DigiDave | Communication is Key

The Community Dream Team

Since entering the world of networked journalism (and the larger world of Web 2.0) I have noticed one word repeated over and over again.

"Community"

Why?

A Two sentence explanation: When the web first became part of our daily lives it was viewed as another publishing medium, a space to simply modify content and stick it online. With Web 2.0 we have found that the true power of the Internet is connecting people socially despite geographic limitations, allowing like minded people to work/socialize together.

"Community" is a quick word to represent that togetherness.

Creating a community atmosphere requires the right tools (software) as well as the right tone. Communities don't spring up overnight. They need to be cared for, managed, and constantly groomed. It is a skill.

I've also heard calls for new journalism heroes.

So, just for fun, I've decided to create my own Community Dream Team -- people who I look up to as heroes in community building. I've cast a wide net. I might revisit this one day and cast a smaller net, limiting it to journalim heroes. But I think right now, it's better to include people that might not be traditional "journalists" --  the job discription is changing anyways.

In the room where I grew up there is a poster of the 1992 Olympic basketball team. the first time that professional basketball players represented the United States in the Olympics. They were the "Dream Team." The motivation on the part of commissioner David Stern was in part to expand the audience of basketball, but it was also a moment of national pride. They were our basketball heroes. I'm going to draw on that first Dream Team as inspiration for my Community Dream Team. Who would be on your Community Dream Team? I left one space open on the team for your suggestions. Who is your community hero?

Basketball Dream Team: Scottie Pippen

Scottie Pippen is the most underrated player of all time. If there were no Michael Jordan the Bulls would still have been major comeptitors because Scottie Pippen was also one of the best 50 players of all time. But with his association to Michael Jordan he was always viewed as a second man, a Robin to his Batman. Scottie Pippen, however, could have easily been the first man on any other team. He was undeniably a great basketball player and an asset to any team.

Community Dream Team: Craig Newmark

The Scottie Pippen of my Community Dream Team is Craig Newmark from Craigslist.

By now everyone knows what Craigslist is (it probably helped you find the apartment or some furniture in your home). The community on Craigslist was even a place of gathering during the Katrina disaster as my friend Keith Axline reported. But for the majority of users the man behind Craigslist goes unnoticed. What's important to realize is that Craig isn't just the founder of Craigslist, he is head of customer service. Always has been and he says he always will. And that's no joke either, he really does do customer service, responding to emails and complaints. And he must be darn good at it to quell all the possible flame wars that could go down. In addition to his 9-5 job Craig is a champion of Web 2.0 projects that seek to empower the crowd, donating everything from time and money to projects like the NewAssignment.Net, the Sunlight Foundation, etc.

(More after the break)

Hyperlocal + National: At the Same Time

It's often said that the future of journalism will be in the "hyperlocal."

I've always had a problem with that word. "Hyperlocal" -- as if just regular old local isn't local enough.

But there is a point to the idea that with a wealth of information and a shrinking world in terms of the exchange of information, the added value that a news organization can have is in covering one's neighborhood down to a tee.

I think covering issues at the hyperlocal level is fantastic. What better way for journalists to act as watchdogs then to bark in their own backyard?

The problem, however, is that we are still the fourth estate -- and the estate has to stay large enough to watch over an entire country.

The good news is: I don't think it's impossible to cover issues at the hyperlocal level and still get a national picture of issues, as long as news organizations are willing to work together. This goes against the traditional notion of "the scoop," but imagine hundreds of small news organizations covering the following topics at the hyperlocal level, but also working as a team as part of a larger investigation.

It's the anti-Kevin Sites approach. Sites is good, but I'll put my money on a network covering the following topics over him any day.

No Child Left Behind: Cover your local school -- but also find out what the change has been across the country.

City Planning/Infrastructure: Here's the current story: After the bridge in Minn. fell everyone did the story on America's baby-boomer bridges. So why isn't there a site where I can find ALL the stories from around the country -- each newspaper covering their local infrastructure and adding it to the pile?

Environmental disaster: Follow the cleanup at your local lake/river. But by sharing how that cleanup is going we can get a better sense of how this country treats its natural resources (oil excluded -- which gets plenty of attention).

Teacher's Tenure: Does it work in your town? How many teachers have tenure vs tenure horror stories?

City Healthcare: Start local and work out from there.

Etc, Etc, Etc.

Got any other stories that can be done easily at the hyperlocal level but if coordinated between several news organizations would add up to an example of distributed reporting? Holla back.

Journalism That Matters, Skills That Matter

Journalism that Matters was a two day conference to ask "what happens when all that's left is the journalism"?

I initially wasn't going to attend. But from the proper prodding of Leonard Witt and Steve Peterson, and the amazing follow up of Bill Denismore, I found myself traveling to D.C. (which was so hot, I thought my skin would melt) with an air of excitement.

Aside from an initial panel, which included Boss Rosen, it was an unconference. To my knowledge it is the only journalism unconference, which is something I've been screaming for at the top of my blogging lungs

for a long time.

That alone was interesting to me. I've been to many unconferences before, but they are flooded with geeks, hackers, designers and very few journalists. It was interesting to see the demographic of journalits (older white men) participate in something that I usually only see web 2.0 entrepreneurs do (get on their knees to write out a session they want to hold).

Leaving Journalism That Matters I have a new faith that entreprenurial journalism is not dead. The craft of journalism is alive and well. It just isn't being done by traditional journalists.

Throughout the conference the question was asked "What is going to support journalism"? My response: What are journalists going to support? Journalism is happening all around us. I've even argued that social news sites are acts of journalism. Journalism doesn't need support. It's flourishing on the Internet. But journalism as a profession is in a stall -- because it isn't joining the chorus. I hope we do before the crescendo hits.

(more after the fold)

Geek Out!

Pownce is to Twitter as Facebook is to MySpace.

If you know what I mean -- you know what I mean.

Rise of the Amatuer, The Debate Continues

Making a big splash lately is  “The Cult of the Amateur” by Andrew Keen.

A couple thoughts before I go into analysis.

1. Obviously an appropriation of Leander Khaney's Cult of Mac (my old editor at Wired).
2. Business Week video interview here.
3. Jeff Howe's thoughts: Coming from the crowdsourcing angle, Jeff is obviously on the other side of this debate.
5. Lessig's tears the book apart
4. My initial reaction when I saw Keen in a debate at Personal Democracy Forum.

My favorite panel was the debate on the amateur - whether or not everyone being able to take part in media is destroying our culture, with Robert Scoble and Craig Newmark on one end of the debate, Clay Shriky ridding the middle and Andrew Keen at the far end. Robert Scoble was hilarious (as I expected).

I'll give Andrew Keen credit for having the balls to say to this crowd of bloggers that the democratization of media was a bad thing. I kept waiting for someone to throw rotten produce at him.

But the debate seemed like a red herring to me. Should we only have professionals doing the media or just let the amateurs have it?

Why is it an "either-or" decision? .....

So now a bit more.

A friend/colleague from Assignment Zero is throwing around an idea: Responding to Keen's book with arguments formed by....amateurs. (I'm suggesting Debatepedia, but that might not be the ethos he wants).

Yes. A wikipedia-esque response to Andrew Keen's thesis. I applaud the creativity. Let's see if it happens.

I'm still left with one sour spot about Keen's book. Why is everyone an amateur? At the Future of News  Steve Boriss put it best: 

Most who write for Old Media are professional journalists, but amateurs in the topics they write about. By contrast, most of the leading, elite bloggers are experts in their specialized topic areas, but amateurs in journalism. Is the public really better off reading amateur-grade information from journalists rather than professional-grade information from non-journalists? More to the point, will they prefer it?

And just to go full circle. That seems to be what we experienced at Assignment Zero. As Jeff Howe put it when looking over the 80+ interviews that we conducted:

This is the beauty of open organizational systems. People self-select, assigning themselves to tasks for which they are best-suited. Contrast this with the process by which an interviewer is assigned to interviewee in a closed system (a magazine or newspaper). A journalist is often chosen to conduct a Q&A with a subject based on his or her availability. That's a pretty poor qualification, though it's borne of simple necessity. The professional in this closed system (and I speak from personal experience), often lacks the time it takes to adequately acquaint oneself with the subject's work, ideas and experience. If the resulting product feels a little rote and indifferent, do you blame the journalist or the system?

But not only did the interviews betray a level of passion and specialization rarely found in the mainstream media, they were simply better reads. Magazines and newspapers tend to pasteurize such interviews to filter out any content that any reader anywhere might possibly deem offensive or obscure or simply irrelevant. The result is something that's leached of idiosyncrasy, complex ideas and the accidental poetry that arises from an animated conversation.

The Difference Between Crowdsoured News and Open Source News and Why We Haven't Seen the Later

Crowdsouring is a topic mulling around in my head lately. In part because Assignment Zero is coming to a close. Also because I'm helping Jeff Howe research for his book on the topic.

Crowdsourcing, when broken down, can be considered the biggest business story since the assembly line. In fact, when people ask me "well, what IS crowdsourcing." I usually just tell them: It's the expansion of the assembly line through the Internet.

But, I digress.

How Jeff Howe describes it (and he coined the phrase, so I'll defer to his definition):

The White Paper Version: Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.

The Soundbyte Version: The application of Open Source principles to fields outside of software.

Okay.

So for organizations like iStockPhoto -- a clear example of crowdsourcing -- it makes perfect sense. Magazine photos were traditionally produced by a select few. Today, that market has opened up and anyone can sell photos to a professional magazine via crowd powered middle-men like iStockPhoto.

So far, so good.

But what needs further refining is the soundbyte -- that crowdsourcing is the "application of OS principles to fields outside of software." Jeff is onto something -- but in the end, I think it's better to focus in on exactly what principle it is that crowdsourcing relies on.

The revolutionary aspect of open source is the effect of standing on other people's shoulders. There is a crowdsourcing element to it all -- anyone can add to the code, not just people in-house, but the real power comes from the collection and aggregation of knowledge/work/products over time. Point is: IT'S A COLLABORATION.

I just don't see this in iStockPhotography, Innocentive, Mechanical Turk or some of the other go-to examples of crowdsourcing. The process of creating a product is opened up. Yes. Communities might even spring up in the process. But are the crowds of people collaborating?

Citizen Science

I've been working for Jeff Howe at Crowdsourcing.com, doing basic research stuff for his book which will be finished later this year.

Tonight, I spent a fair amount of time researching bird hobbyists. Specifically, I was looking into the Audobon Society's Christmas Bird Count and their Great Backyard Bird Count. It's an example of "citizen science" according to Wikipedia.

I know a several people are annoyed with the term "citizen journalist" and I can understand why. A colleague recently asked if that term bothered me -- my reply: If I try teaching a 6-year-old boy how to read, would you call me a "citizen teacher"?

That specific semantic debate aside, I do have a more positive attitude towards "citizen scientist" (since science is traditionally something you need a degree and distinct education to practice).

I'm currently talking to different people who are involved in citizen science -- more specifically, I'm talking to people who are interested in using web 2.0 tools to improve the methods that (a. scientists can do research (b. reporters can cover science issues and (c. teachers can relate scientific principles to eager students.

It's an interesting subject. Science, in my mind, is the next field outside of software that can really profit from the connectivity of the Internet. As the exchange of information increases -- the rate at which we can further refine scientific research into minute fields of interest, power that research by the crowd and share the findings through open source practices and principles is still in its infancy. In part because science is big business -- but as companies like Innocentive continue to succeed -- I expect open source science to emerge the victor over big business.

Although science is connected to big business -- it is in the end a noble pursuit that will, I hope, seek the greatest means to achieve its ends. I believe citizen science will play a role -- just as open source science (the open sharing of scientific findings) will distribute the power of science in ways we have never imagined.

Some people powered science websites I'm watching latetly.
Scientificblogging.com
Seed Magazine (I used to work there)
InkLing Magazine

Prometeus: He Found Fire, We Found Information Exchange

This video reminds me of Epic 2014

Both touch on an issue that I come back to again and again. They each say it in their own way -- not specifically, but they graze it. Life is about the exchange of information. What we are witnessing now is the rapid evolution in that exchange.

This video calls it "knowledge flow" -- "experience is the new reality." Well, experience has always been reality. But in this sci-fi quickie, experience, the most intimate forms of information, has become subject to exchange.

In my humble opinion, I'm still a bigger fan of Epic 2014. First for it's originality, but second for its focus on the more practical -- the real consequences for the traditional media makers (the gatekeepers of information exchange) once that gate has broken and the flow of information has become uncontrollable.

When Newspapers Start Blogging, Learning the Old Trade All Over Again

Lately I've been conversing with local newspaper editors about blogging, citizen journalism etc. It starts with a simple email -- perhaps just a note saying "I like what you are doing" (or sometimes -- "I hate what you are doing") -- but either way, I can't stop myself from hitting reply and sending an email right back.

I wanted to write about two of these exchanges in particular because I believe there are lessons to be learned. Or at least, discussed.

The first case is an editor from The Elk Grove Citizen, a paper in the Sacramento area.

The editor and I have actually butted heads in some email exchanges. I'm happy to say that despite a bit of antagonism -- I think there is mutual respect and admiration -- perhaps neither of us are geniuses -- but I believe we both get the sense that the other cares about journalism and only wants to see the trade continue into the future.

Having said that -- we do disagree about whether or not there is merit in citizen journalism/blogging etc. Still -- to this editors credit, the Elk Grove has started a blog.

I've talked about different ways one can build traffic to your blog and the first thing I said was: find other local blogs and when they write something good -- link to it. Seems pretty intuitive to me. Unfortunately, the editor I've been conversing with came against a snag: his boss has given him a strict linking policy.

No links to other newspapers, links to other blogs are unlikely and no stories can be published on the blog until after they hit print first.

A dilemma that I wanted to analyze for a moment. It might be old news to others, but linking is an editorial service. In fact, entire companies have been created to help outsource the creation of editorially significant links (side note: I recently met with the CTO of Inform and we had this exact discussion, links are an editorial service).

I'm not talking about Intellitxt links which are just advertisements. I'm talking about good, informative and engaging links. If newspapers are in the business of informing readers -- there is no simple way than this.

If you aren't linking, then you aren't serving the reader. And when I go to a restaurant with bad service, I don't come back. On the flip side -- how many times have you gone back to a restaurant because the bread they serve before the meal is fantastic?

There are very successful blogs that only serve up links -- and people love them for it. Blogs that I read regularly are just quick links out to more in-depth stories. But I go back to those blogs because I trust the bloggers choices and I know they'll help keep me informed. They are serving me up a tasty dish of hyperlinks.

Case in point: What journalist doesn't read Romenesko?

I think my editor friend at the Elk Grove gets it. But I get the impression his boss doesn't. Which is too bad. Perhaps it's a business thing -- but a publisher should never underestimate the power of the browser back button -- which means one more page impression and one more ad served.

Bottom line: it's probably blogging 101, and a lot of you think I'm just being repetitive for saying this: Linking is good. Linking to competitors shows you have guts and integrity and that you put informing your reader as the highest priority.

And you can have fun with links too. Think of links as you in little blue words. You are what you link.

I do wish the Elk Grove all the success in the world. Having emailed back and forth with one of their editors, I know there are good and passionate people on board -- and in the end, all the links in the world can't replace a good dedicated journalist. So here's to a California paper (raises glass). Good luck guys.

Where's the Grant to Teach Journalists how to Code: Take II

Since I received some feedback on my last post -- (all appreciated) I thought I would keep the conversation going -- if only to clear up my own ideas.

First: Thanks to all -- some good advice in the comments and other blogposts.

There seems to be a general consensus: In the end, it's probably better to have people specialize in specific areas (editorial and development) -- although some people disagree.

This makes sense: one person can only do so much -- and since both fields require a lot of attention, it only makes sense to let one person focus on development and the other on editorial concerns.

But I still want to intimately understand the in's-and-out's of what a developer does and is capable of. Specifically in terms of building databases.

In many situations editorial and development speak two languages. I often act as an interpreter of sorts (people look to me and say: He knows Flash, he's on the Net a lot, he must be able to tell us if the developer can do this). And I've gotten a good sense of things, but I want to improve my language skills -- maybe even speak a little myself (if I'm going to extend the metaphor), so I can do small (still important) tasks to take things off a developers plate.

But what I really want is to build databases -- We are in a period of trial and error in social media: I want to be able to try and err myself.

I'll even share the basics of what it is that I want to attempt next (Note: I'm currently looking for people to collaborate on this ie: funders, wink wink...prod prod) -- this might explain where I was coming from with the original post. But first I'll set the stage.

Sharing Information -- an open database.

I'm coming to the end of Assignment Zero a citizen journalism project I've helped to organize with NewAssignment.Net and Wired.com: I worked a bit on everything, concept, I.A., design, implementation, day-to-day managment, tech support (only controlling the CMS, not building it), etc etc. It's been a very eye-opening experience. (note: obviously I was not alone -- every step of the way, we had specialists and I had great co-workers).

There have been some ups and downs. Some failure and some success.

A few things that I learned from Assignment Zero -- off the top of my head.

1. The topic: Crowdsourcing -- I'm into it. But I'm a nerd. If you are going to try networked journalism, make it a topic that a network or community can rally around. This was a tough one -- even for Wired's audience.

    (side note: you have to stay in constant contact with that audience -- Wired was great for having tried this project out with us, but we needed just a little more of a commitment from them to promote what was happening at AZ to the Wired audience on a regular basis).

2. Make it open source: Assignment Zero was crowdsourced -- but not necc. open source. It's a subtle but important distinction in my mind: There's lots of talk about newspapers going hyperlocal. Fantastic -- that's probably where they can get the most value, since the news wires, cable tv, etc, will cover the national/international issues faster and perhaps better.

How Does One Make local coverage open source?

Lots of small newspapers will be covering the same local issues -- like education -- within a small fixed context... their town.

  Give it focus: What if they all covered the affects of No Child Left Behind in their neigborhood?

  It's a topic that lots of people care about. Heck, there are already networks that exist (P.T.A., teachers unions, anyone with a school aged child, etc).

   Hmmm.. what if they all covered the affects of No Child Left Behind in their local, but they all agreed on what raw data they were going to try and uncover. Things like (a. Graduation rates, (b. number of minutes their school(s) had to give up teaching science or social studies in order to meet the NCLB tests (c. Performance rate for specific races/grades. Any other public information.

It could be a joint effort: journalists and citizen journalists working together, each in their specific community/city to get the specific information

  Now they can compare apples to apples. Each news organization has a local story -- serving their community, but they can also feed that information up, to create a story that is far greater than the sum of its parts. Imagine if just 50 news organizations -- one in each state did this. It might only cover 50 cities -- but that would produce some interesting stuff. And it would be more than any one of those news organizations could collect by their lonesome. Open source journalism: the data is shared.

   Then you need a way to visually display that information .... and generally have fun/geek out with it. Lots of possibilities.

  It would require a few things: 1. A general agreement between the news organizations to share their information (note: it doesn't necc. have to be a newspaper -- I suspect most papers wouldn't want to share this info -- they are attached to the "scoop" -- but I bet hyperlocal sites or blogs would want to cover it -- I could imagine ChiTown in Chicago -- and a similar Chitown site in each major city in American doing its share.

  But it also needs a database to collect, mix and mash that data in the right way. A database I see very clearly in my head -- but don't have the coding chops to create.

Well -- sorry for the rant. This is only my latest idea. Maybe it's far fetched -- but I think it's only a matter of time before these types of collaborations become regular and I want to do one. Or at least try and fail at creating one.