Sometimes journalists are desperate for any schlub to give perspective on an event, and I’m there to fill in the cracks.
News broke this week that eBay purchased regional e-commerce shop GSI Commerce, and WHYY was interested in whether an exit was good or bad for the region. (I said the region needs balance: exits are great for marketing, provided we also have a diverse portfolio of large, small and startup businesses, though exits can also limit growth.)
The annual national Online News Association conference, to be held this fall in Boston, has launched its 2011 panel picker, in which those interested can vote to support their favorites of a couple hundred suggested sessions.
I am somewhat involved in three. To vote, users just need to sign up with an email. If you’re interested give love to any of these three:
Data Sets You Free — Informed by my Transparencity work, I proposed to lead a session with Robert Cheetham of Azavea and Chris Satullo of WHYY that would focus on the following: “In Philadelphia, a GIS shop, an NPR affiliate, a foundation, an indie news site and a technology community are coming together to organize, catalog, share and use city government data to create applications, stories and coverage that boosts transparency and efficiency. This presentation focuses on what was done, why collaboration was important and lessons on doing the same elsewhere.” Questions: 1. Why is government data so important? 2. What are challenges, obstacles and lessons from an actual example? 3. What can other journalists learn from such a project?
This isn’t a panel: 10 lessons from Technically Philly — “10 actionable lessons derived from what we’ve learned building Technically Philly, a profitable blog that covers technology in Philadelphia. No panel discussion, just 10 takeaways that you can use at your job tomorrow including sources of revenue and editorial philosophies that you didn’t learn in journalism school.”
Making it work with a small staff — Organized by colleague Sean Blanda, “How can you keep the lights on and the posts coming when you have a staff of ten or less? Join us as we discuss the workflow hacks and editorial jujitsu necessary for a first-rate news site.”
Partnered with the Code for America fellowship program, I moderated a panel meant to illustrate concrete and simple definitions and needs for city data that was then followed by a half dozen breakout sessions in which moderators had their dozen group members answer two questions:
Politics of the Social Web Philadelphia NetSquared panel on Wed. Nov. 10, 2010, including, from left: Rachel Colyer, Organizing and Communications Manager of the Media and Democracy Coalition; Bryan Mercer of the Media Mobilizing Project; Susan Gasson, Associate Professor of the iSchool at Drexel, and myself, representing Technically Philly. The event was live streamed, from which this screen shot was taken. About 20 people were in attendance at the American Friends Service Center.
Understanding the difference between the theoretical concept’s debate and the more practical policy conversation over authority is key to furthering the conversation on so-called ‘net neutrality.’
That was the central-most, on-going theme of my remarks on a panel that focused on the growing conversation about requiring, among other things, internet service providers to maintain equal access and speed to all portions of the internet.
The panel discussion, held last Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2010 at the American Friends Service Center at 15th and Cherry streets in Center City Philadelphia, was part of Net Tuesdays, a free monthly event series from Philly NetSquared.
Though a discussion on the ‘Political Issues of the Social Web’ could have any number of directions — including, but certainly not limited to, the federal broadband stimulus initiatives and universal access broadband policy and a very powerful conversation about the meaning the social web has to democracy and revolution — our conversation, with some variation, focused more tightly on the very timely conversation on net neutrality.
Tonight, at the sixth Ignite Philly, a presentation event featuring fast-moving five minute discussions, my two Technically Philly colleagues and I discussed ‘The Power of Working in Threes.’
Find the presentation online here or flip through it below. I’m going to try to wrangle the video.
I enjoy pointing out skills, traits, knowledge sets or the like that I lack and want to develop and finding practical, fun, realistic ways to develop them as best I can — in small, attainable steps.
I love storytelling.
I want to be a better, more captivating, more experienced storyteller. I also bought a house back in December and was hunting a more original way to christen it.
With that in mind, a couple Saturdays ago, I introduced Story Shuffle to a dozen friends, mostly a cohort of former colleagues from my college newspaper days. It’s something of a themed, first-person storytelling event with lots of tasty food.
That niche vertical or hyperlocal news site that covers your community can be just as valuable as the big newspaper or local TV spot, I told an audience of nearly 20 as a panelist during an Entrepreneurship Week session hosted by the Empowerment Group last month.
The Kensington-based nonprofit who mission is “building a better Philadelphia by spurring economic growth,” hosted the week-long session of events — panels and lectures, workshops and happy hours — for small business owners and those interested in venturing down that path.
For the session on April 7, I joined a panel called ‘Build Your Own Buzz’ that was additionally manned by Alex Mulcahy, the founder of the popular, sustainability-focused GRID Magazine, Jim Sofran, an executive with Chicago-based Groupon and Deni Kasrel, a local marketing agent.
CoPress co-founders Greg Linch and Daniel Bachhuber at BarCamp NewsInnovation 2.0 at Temple University in Philadelphia on April 24, 2010. I spoke with them about Technically Philly and News Inkubator back in December.
I missed the release of the podcast once, and it took a conference four months later to remind me once more.
Back in December, my fellow Technically Philly co-founder Sean Blanda and I spoke to CoPress co-founders Greg Linch and Daniel Bachhuber about our site’s development and its work with News Inkubator, which was passed on in its Knight News Challenge attempt but conversations continue today.
