerns. The biggest new celebrated brands of our age — MinnPost, Pro Publica, Texas Tribune, San Diego Voice and the like — are backed by big donors and foundations. Without normal market forces pressed on them, it’s my understanding that they are following the same salary levels of the standard-setting newspaper brands.

I respect greatly the involvement of philanthropic organizations in journalism (of course I do, such funding has helped us do great work), but I think those efforts should be focused on projects, not operations. Projects have ends. Operations are ongoing.) As this funding without normal market pressures impacts this still unsettled industry, I am left with two related questions about reporter compensation. Is there any evidence that the market can (or should) support pay levels of the past? Could foundation funding be protecting a journalism pay bubble?

As I look at the smaller, independent niche news sites that I know well, I see two paths: (a) one is a leaner, more efficient operation that doesn’t pay its reporters the kind of levels the past has prized, and (b) the other is funded entirely by foundations or other deep pockets, and pay reporters rates that are not unlike the past.

Granted everything is cyclical, so as news fractures, I fully expect there to be consolidation once again. With consolidation, presumably comes efficiency and better paid, top talent. There are already years-old glimmers of that, with properties like Gawker Media, which has a portfolio of high traffic sites, driven by content written by bloggers paid largely based on page views. Pre-recession estimates suggested that Gawker writers were getting paid up to $80,000, which would be respectable pay for valued writers at a valued brand.

But, as anyone covering communities know, Gawker is an aberration — a niche conglomerate with big money. I don’t think that will be representative at all.

When we crunch the numbers at Technically Philly, I’m not sure we could ever support the kind of salary figures an established technology reporter for a big legacy brand would demand. And, frankly, I’m not yet sure it should.

The second annual Philly Tech Week will take place April 22-28, 2011, as we announced on Technically Philly recently.

We unveiled our media kit, made impressively by my colleague Brian James Kirk, which you can see here.

The open calendar of events was first held this past April, attracting more than 4,000 people attended at least one of 65 events held throughout the city and surrounding counties during the inaugural celebration. See my roundup of the event series impact here.

The week was officially endorsed and recognized by City Council. A major public-private partnership launched an Open Data repository for the city and Councilman Bill Green unveiled a 10-point plan for improved government transparency through technology. Startups launched during the week, video games were unveiled and educators held the first Robotics Expo in the city.

With more than 50 press hits across newspapers, radio, television and blogs, the week also became an enormous opportunity for the partners involved in making it happen. The week’s 35 sponsors and more than 50 event organizers were able to put their message and organizations in front of 30,000 unique visitors of Philly Tech Week web properties. They were included in the 5,000 print publications distributed in 50 retailers across the city. And they were able to align with the 1,000 social media messages that spanned the event.

This year, April 23-28, 2012, Philly Tech Week will be bigger year’s event, it is expected that more events will be organized with lessons learned from last year, the programming will be made stronger and its impact greater.

We hope to prove true this year’s theme: to make a better Philadelphia through technology. We hope you’ll be a part of it.

To learn more, check out the event’s media kit here bit.ly/ptw2012_mediakit to learn why Philly Tech Week is so important to the region, and get involved by either organizing an event [bit.ly/organize_ptw2012] or sponsoring the week [bit.ly/sponsor_ptw2012] to connect with the region’s growing community.

Find the story online here, and my section here. Go buy a copy.

I was included for being one of three co-founders of local technology news site Technically Philly and being involved in the development of the city’s startup and hacker communities. I was perhaps most pleased that I have so far survived the Philly.com comments, mostly because I have helped build a small for-profit with three full-time employees.

The automatically-generated plaque that a company offered me by email after this news story ran. Though the $169 price tag was a little more than I thought worth it, I was interested in the process and how the newspaper itself didn't offer this.

While I am certainly proud to be included, I am humbled knowing that there are so many other young Philadelphians making great change. There is no way this list of 10 could do that justice. It’s just a highlight of some of us, and I’m proud to be part of it, but I am more than aware of how many others could have been on this list.

For the record, though, I am only 25, not 27. I should also say that I am certainly nervous about being included because of my relatively small contribution at such a young age. I look forward to being involved in much more in the future.

A PDF of the cover here and the article here.

I should also add that my colleague Sean Blanda was also recently included in a young up-incomers list.