Some Comments on Pitches

After perusing our magnificent pitches I decided to focus in on a few pitches on which to comment.  The first I looked at was "Focused Fencing".  First off, I think this is a pretty cool niche idea, I didn't realize that there was even competition in the world of fencing journalism but I think it's great that this pitch recognizes the competition.  One thing I was wonder was if this magazine would cover high school level fencing?  Another thing I was wondering: I get a lot of ski magazines as an avid skier and a lot of them a full of techniques and gear.  Would focused Fencing just focus on the tournaments and players or would it go into technique for beginners and experienced fencers and go into detail on new gear in the sport? Just something I was wondering and something you may want to consider!

I also looked at the pitch for The Source.  I loved this idea! As an avid pinterest user I can definitely see how this idea would work for news.  Just a saved click and you can access all your news easily.  I really liked how this pitch used ideas that are similar to almost everyone (e.g. Facebook, Reddit, Pulse, etc.) to show how we can learn from these sites and use them to enhance journalism as we know it.  I also liked how this pitch showed the flaws in these sites and explained how The Source would solve those problems.  I think by laying out explanations of the sources first then going into a critique about those sources really strengthened the pitch, good job!

Questions for Terry

I was reading through the bio for Terry Williams and decided to dedicate a whole entire blog post to questions I my want to ask him tomorrow.  I love listening to guest speakers (it makes what we're learning seem like real life) and I always have a lot of questions floating around my head as they speak.  And yet, when they ask the inevitable, "Does anyone have any questions?" my brain freezes up and goes, "uuuummmmmmm....".  So, I decided to write down some early questions I have for our guest speaker tomorrow so I can beat this brain block and appear to be a semi-coherent, interested and intelligent college student!

• How have you seen journalism change during your career?
• How have you seen people adapt to these changes? 
• What are some creative ways you've seen people take advantage of the changes in journalism?
• Do you have any advice for journalists entering this new world?
• What was the Keene Sentinel's business plan before you arrived?
• How have you changed the Sentinel?
• Have you noticed any changes (whether good or bad) in the Sentinel since you arrived?

What's in a grant?

In chapter 6, there was a lot if information on grants and loans, which kind of goes along with my previous blog post on chapter 3.  Last week with Meg, we briefly discussed the pros and cons of using grant money or loans to finance your project. We talked about how, with grant money, you may never get the money or you may have to be subject to the whims of the person or group who gave you the grant.  This chapter reiterated what we talked about last week but went even further.  This book says that grants are good because it's free money, yay! Two of my favorite things: money and free stuff!!!  However, grants are very competitive and take a long time (months, or sometimes, years) to win.  Last week in class we also talked about loans.  In chapter 6, Briggs says that loans are primarily aimed at helping small businesses get started, however, loans come with interest and you have to make payments each month.  Although chapter 3 in this book talks about all the potential journalists have to make money, this chapter makes it seem a lot harder than you may think.  There just seem to be a lot of variables to consider besides how to spend the money you've earned.

Let's Make Money!!!

For this post I want to focus on chapter 3 in Entrepreneurial Journalism because it reminded me a lot of what Meg was saying last week in class.  Last week, we focused on different ways to make money with our idea.  We talked about advertising, sponsors/investors and non-profits.  I thought it would be fitting to talk about this chapter as its main focus is how to make money in journalism. This chapter says, "mixing business in a principled way is not as difficult as some would believe".  There are LOTS of different ways to make money off of your journalism, which is encouraging to new/up and coming journalists.  You could get money through grants, advertisers, events or you could go the non-profit route.  This is pretty much exactly what we talked about with Meg last week so it was interesting for me to see how our discussion in class mirrored this chapter.

Powerpoint Pitch

WSJ Article

My grandfather is a really big newspaper lover.  He reads the Wall Street Journal cover to cover every day.  He also really enjoys finding a great piece of writing and giving it to me to read or just to talk about- the man knows a good story so I'm always excited when he hands me a paper with an article cut out or circled in pen. Today I went home to help put the top on my dad's jeep and my grandmother stopped by on her way home to MA. she brought with her an article my grampy had oh-so thoughtfully cut up for me.  It was by Mark Peters, who we skyped with last year (I think).  he had written an article about how this little theater which puts on a huge show every year is suffering and won't be able to continue the tradition.  Apparently this is an issue for a lot of small theater because they just can't keep up, or don't want to keep up, with the rising technology. This kind of reminded me a little bit about the problems and potential, facing journalists right now. We're pushing forward into the digital age but there are some (I'm included) who just love the tradition of print.  Like the theater lovers, we are the romantics who love the idea of Sunday papers with coffee, theater to see plays and musicals and books made out of real paper! However, I do recognize the fact that technology is as present in life as the next iphone prototype.  So here's what I think all us romantics need to do: we should embrace the traditions of the past while also integrating some form of technology into them for enhancement. This way, maybe, the traditions will love will not only remain but succeed in this technological age.

Reaction to Meg Heckman's article

This article really made me realize that there are so many different options for new businesses and entrepreneurs, especially when it comes to journalism.  Some people push for ad sales, others use 'clicks' to generate a profit.  Still more debate over free sites, like wordpress or blogster to create journalistic businesses, blogs or websites.  In my intro. to 21st century journalism class we were talking about kickstarter programs, open and closed websites and ways to get people to pay for journalism, so Meg's article really resonated with what I've been learning this semester.  I'm not really sure what I think the "best" way to start a new business is but I think it boosts my spirits a little and makes me a little bit more optimistic to think that there are multiple avenues for me to take.  Sometimes it kind of seems impossible to make a new business or create a new way to make money in journalism but this article actually showed that it is possible to do, yay!  

Switching it up!

Last Monday, I realized that, although I liked my idea and thought it was something I could definitely accomplish, I just didn't feel the passion every entrepreneur and every chapter we've read has talked about.  I'm extremely passionate about skiing, writing and travelling but my idea just felt a little... stale to me. I wanted to something new and fun to add to the world of journalism.  I then thought of what I like to do on the internet.  Although I enjoy reading blogs, I prefer sites that are more interactive. That's when I thought of the idea of a choose your own adventure news site. Audience members could read through a news story, like you would read in a magazine or newspaper. However, at certain critical points, the players could make a choice- choose what really happened or pick two other choices to see what would have happened if they were in charge. this way people are learning and also having fun seeing if they could handle being in charge. I threw the idea by my mom and dad but I haven't been able to ask a whole lot of people what they think so my idea is still in its infancy but I'm feeling more passion for this idea and I think it could really go places!

Making as Powerpoint... it's an art

I just made my powerpoint pitch (still need to figure out how to add a voice-over... that's my next step) but I realized that writing a pitch is not as easy as it seems. I wanted mine to be simple yet informative, fun and entertaining but also professional, it's not an easy balance.  I also wanted to make sure my font was big enough to ready and also not too crazy.  I'm usually the person who uses fun colors and insane fonts for fun so, for this project, I really had to restrain myself from using my favorite harry potter font!  I also wanted to make every slide informative but not too wordy so people won't get bored and stop reading or listening because they've zoned out.  I tried to accomplish this by using bulleted facts but, we'll see. I, personally, hate powerpoints with no pictures ( I think they're boring) so I tried to add fun and relevant pictures but some felt forced to me.  In short, making this powerpoin pitch was not as easy as I thought and I actually spent more time on the design than on coming up with the information!

The Art of Pitching

This chapter was also full of useful information but something that I really noticed was that pitching an idea seems a lot like writing an informative news story. In this chapter, the author talked about how a pitch should be short and brief but answer all the necessary questions and, most importantly, answer the question, "so what?" This reminded me a lot of writing journalistic pieces because when I'm writing a story I always ask myself "so what?" before adding some information, elaborating on a fact, giving background information or writing a lead. If people don't care, if there's no reason for them to continue reading then they'll stop and put down the piece. Same thing with a sales pitch, if you don't capture the audiences attention and tell them why what you're doing is important then they'll stop listening and go back to playing angry birds on their cell phones. this chapter made me think that, as journalists, we are in a lucky position to be giving pitches because we are already accustomed to short, pithy, informative sentences and statements that answer the "so what?" question.

The Art of Getting Started

This chapter had a lot of short sections which were very helpful and easy to read (whef, bit of a break from last week!). Something that I really liked was the idea of a mantra. I tend to get distracted easily, my dad describes me and my mom as getting distracted by random "shiny things" suddenly. I like the idea of a mantra because, if I'm trying to remember a business model, those shiny things will steal my attention. However, if I have a small and short saying to remind me what I'm doing then I can stay focused. I also though the distinction between a mantra and a tag line is important. At first I kind of thought a mantra and a tag line were the same thing but the nike example in the chapter made sense for me; a mantra is for the entrepreneur and employees, a tag line is for customers. I think having a mantra for a new business (or even just for life) is important because if something is repeated so many times and is so ingrained in your brain then it will be harder to forget and will stay there, reminding you of your purpose and goals.

Exploring CyberJournalist.net

As the title of this blog post may suggest, I explored the suggested website, cyberjournalist.net for this week. I noticed it was very similar to tumblr, with different quotes, pictures and articles posted in chronological order for the viewer to read. I liked the format because it was really easy for me to skim and scroll them abruptly stop when something caught my eye. I think it's also cool because journalists post writing tips for viewers and other writers. For example, somebody posted a link to "Kurt Vonnegut's 8 Keys to the Power of the Written Word". there are a variety of stories ranging from "US Military Scientists Solve the Fundamental Problem of viral Marketing" to "How Facebook Mastered Mobile Adds". It's basically an online forum where journalists and writers post what they're writing, what they're thinking and what inspires them. I thought it was an easy to follow and fun format but also informative.

The Importance of Networking

Looking through sites and articles this week, trying to find something to blog about, I stumbled across site posted on the blog, "10 Things Entrepreneurs Don't Learn in College". Number 5 on the list is titled "Networking". I thought this was important because it's kind of what John Herman's lecture was all about; using the resources (including people) available to you to better yourself and market yourself. As a journalism major I have found networking to be extremely important. I am involved in something like 7 different organizations on campus (wow, that kind of stresses me out just thinking about it!) but with all those people, there is always someone who knows something or someone for me to talk to. Even if it's just a starting point, asking acquaintances or people in orgs with me has never lead me wrong. Last year writing a story about Adderall use on campus for Sue Hertz's class, I asked friends, random people, neighbors and friends of friends if they knew anyone who had ever used adderall to help them on a test or get them through finals. I finally found someone and he turned out to be a great source for my story, he even introduced me to his roommate and I interviewed him too! I guess what I'm saying is I really get the concept of networking and see how it's so important. My only problem is I'm not very goo at networking via social media, I prefer face to face (or at lease email to email or phone to phone) contact. Using twitter and Facebook for networking can be very powerful, I think, I just have yet to harness that potential ad of yet... I'm working on it though!

Accounting...summed up

So, I just finished all the reading for this week and finished typing up my notes but I'm still not 100% sure I understood everything.  it's easy enough to read something, take some notes and think "ah, yes, this makes perfect sense". But I think if I had to give a detailed account of everything we read, I might be a little bit lost. Although, generally, the reading made sense to me (balance the scale) I feel like there are a lot of rules and laws that are dependent on a lot of other factors that may or may not be reliable. At this point in time, accounting seems to me to be an exact science based on a lot of variables. I am interested to see what our guest speaker has to say about all this nonsense tomorrow because, although I see how accounting relates to entrepreneurs and business owners, I wonder if the concepts have to be changed with journalism because it's so hard to sell a product when people are clamoring for a free news and media.  

A Reiteration

Today in my 21st century journalism class I had big time deja-vu to our class on Monday. We had a guest skype speaker today, Megan Specia who is a 2009 UH journalism gad and who now works for a new company in the journalism world- Storyful. Storyful verifies that different videos, pictures and tweets are legitimate and verifiable so they can be used on air or in stories. I think this is a really cool way to combine the digital/social media side of journalism to the basics of finding the facts and making sure they are true. Something Megan said towards the end of our little chit chat was that, as college journalism students, one of the most important and helpful things we can be doing for ourselves and our career at this moment is to be using our social media site (twitter, facebook, instagram, etc.) to really make a name for ourselves. Megan suggested joining online journalism group or chats, blogging, tweeting and following prominent news sources on social media to just begin to get our names out there and start to get in touch with possible future employers. This was a major flashback to what John was saying on Monday bout using our twitters (and other things) to promote ourselves and make a name for ourselves in the big bad world of digital journalism. I figured it was important but, hearing the same thing from two guest speakers in one week really just reiterated the idea.

First taste of accounting...

So far I've read three chapters of the accounting reading and I'm deciding to take a blogging break because my brain feels like it's slowly melting.  Although the reading is not difficult, it's very dense and full of lots of definitions and important information so I really have to be actively reading to get the gist of the chapter.  From what I've read I've gotten the sense that running and starting a business is not as simple as it seems and it takes a lot of organization and knowledge to make sure everything is in order.  At the same time, most of this accounting nonsense seems to just be making sure everything is balanced and the "teeter totter" (as the reading calls it) remains balanced and stable.  Easier said than done, I'm sure, but this makes it sound simple and gives a person with little to no background in economics and accounting (me) a simple way to imagine and wrap my head around the concepts described in the reading.  Hopefully it remains this simple for me to understand but I have a feeling things are going to get complicated fast!

Reactions to John Herman

I had such a fun time listening to John yesterday!  He frequently commented on our lackluster appearances but I was mostly just trying to comprehend his awesomeness and ingenuity.  His visit really inspired me to try new things with social media and really push the boundaries of what they are used for.  Since yesterday, for example, I've begun tweeting more and I made an instagram account, just for kicks.  Something he said really hit home with me (which is what prompted my sudden interest in social media).  He said something along the lines of "if you're not using social media to further your career, you're not using it right".  This really got me thinking about ways to use social media, not only for myself and my friends but using it to promote myself.  Another thing that John's visit made me realize was, it's OK to shamelessly promote myself online- in fact, it's a good thing!  Overall, I really enjoyed John's visit.  He was funny, had amazing stories, made me think I can succeed with any idea I have and also got me thinking of ways to further my ideas and myself right now.