For six months, I hosted a pre-planned, ‘pop-up’ weekly podcast featuring my favorites from six years of recording stories told by friends at an every-other-event I called Story Shuffle.
Continue reading What I learned hosting a weekly podcast for six months
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After trying last year, with just a week’s notice, we were able to coordinate to add to Philly Tech Week a conversation with Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf. I interviewed him on-stage.
Continue reading I interviewed Pa. Gov. Tom Wolf during Philly Tech Week 2017
Let’s start with scale: I attended a political fundraiser and wrote a check for $250.
Next, consider context: it was for someone I’ve known for longer than I can remember, among the closest of my family friends, who lived a few houses down from me when I was just a few months old.
Even still, I actually agonized a bit about the decision. Journalism is a thicket of rules and expectations and among the loudest is to stay objective in politics and distant from the money that feeds it. I was worried my donating would cloud the work I do as editorial director at niche publisher Technically Media. Here’s why I decided it was the right decision.
Continue reading I donated to a political campaign for the first time in my life
Since I’ve launched a new personal curated newsletter project and an old related URL shortener project was finally archived, I’ve been thinking about my first experiment with email audience.
In April 2012, we at Technically Media announced Ph.ly, a URL shortener that had a companion content strategy — a curated weekly newsletter sharing the three biggest pieces of local journalism or civic information. Over the next 18 months, I published the weekly newsletter as a side project and experiment. Here are a few things I learned before sidelining the project by 2014.
Continue reading What I learned from publishing a local news newsletter for 18 months
In 2007, in the midst of my undergraduate days, I went hitchhiking for the first time.
I first told the story for a 2011 Story Shuffle, and given the opportunity, I tightened the narrative (some) and gave it another go. Watch below. (Thanks Hillary Rea from Tell Me a Story!)
https://vimeo.com/160891268
Writing and editing are two separate acts. The old joke goes that you ought to write drunk and edit sober for a reason. One is about discovery and the other is an exercise in concision.
One reason I like the idea of National Novel Writers Month, which takes place each November, is that it is a clear call for writers to write now, and edit later. Since 1999, thousands of writers have written 50,000 words of a novel draft — about 1,600 words daily. With a simple novel concept, I participated back in November.
Since then, I’ve had a few discussions with friends about the process. I thought I’d share those simple thoughts here.
Continue reading National Novel Writers Month #NaNoWriMo advice
After 18 months and two phases of the fledgling side project, we’re setting aside the monthly Technical.ly podcast.
We couldn’t invest the time into the project that it required, it didn’t fit into our short-term strategy and the audience wasn’t growing fast enough for an exception to be made. (We were only regularly getting a few hundred downloads).
Continue reading Notes on putting the Technical.ly podcast on hiatus
Journalists have to approach issues they care about differently than others. There’s a fine line between influence and bias. I’ve joined the board of Coded by Kids, a program of coding classes for youth, and I’d like to share why.
It took me to leave rural northwest New Jersey, where I grew up, and to go to Philadelphia, where I went to college, to saddle up and actually develop a small knowledge base about Western-style horse riding.
I cleaned stalls and helped out Ike Johnstone at Belmont Stables, an historic West Fairmount Park building where Johnstone hosts the Bill Picket Riding Academy, through which he teachs anti-violence and communication to North Philadelphia kids. In exchange, Johnstone taught me some rudimentary riding skills.
I am proud to say I was there in Doha this week serving as one of 10 mentors for the 90 participants from 37 countries who were chosen out of 1,600 applicants (40 percent of those chosen were women). The winning projects were chosen out of 19. (Other favorites)
Continue reading 5 Aljazeera hackathon projects that signal future news innovation
