The Week Ahead: Reviews of the Media Response to Hurricane Ike
September 14, 2008 by Jonathan · 2 Comments
All next week I’ll be walking you through the online and on-air media response of both the national and Houston based media. As opposed to most national disasters I actually have a personal connection to this one with my family living in Missouri City, Texas, a Houston suburb. I currently live and work in the Washington DC area.
My perspective and reviews of advanced media efforts in the wake of Hurricane Ike will come from that of someone who does have a personal interest in the coverage but who also works for a major media company trying to make information distribution a more personal experience for the consumer.
There have been some winners, and some losers in the first 24 hours of “wall-to-wall” hurricane coverage and I’ll walk you through both sides. If you don’t already subscribe to my RSS feed, be sure to do so now.
We’ll see how things go this week, but right now my plan is for one to two posts daily. Each focusing on a different media outlet and the things they’re doing right as well as what they should consider improving.
If you have any questions or comments, my comments form is always open and email is a great way to get a hold of me.
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This post is part of the Hurrricane Ike Media Review series by Jonathan Coffman. I welcome your comments below.
Houston Chronicle Excels in Hurricane Ike Coverage
September 13, 2008 by Jonathan · 1 Comment
As someone who not only is interested in news and journalism, but who also works in social media for a living I constantly see television stations and newspapers who either don’t take advantage of advances in technology or completely ignore the true value in the power of people.
This morning as I think about my family who lives in Missouri City, Texas (a Houston suburb) I scoured the web to find the best and most complete coverage and information about Hurricane Ike.
First I turned to MyFoxHouston.com, the Fox TV affiliate for Houston. They have a a special live-chat, live-broadcast, maps, video, and audio going full force on a micro-site called MyFoxHoustonLive.com. This I feel was overkill, it’s too much to process at once. Yes they are using technology to extend their coverage beyond “wall to wall” - which I commend them for - but the page was cluttered, it was hard to focus on anything, and in general there was just too much going on.
I then tried the other TV networks, both national and local. Of course the national networks have information but still lack the “instant” updates that I wanted.
My next link was the Houston Chronicle (to be honest, they were actually the first place I looked yesterday afternoon for updated maps and evacuation information). Chron.com may not have the fancy cameras and satellites that the TV stations have, but what they do feature are blogs. Live blogs. This is my favorite format for live and constantly updated information. Blogs let the user read as much or as little as they want, and in chronological order.
Not only are there two blogs updating every few minutes (one focuses on the science, the other on news and information) but the Chronicle was also smart enough to start a Twitter feed of constantly updated informaiton, and also began pulling public “tweets” into their site.
To me, this shows absolute respect for their users both locally and nationally. and THAT’s the key to success in the news business - giving the customer what they want, when they want it, while maintaining your ethical standards.
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This post is part of the Hurrricane Ike Media Review series by Jonathan Coffman. I welcome your comments below.
Learn To ‘Social Media’
June 22, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
Since I work in social-media I see it everyday, some people get it, and some people don’t. Building social-media isn’t a one-time thing. It takes time to find conversations, to build reputation, and learn the best ways to share your knowledge with the world.
Here’s the thing, social media isn’t going anywhere. It’s here to stay. Now it may not always be in the same form that it is right now but it’ll be here.
As one of my final projects at the Missouri School of Journalism in the Convergence Journalism department I wrote up some tip sheets on personal branding, and some of the basics of social-media. Take a look at the Lessons In Social Media series and let me know what other topics you think people who are just beginning to “get it” need to know!
Here are the posts I have up right now:
- The Basics of Managing Your Online Identity
- Social Networking Quick Tips
- How To Get Hired Using Social Media
- Google Alerts For Personal Branding Management
- More to come!
How To Get Hired Using Social Media
June 22, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
I was lucky enough to know and be on the bleeding edge of social-networking when it began several years ago. I also spent a lot of time cultivating and contributing to my online identity and making connections with people online. The good news is that you don’t have to be an early adopter, or an Internet wiz to get hired using social media.
Looking for a job isn’t easy, and it can be very frustrating. Social media can help, but it’s not a replacement for old fashioned phone calls, emails, and letters. When I graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism I had multiple job offers, and the best of those offers were ones that I came across or was a candidate for because of social media.
For some time, I had been Twittering, Facebooking, and Blogging. I spent money to make sure my blog looked good. I spent hours finding interesting people on Twitter. I stayed up late when I should have been doing other things honing in my online portfolio. And you know what? It all paid off.
One job offer came from a person who followed me on Twitter for two months and noticed that I was talking with increased frequency about finding a job. A couple phone calls and emails later, I was interviewing and had an offer before I got home from visiting.
The other job offer from social-media crossed platforms, I knew the person who knew about a job, but we follow each other on Twitter, and are Facebook friends. Again, my talking about finding a job was seen by this person and I got a Facebook message about openings where she worked. It just so happened that this job was a perfect fit, I got the offer, and took it.
In two paragraphs I just explained how I got a job using social media, but that’s not incredibly useful is it? To help with that, here are my tips and suggestions on finding a job using social-media.
- Put your portfolio and resume online. This is more important than you realize. You’ve just in an instant opened up your resume and portfolio of work to the millions of people online. Now you just need to help people find it.
- Sign up for Twitter and find some people with similar interests to tweet back and forth with. You’ll quickly understand by looking at some of the so called Twitterati how useful and powerful this service is. After you sign up for an account “follow” @chrisbrogan, @guykawasaki, and @scobleizer the three of them have thousands of followers already and actively tweet throughout the day and night. A lot can be learned by example.
- Start a blog. This is a GREAT way to show off your knowledge and skills. This doesn’t have to be complex, start it off on Blogger or Wordpress.com if you want (although I would highly suggest putting wherever you portfolio and resume is). Write one or twice a week at first about what you’re working on, what you’re thinking about (that relates to your job ambitions), and your goals. Some of the best job related feedback I got was on my blog by people emailing and commenting when I wrote a post about “My Ideal Job”.
- Drive traffic to your online portfolio and resume. Do this by putting links on your Facebook page, in your Twitter profile, putting it in big type at the top of your paper resume, and by having it on ALL correspondence online and off. You never know where emails or resumes may get forwarded, and if your online portfolio is linked right there for easy access it makes a world of difference.
- Make It Personal. This is your job hunt, and it’s not going to be easy, but by taking advantage of the basics of social-media your job hunt can expand beyond the traditional into the extraordinary. Social media doesn’t work unless you’re human and make it personal. Being professional and sharing ideas is going to increase your credibility, but not including personal moments will exclude you from the conversation.
Lessons In Social Media
June 22, 2008 by Jonathan · 1 Comment
Social media doesn’t have to be intimidating, in fact it’s very easy to get started and build a base of information and conversation upon which to learn and grow. As an active participant, researcher, and social-media based employee, I use social media for both my personal life and professional growth.
There are numerous opportunities to get out there and explore, by reading through these basic lessons and tip sheets I hope you can take better advantage of the soon to be ubiquitous social side of the Internet.
I wrote these tip sheets and information pages as one of my final projects at the Missouri School of Journalism in the spring of 2008. They are written toward an audience who may have heard about social-media but isn’t sure how to get started.
There will be follow up and additional information added to this resource as I have time to expand the series. If you have any questions please contact me. And as always, comments are open, leave your thoughts, edits, and changes below.
Lessons In Social Media:
- The Basics of Managing Your Online Identity
- Social Networking Quick Tips
- How To Get Hired Using Social Media
- Google Alerts For Personal Branding Management
- More to come!
Why Life Has Been Crazy: My Huge Job Announcement
May 23, 2008 by Jonathan · 3 Comments
Over the last few weeks I’ve been dropping hints on Twitter, but it’s about time I just came out with it. I’ve accepted a position at the Public Broadcasting Service. In case you’ve been wondering why the big move and road trip from Missouri to Washington DC was happening, that’s why.
I’m joining the ranks of those working full-time on social-media. Social media is such a huge part of the Internet now, and it’s not going anywhere and I’m here to make sure of that!
My title and job at PBS is Assistant Product Manager for PBS Engage. PBS Engage is the social media initiative funded by grants from the Ford Foundation and the Knight Foundation to get people to engage and connect with all of the great content that PBS distributes (like the awesome new series Carrier!).
The PBS Engage team is only a handful of people and the fate of social media is in our hands! 
Well ok, social media isn’t going anywhere regardless of whether or not we’re pushing for it, but I can dream right?
Feedback and response to Engage has been tremendous already with tons of comments on the Engage Blog, and lots of Twitter followers across PBS shows and communities.
At PBS I’ll be working with some really brilliant minds to come up with new ways of enabling participation, engagement, and conversation based around PBS content across the country. In addition to thinking of great ideas, we’re also building social tools to make things like social-networking even easier for PBS viewers regardless of the distribution channel used.
I’m really excited to be joining the PBS family here in the Washington DC area and am looking forward to seeing all of the progress we make in the next year.
With this new position I’ll be relying on YOU even more than before, so keep those @jdcoffman’s, dms, emails, and Facebook messages coming. Without YOU, there is no social-media.
On Email Organization
April 22, 2008 by Jonathan · 1 Comment
For the last month or so I’ve been on a rampage, an email rampage. I haven’t quite hit Inbox Zero but inbox 30-40 suits me well actually. Here’s what I’ve done:
- I now have only 2 visible email addresses, Gmail and my @jonathancoffman.com mail. Those other addresses (.Mac, Yahoo!, Mizzou, and my secondary Gmail) all now get picked up by my primary Gmail account, this way I only have two inboxes to check, and hopefully by responding to those with only one address I gradually get fewer and fewer messages going to those other addys.
- Combining the last two addresses, my primary gmail and my domain email isn’t yet feasible. I can’t quite take myself down to that level yet. Because they’re used for two very different purposes (personal and professional) the use cases will remain mutually exclusive for the time being.
- The downside to still having two inboxes: two sets of gmail tags/folders. My domain email is handled by GoogleApps (which I love by the way), so for now I have two identical but disconnected sets of tags.
- Account and Login Information
- Banking
- Bills
- Blog Conversations
- Contributr
- Current Projects
- Pipeline Projects
- Coupons and Discounts
- Job Hunting
- Journalism School
- Newsletters
- Personal (family)
- Private Betas
- Product Orders
- Service Orders
- Require followup
- Servers and Hosting
- Social Media
- Travel
- URGENT
A Contributr Update
April 8, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
The Contributr team has been taking a little break recently, and that’s not a good thing. We’re trying frantically to make up time but other commitments got in the way.
Colby Palmer has been working on a complete redesign of the web application and the AIR desktop application and is doing a great job. He’s a great designer and a great guy and we’re glad to have him on our side! The difficult part now is pulling together all of the little bits and pieces before NAB next week.
I’ll be there presenting Contributr to the industry and friends and I’m really hoping we have the new design implemented enough to use it for our demos. It is a HUGE improvement over our first user interface and I’m very proud of it.
Thursday I’ll meet with the Missouri Innovation Center again to look at some of the business possibilities behind Contributr and its market viability as an early-stage startup. I hope that I’m able to take Contributr with me into my next job and continue working and enhancing it for the news media, and the public.
It would be a disservice not to give Contributr a shot and continue development.
So wish us luck as we try to get version 1.1 of Contributr out the door and ready for more widespread testing.
Are Podcasts Dead?
April 7, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
In case you didn’t know, I’ll be in Las Vegas Sunday-Wednesday for the NAB conference (National Association of Broadcasters). The Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism is sponsoring my trip so that I can present Contributr to the masses. (Let’s hope Contributr is ready, more on that tomorrow!)
As I was looking through the available sessions trying to schedule myself into some I noticed a recurring theme, podcasting. Now I hate to rain on anybody’s parade but aren’t podcasts dead? Haven’t they been deemed not conversational enough?
I mean sure, we all are subscribed to a few in iTunes, but how often do you actually listen to one? Let alone actively look for more? I know I don’t. I’ve moved on, I’ve moved on to try to create and examine the semantic web. And podcasts just don’t fit into that strategy very well. They may not be static in location but they are certainly static in content. One you publish an episode to a podcast it just sits there… and people listen to it… but what else? What’s the extra step? … Well I just can’t seem to find it.
So you might imagine my disappointment when I am going through the NAB sessions schedule and see multiple sessions on podcasting each day, and only 2 or 3 sessions on ‘blogging’ total for the entire conference.
Is this where journalism is? Is this what the journalism folks think is hot? Haven’t they found Twitter, haven’t they found Facebook, haven’t they found that conversations are the latest and greatest things to hit the web?
Apparently not, and in my conversations with Jen Reeves it seems that the ‘industry’ is doomed to be 5-years behind as she puts it. Here I am creating wikis, blogging daily, coming up with user generated content solutions, enhancing new-media workflows, and creating conversations around my own life and here is the Journalism Industry just now trying to figure out podcasting.
There’s disconnect somewhere. That disconnect is what is holding back journalism and the news media in general, they’re not in touch with what consumers are using technology for.
As all of my recent blog posts do, I’ll link this one to my current job-search. There are quite a few journalism web content editor and producer jobs out there. Frankly, they’re almost a dime a dozen, news organizations realize they need to staff “the web” so staff “the web” they do. But where is the innovation? Where is the commitment?
Part of the struggle I have faced in my job search is that there’s plenty of work to be had out there, but very few newsrooms and very few news people “get it”. It takes more than just repurposing content from your printed newspaper or broadcast TV show onto the web anymore, that’s just not enough. People want to have conversations, they want to change, edit, manipulate, share, and copy your precious content. Are you willing to see what your public can do for you?
That’s the future of journalism. Don’t just talk to the public, let the public talk to you. If you “get it” email, call, IM, or @jdcoffman me. I’m listening, are you?
Crossing The Skills Divide
April 3, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
There is an almost constant drone of phone calls and emails in my life right now, I’m right in the thick of finding a job for when I become available in May. It hasn’t been an easy road, but I’ve made great strides in my approach, the types of jobs I apply for, and the way I manage my personal brand.
I couldn’t do it if I didn’t have the help of all you out there, my favorite bloggers, my Twitter followers, my family and my friends. I am very thankful for all of the support I’ve gotten so far in my search and am very thankful for the education I have and the life experiences that have prepared me for this experience.
I’ve been using my support network a lot lately. Part of the reason is that I have a very diverse skill set, not only am I good with producing and editing content, but I also hold technology skills that allow me to create things like this blog, Smart Decision, Contributr, and more. But even beyond that, I have an entrepreneurial spirit that lends me new ideas, new inspiration, and new ways of looking at old and new problems.
I feel like this variety of skills that I have is hard to explain and describe in the limited contact I’m given with potential employers. Doing my best to convey those thoughts, ideas, and skills is getting easier as I do it more of course, but it’s a different way of looking at the world that’s for sure!
Typically I think that people possess one side or the other, they’re either very good writers and thinkers, or they’re very good programmers and developers. Both are on an equal standing as far I’m concerned, it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.
But then, where does that leave me? I’m someone who loves to think of new ideas, concepts, and products but I’m also aware of the technical abilities of current technology tools as well as their weaknesses. Taking that a step further, I also am able to clearly explain, teach, and lead developers to create technology tools that don’t exist yet.
The biggest problem I’m having during interviews these days is making sure that I convey my abilities and varied skill set while emphasizing that I do in fact prefer the idealization, and content side of the world.
Sure I can build web sites, blogs, Facebook applications, and other tools, but I recognize that there are people who can do those things much better than I can. It’s hard for people (including myself) to describe and explain how that works, yes I can DO those things, but no I’m not completely comfortable starting from nothing and building up on the programming and development side.
I feel like I have a good variety of skills and that I exert my leadership and entrepreneurship skills well, but I have to be careful not to pigeonhole myself into over-exerting my technology skills just because I think it’s cool that I can do both.
This post is a sort of stream of consciousness for me as I try to work out these details for myself. Be sure to visit again tomorrow as I look at the type of jobs and employers that I’m most interested in.
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