work in progress…

see the first version of the presentation: keynote.pdf. It’s a PDF – just because I can’t upload the keynote file, and most of you would not be able to open it anyway.

presentation prep notes

narrative is interesting at this point.  we’ll need something more to “see” during tomorrow night’s chat (your last with me before we depart for ithaca), so please prep your show and your questions.

looking forward to it!

helpful link…

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/27/technology/27maps.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1185674824-rIy86jXTlN/ic+UuZPFgHQ&oref=slogin

presentation

15 minutes for presentation

10 minutes for Q & A

5 minutes setup/turnaround time

beginning at 10 a.m. friday: 3 presentations before and 3 after lunch (don’t know the order yet…)

REeesearch

So, as we chatted yesterday, we’re thinking our target demographic is the young adult, 25-30ish (I’m guessing middle class) who is settling down and looking to establish community ties much like their parents may have done years before.

While this isn’t the “digital native” demo, it’s clear that this age group has a high rate of internet adoption, and is using the internet to gather news.  Here’s some research to back up those claims:

This research shows the 18-24 demo and the 25-34 demo both read newspapers significantly less often than older age groups.  Both of those younger demos fell to 35 percent in 2006.  Readership amongst all age groups is falling, but it seems that the 18-34 group needs the most encouragement!

This newspaper research journal article shows that the Internet is ahead of newspapers in readership for 18-34 year olds.  It barely trails television.  Interestingly 34-54 year olds used the internet at the highest percentage:

“This is true because many people who use the Internet never use it for news. Internet use is now greater for those 35 to 54 years of age than for those younger than that, and this holds for news as well. This in part probably reflects the increased use of computers in the workplace. It also is probably in part because those who were less than 35 years old 10 or 15 years ago, when that group had the highest Internet use, are now in the 35 to 54 age group. However, use by those more than 55 years old lags far behind use of the newspapers and television news. Many in that age group simply have the habit of getting news that way, and it is still the most convenient way for them to get it. “

And some more pew data showing that 30-49 year olds are almost as likely to use the Internet as 18-29 year olds.

Design suggestions

1.  Again, I think the key here is that we sell this as a package, and design it as such. That begins with a consistent design for each of the interfaces.

Really, our idea is quite involved, but giving each interface a consistent design is going to give it that “oh this is an easy package to adopt for my news site!” feel.

At the most basic level, the thing needs a border (again to give it that tidy package feel), and it needs to be smaller so that it doesn’t overwhelm the page. Remember, this may be embedded on a news site’s homepage – it isn’t going to BE the homepage.

Now Marjorie thinks its too sterile, but I really like the wapo local explorer design – which is quite similar to our idea – minus the user-submitted laters. In particular, I like how it’s got that complete package look. And personally, I like sterile. I think that after myspace became an orgy of poor taste, people have really retreated to the clean and simple (see: facebook).

Now, the design will be consistent, but that doesn’t mean we can’t allow for news site customization – adding a logo, changing color, changing name to localize. Perhaps that can be an option in the setup process or be controlled via the editing interface.

2.  If we go with a flash presentation – which I think would give the thing a bit more sheen than a ppt – I think that we should really just photoshop the mockup.  I don’t know though – Jeff and Phillip need to discuss what would be the best in flash.  (Philip here is a Very rough version Jeff built in dreamweaver).

3.  Concrete suggestions:

• add “enter your address” entry form to center the map on the individuals neighborhood
• powered by google not needed – google maps will automatically add this to any map you build
• I love the “get published!” line – right out of that wired article!  However, I think it should be some sort of a cool looking button or something.
• border!
• shrink it!
• add a few markers and show an example of what the textbox might look like (headline, subhead or blurb, picture, link?)
• Arts and Cultural “Events” not “festivals”
• Maybe add a layer like “community announcements” that aren’t necessarily news.
• coordinate the design with editor interface and user submitted interface
• add editing tools to editor interface (like those on top of the box I’m typing into right now)
• in addition to “drag to new point” there should be an address input option
• in addition to headline – there should be a subhead or blurb line to clarify what info will be displayed in the gmap marker infobox

Thoughts on presentation

Rough outline of material that should be included in presentation – Medium agnostic – Please feel free to edit!

The Needs

• Interaction with local news
• Facilitation of citizen-journalists

The Audience

• Citizens seeking hyper-local access and interaction
• PEW research on under 36

The Challenge

• Provide local news sources with an easy-to-use online tool to facilitate community interaction and dialogue.

The Literature – O’Reilly’s Web 2.0

Web 2.0 news sources should:

• *Provide a service, not a software package
• *Control unique, difficult to replicate data sources that get richer the more individuals contribute to them
• *Trust users as co-developers
• *Harness collective intelligence
• Leverage the long tail through customer service.
• Provide software above the level of a single device
• *Use lightweight user interfaces, development models, and business models

* = addressed by our idea

The Idea

One, easy to use web application for news sources that includes

• user-created, geographically displayed news and information
• coupled with editorial controls for wary news outlets

Overview

• User-submitted interface
• Editor interface – to push through user and staff articles
• Display

Behind the Scenes

• Google Maps API
• Mapplets
• mySQL

“A good map is both a useful tool and a magic carpet to far away places”

As I arrived home today from visiting a local festival and the New York Wine and Culinary Center (both things which would be GREAT on a map of things to do), I opened my mailbox to find – among other things – the August issue of WIRED magazine. And in this issue was is an article entitled “Breaking the News.” The article is summarized with the following:

Faced with fewer ads and a dwindling audience, the country’s biggest newspaper chain set out to reinvent the business. First step: Put the readers to work.

I’ve scanned the PDF so you all can read it – breakingthenews.pdf

I have also compressed the scan of the article from yesterday’s Rochester Democrat and Chronicle which I mentioned in last night’s (poorly-attended) chat.rocmen.pdf

While looking at WIRED’s website, I found another great article – which I have posted and is available at google-maps-is-changing-the-way-we-see-the-world.pdf

Also, take a look at this one from when the mapping API first came out: map-hacks-on-crack.pdf

Here’s an example of citizen journalism on google map… but it aint pretty or refined at all. a-disaster-map-wiki-is-born.pdf

And yes, it could work for classified dating… best-way-to-date_-collaborate.pdf

journalism’s future…

Journalism Dean at Northwestern U. Develops Curriculum With
Increased Emphasis on Multimedia and Marketing

By KATHERINE MANGAN <mailto:katiemangan@austin.rr.com>

Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism is expected to
publicly unveil a revamped curriculum soon that has been the subject of
heated debate for more than a year.

At a time when newspaper readership is steadily declining and many
readers are bouncing from blogs to Internet video to get their news, the
new approach will send student reporters out into the field with video
iPods and digital camcorders, as well as spiral notebooks. The most
controversial change, though, is the increased emphasis on marketing.
This fall, lessons in audience behavior and motivation will be taught
alongside drills in crafting leads and meeting deadlines. Students will
be encouraged to connect with readers by writing out of storefront
newsrooms in diverse Chicago neighborhoods.

Some praise the changes as long overdue; others dismiss them as a
sellout. But what irks critics the most is the way they were devised.
Last year Northwestern’s president and provost announced that they were
suspending faculty governance in the journalism school for three and a
half years to give the new dean “free rein” to revamp the school.

At the center of the controversy is John Lavine, who became dean in
January 2006 after founding and directing Northwestern’s Media
Management Center, a for-profit center that provides media research and
executive education.

He says the faculty have, in fact, spent hundreds of hours working with
him to remake the curriculum and that the changes will make Medill’s
training more relevant to the 21st century. The curriculum will
integrate multimedia techniques and the study of “audience
understanding” throughout core courses, and it will focus more heavily
on online content.

“It’s not enough to train reporters to write for the evening broadcast
news show or for the features section of a daily newspaper,” says Mr.
Lavine. “Our job is to create journalists who can win and hold the
attention of media consumers faced with limited time and abundant media
choices.”

*A New Era for Journalism*

When he was editor of a daily newspaper in 1964, “nearly 90 percent of
the households in that town subscribed to the paper, and people would
get up in the morning and read it,” Mr. Lavine says. With one radio
station and one television station nearby, he says, “there were only
three places you could go to find out whether the world had survived
overnight. We assumed that what we were doing was right because everyone
turned to us.”

But those days are gone. Now journalists must understand what their
audiences are interested in, as well as the best way to grab their
attention. The dean believes that Medill is uniquely poised to straddle
the line between journalism and marketing since it consists of both a
school of journalism and a program in integrated marketing communications.

Critics contend the changes, which affect both undergraduate and
graduate-level programs, will dilute the schools’ focus on strong
writing and reporting — a charge the dean disputes. They bristle at the
informal name change: Since Mr. Lavine took over, the Medill School of
Journalism is now referred to simply as the “Medill School.”

Medill’s transformation is being closely watched by journalism schools
nationwide, says Thomas Kunkel, dean of the University of Maryland’s
Philip Merrill College of Journalism and the incoming president of the
Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication.

“Medill has always been one of the nation’s leading journalism schools,
and the introduction of substantive change is going to be traumatic,” he
says. “Every responsible journalism program is trying to ratchet up what
it does in the realm of digital journalism and multimedia platforms, but
it’s very tricky. Journalism educators don’t have any better idea of
where this is heading than the industry does.”

The blending of journalism and marketing is more controversial and
viewed by some as “a mingling of priorities that wouldn’t be healthy for
journalism,” he says. “Journalists hold that journalists do the content,
and the business people do the business, and to the extent possible,
they need to work on their own side of the wall so there isn’t a sense
that newspapers are writing stories to make advertisers happy and that
the publisher isn’t dictating the stories.”

*Free Rein Given to Dean*

Many faculty members read, in the Fall 2006 issue of the university’s
alumni magazine, that Mr. Lavine had been granted considerable power at
Medill at the same time faculty oversight was suspended.

The university’s General Faculty Committee unanimously approved a
resolution last month calling that move “unacceptable and in violation
of the University Statutes.”

The resolution stated that major curricular changes should require
deliberation and a vote by the faculty, and it predicted that the
suspension would demoralize professors, damage the school’s national
reputation, and make it difficult to recruit faculty members. Both the
president and provost have declined to comment on the resolution.

Mr. Lavine cites several examples of faculty involvement in the plan,
Medill 2020. It was based on a report that the faculty voted on in 2005
that called for, among other things, more emphasis on real-world
experience and a better understanding of the audience, he says. Twelve
faculty committees each examined a piece of the curriculum last year,
and their recommendations shaped the new version. Last spring, all
Medill faculty members participated in a 10-week course on producing
multimedia reports and integrating the technology into their courses.

“We’ve managed to make enormous, sweeping changes in the past 18 months,
and the faculty made it happen,” the dean says.

*Objections From Faculty*

Skeptics say the committees may have examined small pieces of the
puzzle, but the faculty as a whole never had an opportunity to vote on
the entire curriculum.

Clarke Caywood, who served on the faculty governing body when the
resolution was drafted, believes the dean’s ideas for revamping the
curriculum aren’t the problem. “The changes are probably going to be
good for the school. What I object to is the process,” says Mr. Caywood,
director of Medill’s graduate program in public relations.

But the dean has plenty of support from other professors. David L.
Nelson, an associate professor, says his only complaint is that the
changes “should have happened a long time ago.”

“Lavine’s on a limited time frame. I wish he would move with as much
dispatch as possible and not worry about bruised egos,” Mr. Nelson says.
“This is an audience that you can’t win over, so I think he should just
go ahead and do it.”

Mr. Nelson says some senior faculty who have objected to the changes
“don’t get the technology” and don’t want to expend the effort learning
it. “This is a very interesting time to be a teacher,” he says, “and to
put your head in the sand and ignore the changes is wrong.”

In an article
<http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/medill/inside/news/dean_john_lavine_unveils_vision_for_medill_2020.html>
published on Northwestern’s Web site last year, Mr. Lavine outlined the
goals of Medill 2020, and dealt with questions about whether marketing
should have any place in a journalism course. . “Marketing is a tool
that can be used for ill if it allows advertisers to influence the news,
or it can be used for good if it tells consumers about important news
and information they would not otherwise know about,” he wrote.

He expanded on that idea in a lengthy interview with /The Chronicle/ in
which he defended the notion that journalists need to understand their
audiences: “You can have the finest news story in the world, but if no
one reads it, what good is it? No journalist is going to say, ‘I’ve
written this great story, but I don’t care if anyone reads it.’”

Meanwhile, alumni and student blogs and listservs have been burning with
comments — many of them scathing — about the change in focus at
Medill. The dean admits there were bumps in the road as faculty and
students learned to navigate the new multimedia equipment, “and we’re
taking the complaints seriously.”

*Mixed Response From Students*

Steve Aquino, a journalism major who will be a senior at Medill this
fall, says some students cringe at the dean’s marketing-oriented
language, including references to readers and viewers as “consumers.”

“Reporters like to think of themselves as writers rather than
manufacturers of goods, and that kind of language is kind of a punch in
the gut,” he says. He has mixed feelings about Medill 2020. He likes the
idea of learning how to be adept at technology and understanding what
makes readers tick, but he objects to the way the plan is being carried
out.

“When I first heard about it, it left a sour taste in my mouth,” he
says, “but I can see the value of being as versatile and employable as
possible when we graduate.” He also objects to the requirement that all
incoming students purchase their own laptops, software, video iPods, and
digital camcorders, which he says cost around $3,600. The school does
not reimburse students for that equipment but considers those expenses
when allocating financial aid.

Peter Sachs, who received his master’s degree from Medill in December
and is working as a reporter for a daily newspaper in Bend, Ore., , says
some of the school’s new emphasis may be misplaced: “The key to my
getting a job was not that I could handle an iPod, video camera, and
tape recorder all at one time. It was being able to write a complete
story on deadline.”

*Focus on Versatility*

Some professors share his concern, despite the fact that the new version
calls for more writing labs for freshmen, as well as more hands-on
reporting experience.

“In the sophomore news-writing class I taught, it took the whole 10
weeks to get students to write clearly, without any obviously clumsy
constructions,” says Robert McClory, a professor emeritus who still
teaches an occasional magazine-writing class at Medill.

“When you throw in all this other stuff — students are not only writing
the story, but filming it, editing it, and putting it on the Web –
that’s extremely stressful for many professors.”

But Mr. Lavine and his supporters insist that versatility is key in
today’s media industry. “Employers are saying, ‘We’re not going to hire
people who can only do one of those things when we’re going to do all of
those things,” Mr. Lavine says.

“The focus is not the technology,” he continues. “We could be wizards at
technology, and it would be a loss if we didn’t tell better stories and
have better marketing.”

That doesn’t mean pandering to readers’ basest instincts about what
makes a juicy story, according to Mary Nesbitt associate dean for
curriculum.

“If you really listen to people, you soon learn that they are not
stupid,” says Ms. Nesbitt, managing director of the Media Management
Center’s Readership Institute, a think tank that helps daily newspapers
increase their readership. People “do want to know about important
things,” she says. “They just don’t want it presented in a way that
makes it difficult to assimilate.”

Fred Barbash, a lecturer at Medill who spent his career as a reporter
and editor at /The Washington Post,/ doesn’t see anything wrong with
asking what readers want.

“I don’t think of it as marketing. I think of it as the questions we
used to ask in news meetings: Who are we writing this for? Is it
intelligible?” That approach isn’t new, he says.

“When I was covering the Supreme Court, my editor would say ‘Barbash,
take off your robe.’ That had to be pounded home to me — that I’m not
writing for judges and lawyers. I’m writing for the people who have to
live with these decisions.”

That message is even more important today, he says. If readers are bored
or confused, he says, “all they have to do is Google the topic and five
more versions of the same story will appear. You won’t get another chance.”

###

Cool new mashup

Craigstats