@ jeffreyrbunch » Nozzl Media

Lucky on Friday the 13th: Entrepreneurs inspire

jeffreyrbunch — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:24:46 +0000

Matt Mullenweg, WordPress founder - Wikimedia Commons image

I wanted put up a quick post to reflect on a recent round of inspiration that has hit me, thanks in large part to people in my industry, my geographic community, and circle of friends who are “killing it.”

I am so blessed to be surrounded by such positive and inspiring entrepreneurs in my life (a few examples):

- Kent J. Lewis (@kentjlewis), owner of Anvil Media and Formic Media – SEO/SEM and social media marketing

- Steve Woodward (@nozzlsteve), CEO of Nozzl Media – real-time Web data streams;

- Orest Pilskalns, Founder & CEO of Geomonkey Inc. – social and geolocation mapping (@Streetbrew); and

- Ryan Buchanan (@ryanbuch), Founder & CEO of eROI (@eroi) – e-mail, digital marketing.

These are just some of the sources for my inspiration; others come from professional relationships with top-tier vendors, colleagues in my industry, as well as innovative people in the public sector and private businesses of all sizes.

I plan to highlight some of these individuals over the next few posts and a pattern will hopefully emerge: Sincere, smart, passionate, hard-working people are doggedly pursuing their goals until they succeed while staying true to their core values. They come from all walks of life and from all levels of organizations.

Yet what I’ve found is that all of us trying to make a difference – for ourselves, for the benefit of our organizations, or both – need to stay connected to each other and encourage each other. It’s not easy to stay on the path of innovation and leadership; all the more reason why those of us who have chosen that way need to stick together.

This post wouldn’t be possible without the incredible idea (and execution) of Matt Mullenweg (@photoMatt), founder of WordPress and the creator of the awesome anti-spam tool akismet. I had the pleasure of meeting Matt last year at WordCamp Portland and the pre-conference Beer & Blog event (post here). He has changed Web publishing indelibly, for the better.

On the day of another notable Beer and Blog event (Old Spice ad campaign gurus Wieden+Kennedy are hosting), I can only hope to do my part to inspire others in the same way they have done it for me.

Journalists will “save” (i.e. transform) journalism, not aggregators or legacy print-centric executives

jeffreyrbunch — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 12:55:15 +0000

tbd.com logo

There has been a lot of talk lately about who is going to “save journalism.” There is a clear consensus developing that it will be saved (i.e. transformed) by journalists, not news aggregators or legacy publishing company print-centric executives.

I was in the front row, almost literally, two weeks ago today when I heard speaker after speaker make the argument for front-line journalists and allied executives as saviors of the profession. I attended a smallish, but significant, publishing industry event in Las Vegas put on by Editor & Publisher dubbed the “Interactive Media Conference.” Prior quick blog post here.

The two keynotes for the conference were delivered by John Paton, CEO of the Journal Register Company, and Josh Cohen of Google News. They each delivered key messages with a common theme about the future of journalism and how it might be “saved.” Both said that journalism can be preserved by its practitioners (and their bosses) transforming how it is done.

Paton’s presentation was titled “Digital First, Print Last.” He made a compelling argument that a fundamental mindset shift hasn’t occurred in the industry that will be key to its survival. Paton said the “print people” have been in charge of the industry for the last 100 years and in charge of digital news for the last 10 years. It isn’t working, he said, and the time has come to “put the digital people in charge.” It is what he has done in his company as he transforms it into a multiplatform entity.

Cohen’s speech was anticipated because there has been a perception that Google News is the nemesis of the online news industry. It has been the target of various campaigns by publishers to stop Google’s bots from crawling its news sites. Cohen pointed out that every publisher has the option to stop their sites from being indexed. However, Google and the publishers have found mutual benefits to the traffic Google aggregates, then directs back to news sites. He said it is the job of the industry, not companies such as Google, to “save journalism.” Journalism doesn’t need to be “saved” just “transformed,” said Cohen.

In listening to the rest of the conference’s other panels, it is clear that working journalists will be the ones to do the transforming. There were examples of hyperlocal efforts not yet tackled, social media strategies for news organizations, and collaborative online investigative journalism projects. The message was made clearer the following day at the Editor & Publisher online awards, known as the EPpy’s. The best in online journalism was honored, from sites such as NPR.org and LasVegasSun.com. As one of the judges, I was blown away by the work being done.

NPR sent one of its top reporters to accept; she was clearly humbled by the industry’s recognition of its outstanding (nonprofit) pursuit of journalism. LasVegasSun’s Rob Curley was emotional in collecting one of his team’s awards in honor of the laid-off multimedia producers who did the work. Afterward, his publisher spoke of the struggle to monetize award-winning journalism.

Saving the publishing industry or saving journalism?

Coincidental to the E&P Interactive Media Conference was the publication – and follow-up discussions – of The Atlantic’s article, “How to Save the News.” Article author James Fallows tried to put his piece in further perspective in a post on colleague Andrew Sullivan’s blog on the magazine’s site titled, “Will Google Help Save Journalism? Ctd:”

“If there is a point that, above all the others, I wanted most to convey in this article, it is not “everything is going to be OK” or “Google is our friend” or even “here comes a torrent of new advertising money!” Rather it is a cultural/attitudinal argument about the press and everyone who cares about it. Far from being autumnal and despairing and mournful about a supposed golden age that has passed and fatalistic about the doomed state of public information and the resulting lapsed state of society, people who care about the media should (according to me) recognize that technological upheaval, and the resulting business shifts and forced individual innovations, have been the norm rather than the exception in our enterprise. Clever and ambitious people, especially but not only young people, will find new ways to do the work a society needs of them — and to make a living while doing so. …” http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/05/will-google-help-save-journalism-c.html

There are many former journalists who are making a living as one-person Web publishing entities or smaller start-ups with teams of journalists who took buyouts or were laid off from more traditional legacy publishing companies. They are tackling the “news” in more energetic, brighter ways. One shining example is Nozzl Media of Portland, Ore., where a group of former old-school journalists are re-inventing themselves by creating real-time news stream Web applications.

Innovation is the key at start-ups such as TBD.com

It will be interesting to watch how much of the current cutting-edge thinking comes together at TBD.com, a start-up venture in Washington, D.C., funded by the people who started Politico.com. TBD has brought some of the brightest and most innovative journalists and journalism executives to their site, which was featured recently on Techcocktail.com and described in this way:

“By aggregating heavily, utilizing geocoding for personalization and applying “the Politico mentality” (an urgency and willingness to publish incrementally) to local news, TBD intends to be a one-stop news shop for the District, Maryland, and Virginia…

While they plan to be a news hub for the area, the folks at TBD.com don’t plan to do it alone and are enlisting the help of partners who will supplement and enhance their news coverage…

For TBD.com, transparency is a big priority. Recognizing they may not have all the answers and details about the news stories users care about, they say they’ll be counting on readers to fill in the blanks and help construct the most complete history of the news happening in our region. Stories at TBD will always be developing, and TBD will “belong to everyone.” http://techcocktail.com/home/2010/06/12/tbd-com-aiming-to-be-dc%E2%80%99s-one-stop-news-shop/

There are some key concepts that stand out about the site’s approach: aggregation, geocoding, personalization, urgency, incremental publishing, partnership, transparency. These are trademarks of many innovative organizations, including Google. Half of the work one must do in being “saved” is admitting things aren’t working and then changing things up. Publishing companies which do that will likely continue to publish; those which don’t may perish. Journalists and journalism will survive.

No one-size-fits-all for new journalism model(s)

jeffreyrbunch — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:31:38 +0000

This is a post without all the answers about how to “save journalism.” There are no right ones. There are lots of relative truths.

Legacy media executives would tell you journalism-for-profit needs to be saved for people like them to continue to employ the teams of journalists who fill an important role in our society.

Independent and freelance journalists, many of them former newspaper standouts, would tell you there is a need to create a network of content producers which can distribute their work.

Entrepreneurial journalists, who run the gamut in age and experience, would tell you there is a need for scalable solutions (and revenue streams) for their new-idea products.

Citizen journalists, who seem to embrace or shun the title “blogger,” would tell you they want an outlet for the unique set of skills they possess and to be acknowledged for those qualities.

In my home media market of the Portland, Oregon DMA, cooperative groups of these stakeholders are discussing ways to save (or not) “journalism,” either as a business, a noble calling, a civic institution, or all of the foregoing. They are looking for the answer(s) for the problem: journalism-as-we-knew-it is dead due to societal changes which have fractured markets.

All true. All false. It’s not that simple; neither the problem nor the solution(s). There is no one-size-fits-all for a new journalism model. Each of the above groups of “journalists” are answering to the same calling, but are dependent on different outcomes for their situations. Publishers have payrolls to meet; journalists (independent or not) have mortgages to pay; entrepreneurs need to show a return on investment; citizen journalists have day jobs to hold down.

Where is all this headed for each of these diverse stakeholders? Who knows? But we do know it won’t be down one path. My friend, Nozzl Media CEO Steve Woodward, calls it “The Futures – Plural – of Journalism.” My colleague, Carol Doane, points out “Building a new model may require listening.” There have been dozens of insightful blog posts and tweets in the wake of a gathering called We Make the Media (twitter #wmtm).” It follows in the footsteps of Digital Journalism Camp Portland, and dozens of other gatherings around the nation. Other ideas are the droning buzz of recovering journalists throughout the Internet.

We are all talking about it, but it just needs to get done (step-by-step over a course which isn’t marked and may take some turns). Action is the aim of the Portland group and of some less visible (but just as important) industry revenue initiatives. All the while, technology empowers new waves of “publishers” who will also be part of the new and multifaceted state of journalism.