I ran the Broad Street Run again, after having such a great time running 10 miles through the heart of Philadelphia last year.
I started off by joining the Back on My Feet circle, but, even with the motivation of a few hundred members and volunteers, I ran slower than last year, having offered much less preparation.
Someone else took some video as some of the 30,000 runners took to the hot run around City Hall, nearly midway point. Hear the band playing nearby.
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
Nearly 200 journalists, bloggers, innovators and technologists have signed up to attend the free-to-attend second national BarCamp NewsInnovation un-conference held this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Temple University in North Philadelphia.
I’m expecting much more of a conversation about what we are doing now about the ‘future of journalism.’ So looking at the long list of attendees, I already have in my mind a handful of people who are doing things that I’ll be interested to meet.
‘City of Brotherly Mayhem‘ is a collection of short reflections, culled from old newspaper clippings, on more than a dozen more prominent crimes and murders in Philadelphia between the 1860s and the 1970s.
Written by longtime Philadelphia newspaperman Ron Avery, the book is short on design and polish, but serves as a good piece connecting the dots on some important cultural moments in Philadelphia’s modern history.
The Murder of Octavius Catto — The racially motivated 1871 assasination of an early nationally-regarded black civil rights leader.
The Charley Ross Kidnapping — The 1874 kidnapping of a privileged four-year-old that caused national media attention that rivaled the Lindbergh kidnapping 50 years later.
Mayhem in the Bloody Fifth — Remarkable Election Day hijinks in 1917 that went straight to the top, including mayoral involvement.
The Boy in the Box — The notorious 1957 murder of a 4 to 6-year-old boy whose identity and killer were never discovered.
With a bit of a twinkle in our eyes, my colleagues Brian James Kirk and Sean Blanda, today, we launch a small testament to our love for that city that lives in Philadelphia’s historic shadow: New York.
It’s not much now and probably won’t be in the future. Just a small landing page for a mentality.
Yes, it comes from that old New York Times trend story that chronicled — in a somewhat condescending tone — the young people from that city, particularly Brooklyn, who were migrating to old transitioning neighborhoods of Philadelphia.
Philadelphia, the story suggested, was the ‘next borough’ so the ‘sixth borough.’
Living in a neighborhood named for its fishing communities, notably of the shad of Delaware Avenue, perhaps one of my favorite take aways from the book was an old local fisherman’s rhyme [Page 37]:
When the Lord made shad,
The Devil was mad,
For it seemed such a taste of delight,
So to poison the scheme,
He jumped in the stream,
And stuck in the bones out of spite.
The 128-page book is full of interesting stories, but, below, I share some of my other favorites:
Did William Penn’s Treaty with the Leni-Lenape Take Place? [Page 17]
Earliest Known Use of the Name ‘Fishtown’ [Page 76] — 1808
Edgar Allan Poe Reports on Kensington in 1840 [Page 80] — On the Kensington railroad riots
USS Alligator, first submarine of the United States Navy [Page 82] —
Cohocksink Creek, Kensington’s Historical Border [Page 91] — Discusses Kensington and Fishtown boundaries
West Street Burial Ground [Page 96] — Across the street from my house was a graveyard
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.
