:Journalistopia

Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users is on the mic right now talking about how to engage users and make them passionate about your web app.

While Sierra’s talking about software development, I can’t help but think that much of what she says also applies to print newsroom staff who are trying to embrace the online medium.

Sierra talks about a “suck threshold”, the point at which a person is unskilled with a particular tool, and a passion threshold, where a user really begins to understand how to use a tool and can really begin loving it.

In newsrooms, folks often experience lots of initial excitement about a particular web technology — usually things like  Flash, Soundslides, recording audio and video, working in the content-management system, Twittering or any other number of things. But what happens when they start getting into the nitty-gritty of Flash and realize how freakin’ hard it really is? Or they start using Twitter, don’t get followers and kinda wade in the dark on how to use it?

That “suck threshold”, as Kathy says, is the time a user is most likely to give up on any skill. It’s at that time that your Web staff and power users need to step in and really guide the print folks in becoming comfortable with a technology.

Oftentimes, we think selling them on using a tool is the biggest battle. It’s important, but it’s not the end of the war. Your staff must overcome that often-difficult learning curve before the battle is won.

SOME TIPS:

-Once a technology is identified, have regularly scheduled training for it.  Do a monthly training with the tool or colaborate regularly with a mentor at another publication. The biggest sin I see is editors sending a staffer to this-or-that intensive two-day workshop to learn Flash. The staffer returns, starts playing with the tool, produces one quick project, and then eventually gives up when they don’t get practice and can’t advance their skills to the next level.

-Focus on creating a project, not on learning a tool. How many of you sit there and say “This is SO awesome; I’m going to spend my whole day learning how to use this power saw!” Using a saw is boring. Using a saw to create a custom cabinet for your house is awesome. Focus on the end result, and you’ll learn the skills along the way.

-Have patience. The first projects a new user creates are going to be pretty lousy (I know mine are!). Let your staffers know you expect them to fail sometimes, and that it’s OK; they’re learning. If you provide regular training and encouragement, you’ll reap the dividends.

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The Orlando Sentinel Posse is here in Miami for the 2008 Future of Web Apps Conference, where he hope to figure out how we can peer into the future of web technology and apply it to the media.

A few quick tidbits: Josh Hallett of Hyku is at the front of the room snapping away, so catch his Flickr photoset and many others tagged fowamiami2008 throughout the day. Sentinel tech writer Etan Horowitz will be blogging today on the new Etan on Tech blog. And, catch Sentinel designer and Twitterholic extraordinaire Bill Couch’s feed here.

More in a bit.

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A heads-up, mostly for fellow Floridians: FREE registration for BarCamp Orlando is open today!

What is BarCamp? Event organizer Gregg Pollack says it best:

BarCampOrlando is a community building event, which happens twice a year to bring together people from different backgrounds to share and learn from each other. There will be people who know Java, .NET, Ruby, PHP, and other technologies coming together for Dev Day, and there will be people who know film, music, photography, graphic design, podcasting, and even other new Media coming together for Media Day.

Yours truly was there last year, and it was uber cool. It’s a fantastic opportunity to meet local tech folks and learn about cutting edge stuff, some of which you’ll soon be seeing in newsrooms. And best of all, it won’t cost you a dime.

So seeya at BarCamp Orlando!

[NOTE: Speaking of nerd conferences, I'll be at the Future of Web Apps conference in Miami tomorrow, along with Bill and Etan.]

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The Newspaper Association of America announced the winners of the 2008 Digital Edge Awards. (Hopefully an Edgie for PolitiFact will help my ol’ pal Matt Waite get over his recent Web host meltdown). And the winners are:

This year’s Online Innovator Award went to Dan Shorter for his work at PalmBeachPost.com. As of this week, Dan is moving to the Star-Tribune in Minnesota.

The winners of the 2008 Digital Edge Awards are:

Best Overall Newspaper Web Site

LJWorld.com, The Lawrence Journal-World/The World Co. (circ. < 75,000)

Knoxnews.com, Knoxville News Sentinel (circ. 75,000 – 250,000)

PolitiFact.com, St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly (circ. > 250,000)

Best Local Guide or Entertainment Site

Lawrence.com, The World Co. (circ. < 75,000)

Austin360.com, Austin American-Stateman (circ. 75,000 – 250,000)

Vita.mn, Minneapolis Star Tribune (circ. > 250,000)

Best Local Shopping and Directory Strategy

LJWorld.com Marketplace, The World Co. (circ. < 75,000)

Mobile Shopping Directory, The Palm Beach Post (circ. 75,000 – 250,000)

ChicagoTribune.com Shopping Channel and Metromix Boutiques, Tribune Interactive (circ. > 250,000)

Best Digital Advertising Program

I Lassoed Lance, Amarillo Globe-News (circ. < 75,000)

Online Carousel, Dayton Daily News (circ. 75,000 – 250,000)

Homepage Experience Campaign, Minneapolis Star Tribune (circ. > 250,000)

Best Digital Classified Innovation

No winner (circ. < 75,000)

Increase Renewals with Automated E-mails, The Palm Beach Post (circ. 75,000 – 250,000)

Real Estate Video Tours, The Dallas Morning News (circ. > 250,000)

Most Innovative Multimedia Storytelling

24 Hours in Lawrence Lawrence Journal-World/The World Co. (circ. < 75,000)

BrokenTrust, Sarasota Herald-Tribune (circ. 75,000 – 250,000)

A People Torn, Minneapolis Star Tribune (circ. > 250,000)

Most Innovative Use of Interactive Media

PigskinReview.com, Amarillo Globe-News (circ. < 75,000)

Ultimate Local Band Site and Text Voting Contest, tbt* Tampa Bay Times (circ. 75,000 – 250,000)

The Issues Tracker and HD Video Podcasts, washingtonpost.com (circ. > 250,000)

Most Innovative Visitor Participation

Creating a Two-Way Conversation with Our Community, Savannahnow.com/Savannah Morning News (circ. < 75,000)

School Matters Knoxnews.com/Knoxville News Sentinel (circ. 75,000 – 250,000)

cincyMOMS.com, Cincinnati Enquirer (circ. > 250,000)

Best Design and Site Architecture

PrepZone.com, Naples Daily News (circ. < 75,000)

Knoxnews.com, Knoxville News Sentinel (circ. 75,000 – 250,000)

washingtonpost.com, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive (circ. < 250,000)

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[CORRECTION: That's FEBRUARY 22-23, not January. Thanks Melissa. Going to go eat a bug now...] 

Georgia Tech will be hosting a Feb. 22-23 symposium on the future of technology as it relates to the news industry, featuring speakers such as Google News creator Krishna Bharat, American Public Media innovation center executive director Michael Skoler and Fast Company media columnist and Gawker founder Elizabeth Spiers.

Registration before Feb. 10 is $100. After Feb. 10, registration is $150. Registration for students is $50 with valid ID.

The Symposium on Computation and Journalism is billed as bringing together “researchers and newspeople from academia, corporate labs, Internet juggernauts, big media companies, small media companies, and startups, plus a freelancer or two who works at home, solo in pajamas.” Plus,  they’re “setting aside 50% of the seats for students and early-career folks with the expectation that they’re the ones to finish the conversation we hope to start.”

More info about the symposium here.

[Hat tip to April Hunt]

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Famed Journerdist Will Sullivan has put together a useful set of profiles of the four best online and multimedia professional journalism groups. Don’t spend a penny of your pittance of a conference budget before reading Will’s profiles.

On his list are the:

Online News Association

National Press Photographers Association

Society for News Design

Sports Shooter

Will goes through the pluses and minuses of the groups and provides tell-it-like-it-is reviews of the groups’ conferences. So check it out!

Additionally, make sure you take a look at local and regional groups for great events, particularly when it comes to technology. I’ve picked up great ideas and insights at events such as Likemind, BlogOrlando and BarCamp without having to break the budget.

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Quick conference opportunity for techies, especially for Floridians and Miami natives such as yours truly:

The Future of Web Apps conference is taking place in Miami from February 28 to March 1. The speakers list includes tech-heads from Twitter, Plaxo, Ning and much more. Early bird registration is $145 for early birds, $195 normal. Conference plus the day of workshops is $495 early bird, $595 regular. Registration for students is $50 (workshops not included). See the full fee list here.

As an alternative to the workshops, BarCamp Miami (a free event) will be taking place the same day on February 28.

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Alas, the trip to lovely Canada comes to an end as Journalistopia is headed back to Orlando, Fla today. The Online News Association conference was a blast, but it couldn’t have been possible without the incredible work put in by executive director Lori Schwab, conference chair Ju-Don Marshall Roberts and a host of other misfits (Anjali, Amy, Laura, Josh, Eileen, Tiffany and more). I also want to thank the panelists I worked with who were kind enough to share their insights: David Milliron, Rob Curley, JD Lasica, Dan Gillmor, Jay Rosen and Adrian Holovaty.

Toronto, I won’t forget thee. You charmed me with your happenin’ West Queen Street/Spadina arts district, zombies roaming Bloor Street in broad daylight, hokey Hippo Tours, super-fast subways, fresh-cut fries, street-side antique sales and –most impressively– your insane love of books.

Thanks to all the kind Torontonians who helped me navigate the city and pointed me to some of the best chicken pad thai I’ve ever had.

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Live from the ONA conference in Toronto…

Adrian Holovaty looks at a photo of the world’s ugliest dog and sees 1s and 0s.

Displaying a photo of the hideous animal, Holovaty –the big brain behind ChicagoCrime.org and the Python framework Django– says there are loads of data in the ugly dog image. Who/what is the subject? Who took the photo? Where was it taken? When was it taken? What kind of camera was used? What colors are in the photos?

So how can that image, if tagged with metadata, give your site a big advantage? A good example is Flickr, which allows users to search photos by all sorts of non-traditional criteria. The result is a site that is stickier and allows a high degree of browsability, a trait that users nowadays are beginning to view as essential, Holovaty said.

News organizations have reporters attending city council meetings, high school sports games and covering local crimes — something Google doesn’t or can’t do. But rather than just having reporters gather facts and fuse them into a “blob” that is unreadable by machines (aka, a news story), Holovaty wants to also see news organizations compiling that information into a database format that can be easily browsed by users.

“We have all those killer advantages, but the tragedy is that we haven’t actually leveraged the information we collect,” Holovaty said.

How to get started

Being that crime databases are all the rage these days –no thanks to Holovaty– here is a set of processes and tips to get one rolling:

-Analyze the raw data you get from the police department.

-List the data’s fields (Date, time, crime type, address, etc.)

-Identify the key concepts. If a user clicks on a field, is it useful to that user to see the data sorted by that criteria? For instance, browsing by date ishelpful, but case numbers are unique and not really browseable.

-Make list pages with multiple records that are browseable by a certain criteria.

-Then, make detail pages for individual crimes.

-Every piece of information needs to have a permalink. Linkability/bookmarkability is critical, not just for users but also for search engines. “Your Google juice will go up,” Holovaty said.

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Live from the ONA conference in Toronto…

Lots of cool folks are now blogging the Online News Association conference:

-Amy Webb is writing up a great string of posts on the blogging ethics working group going on right now (I know this because I’m peeking over her shoulder… muahaha).

-Bryan Murley has been busy blogging too and even took a picture of me looking creepy in the background behind Jay Rosen.

-BlogTalkRadio has been broadcasting live from the conference.

-Steve Safran over at Lost Remote has touched on some of the community journalism issues.

-Matthew Ingram blogged the future of news panel (and entirely on a Blackberry no less).

-Alfred Hermida blogged the future of publishing panel, focusing on mobile devices.

-JD Lasica –who showed off his mad moderator skills during the community evangelist panel– blogs about the future of news discussion.

-The student newsroom is chugging away with stories, photos and video.

-And last but not least, we’ve got Tweets galore here.

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Live from the ONA conference in Toronto…

This shall be the year of the “data center.”

Gannett’s online data initiative has hit it big with online news industry types who are now itching to put up databased treats such as school report cards, crimes, property sales, public employee salaries and restaurant inspections.

Easier said than done.

David Milliron, now at Caspio but formerly a data guru at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, provided some insights on what’s needed to get a news organization started putting up great searchable databases.

Of the many things about which Milliron spoke (getting advertising on board, worrying about server load), the thing that struck me the most was the need for getting educated the right way and having a solid network of other pros to lean on. When the crap hits the fan and your site goes down because of a bad query, it’s essential to have the “under the hood” knowledge of how the database and application work. That means understanding the programming language behind the framework, Milliron said.

Furthermore, having a network of pros –whether its at your shop or otherwise–means you tap those other folks’ wisdom, have them give you great ideas on how to write good, efficient code and have them spot-check your work. For some without a mentor in-house, that may mean finding a local users group or joining a listserv (such as the ones offered by NICAR and other organizations).

Some things Milliron says you need to consider before starting database projects:

-Are there other people in your shop or at other shops in your industry developing with the programming language and framework you’re picking?

-Can you get someone knowledgable to review your code?

-If the person developing your applications gets hit by a train or hired away, will you be able to bring in someone else?

-What are the costs and time associated with maintaining the database, not just what it takes to slap it up.

As Milliron said, it’s a rare thing to find one person who knows how to gather data, analyze it, clean it, draw meaningful conclusions from it, put it up on a server, build a rocking database application and then fix it when the thing blows up. And if you do run across such an individual, they probably already have a startup or work at Google…

Now if you want to get your hands dirty with code, Milliron suggests checking out your local community college or professional development programs for database classes. That comment struck me because yours truly has been going to a local community college since August to learn some honest-to-goodness programming (in C++ of all things). I can tell you that after banging my head against a PHP/MySQL book for weeks and making little progress, having a pro hold my hand through those concepts helped me build a useful PHP app for our web producers in about four hours.

Creating interesting, functional, user-friendly databases is a big undertaking. Just don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty, and don’t fear failure. You will probably write a bad query, crash a server and have some whiz kid rewrite your 70 lines of code into seven.

But if it means gaining the knowledge to build great apps, it’ll all be well worth it in terms of page views for your site, value for your readers and –most poignantly– your job security.

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Live from the ONA conference in Toronto…

Lisa Williams, founder of H20Town and Placeblogger, says journalism is becoming a high-tech industry that is moving toward the way technology firms operate.

“You guys have mooched much closer to me,” said Williams, a veteran of the technology industry.

When Williams began H20Town, she took delight at working faster than the local newspaper and gaining an audience “because I could hit ‘Enter’ first.” But now, she says, the local newspaper is publishing breaking news and implementing more Web 2.0 tools.

Williams offered several strategies for media organizations trying to navigate the online world. Among my favorites:

-Take something that used to cost money and make it free. Why let the next Craig Newmark steal your readers?

-The Web rewards “narrow comprehensiveness.” Create a product that is “everything about something” very specific.

-Limits are good. Because newspapers try hard to be all things to all readers, media organizations subsequently port that same mentality to their online products. Instead, focus on creating great, key features that will gain many fans, such as Twitter has done with their service.

I think most mainstream media organizations have slurped the Kool-Aid and realized that we need to embrace technology. But how?

Sitting in this room full of journalists from some of the biggest news organizations in the world, I can’t help but realize that we just might be somewhat like the blind leading the blind. Nearly every group of journalists I come across asks the same questions. We desperately need to seek out the wisdom of other industries to help us navigate through the dark.

Let’s be totally shameless and emulate the ways technology companies operate. Let’s start swiping great talent from Apple, Microsoft and Google. Let’s gain some street cred among technology enthusiasts so they can help us evangelize our journalism. Let’s become educated about the techniques used to develop software. And, as many others have said before, let’s nurture real entrepreneurship in our news organizations backed with actual rewards.

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