Life after newspapers.
These past few months have been a whirlwind. Case in point: I am writing this from 30,000 feet above ground on an iPad, en route to Denver with my partner-in-crime, Mallory, for work. We’re spending a few days at an “offsite” sale for the Go Cars and Trucks market. You know, the used car sales where they unload hundreds of vehicles at the stadium. We’ll be at Mile High Stadium, taking photos, meeting customers and Twittering away.
We’re both thrilled to be traveling and spreading the social media gospel to our other markets. We might even try and stop by a store or two while we’re out there. June 18 marked my two month anniversary on the job and there’s plenty to show for it:
Things have been moving fast! I like to think it is because our social media team really gets it and we work together so well. Stephen, our social manager, and Gary, VP for marketing, are touchstones for positivity and encouragement. Our partnership with GOSO, the automotive social media outfit, have kept us inspired and on our toes at the same time.
Working with my best friend has been nothing but fun, too. I knew Mal and I had really hit it off when we first met over Twitter when she joined the Herald in November 2008, but I am continually thankful for what great friends we have grown to be.
The contrast between my job as a social media coordinator and a newspaper designer is night-and-day (and not just literally.) As a designer, I felt like I was always striving to become an artist, but working in newspapers meant I often just ended up drawing boxes. I lacked the confidence to immerse myself in art, but I really enjoyed the information architecture aspect to designing a product for consumption. As a social media coordinator, I get to interact with our local and national community and am continually thinking up new ideas for blog posts, contests and campaigns. The creativity I sought after as a designer is being fed. Sure, I miss geeking out over leading sizes and kerning, but I do get weekends and holidays. I can’t really complain.
For any of my friends in the newspaper business who are looking to branch out and try something new, or those who feel don’t know how to make the first step towards a career change, it is true: there is life after newspapers. Find something that excites you. Find a way to work it into your current job. Start looking for other opportunities – they’re out there. You just have to be willing to give them a try. You can’t win if you don’t try.
Dear 2010: Enough drama, already. kthnxbye!
2010 has been a hell of a ride so far: I got laid off from the newspaper, scooped up by the most prestigious journalism foundation and then laid off once again. Luckily, thanks to my connections on Twitter (and to serendipity), I found another job quickly – this time outside of journalism. I’ve joined AutoNation as a social media coordinator and blogger, working alongside my partner-in-crime Mallory Colliflower and just across the street from my new friends at AgencyNet.
Speaking of my new friends, I remembered how important it is to really live life. I hate to point the finger at the career I chased after, but it is very difficult to make friends outside of the newspaper when you work nights, including every weekend and holiday. These short few months outside of the Paragraph Factory have allowed me to nurture relationships with new friends which may never have been otherwise. I’ve been spending almost all of my free time with these new friends and one special person in particular. I really hope they know how grateful I am for having let me into their lives.
As for leaving journalism, it wasn’t as heartbreaking as I expected it to be. When I was initially laid off, I made the decision that I would not take another job at a newspaper. I began to struggle with what that meant. After moving cross-country a few times for my career, I made my way back home to be near family. I wasn’t ready to give that up again. And, I really wasn’t comfortable with the uncertain future of being a newspaper designer. I am young and I had already gone as far as I sought out to go as a page designer — By 26, I was responsible for weekend and daily front pages at a large metro daily paper. Initially, I was confused. How could I remain a journalist while not working for a newspaper? My short term at the foundation helped me wrestle with this question. But when the foundation gig was up, I was okay letting go if my career in journalism.
One of the reasons I switched to journalism in college was that I wasn’t comfortable with the (lack of) ethics in advertising. Since I moved back to South Florida and embedded myself in the local tech and social media scene, I was reminded of how much I despised the world of public relations, advertising and social media. And yes, here I am — part of the marketing arm of a Fortune 500 company. Ironic, huh?
Luckily, as a social media coordinator, I am not primarily focused on the hard sell. That has really helped me transition from the transparent world of the newsroom to marketing. I feel that my strong ethics and journalism background actually add to the authenticity of our approach to social media.
So, here’s hoping that the rest of 2010 is a bit more stable and that I get a chance to show those friends of mine just how much they all mean to me.
I’m on the job market, again.
Just a quick note to let everyone know that I am looking for a job, preferably in South Florida, in the social media/blog world, though not restricted to journalism. My temporary job as Interim Online Community Manager ends Friday, Apr. 2, though both Knight Foundation and I hope to continue to work together on a freelance basis.
If you’re confused, let me explain: I took this job in January, after being laid off from the Miami Herald, as a temp-to-perm position. Another awesome candidate came forward for the position, and he was offered the job as he had a few years more experience than I with project management. That said, the parting is amicable. I wish it were longer, but I really do hope to continue some relationship with Knight Foundation since it’s work is so near-and-dear to my heart.
Please send any job leads and/or inquiries to me via Twitter or email. Thanks!
Future of Web Apps, Miami 2010
Carsonified’s Future of Web Apps is in Miami this week. While I’m not attending any of the workshops today, I did attend the day-long general sessions yesterday and recorded my audio and notes using my new Livescribe Pulse Smartpen. I’ve embedding the recordings for almost all sessions below. When you hit play, the notes will play back with the audio, turning green as they were written in realtime. You can skip around the presentations using your mouse and clicking on any part of the notes – the audio will sync to where it was while I was recording the notes.
Lightning bolts at WordCamp Miami
WordCamp Miami was today at the University of Miami School of Communication in Coral Gables, a place that I know very, very well. I was pleased to see so many unfamiliar faces in attendance, as well as many people who I am privileged to call my friends.
Unlike last year, WordCamp was held separately from BarCamp Miami (which is taking place Sunday). Although I did not get to attend last year, I really feel that this was a smart move on the part of organizers. Presentations were categorized into three tracks (developer, social media, and beginner) and provided a range of interest that really spoke to attendees of all knowledge-bases.
One of the things that stood out for me during WordCamp was something Jane Wells (Twitter: @JaneForShort), user experience lead for WordPress, said during her presentation preview of WordPress 3.0. Jane was asked what it was like to take part in something like WordPress, as there are over 18 million blogs publishing on WordPress. She was extremely modest and talked about how she hopes to help teach underprivileged youth technology, possibly through the new WordPress Foundation, as a way to open their eyes to something they may never have realized was an opportunity.
This got me thinking and I sent out the following tweet:
After Jane’s presentation was over, I was quite surprised when my friends Rebekah Monson and Mallory Colliflower (Twitter: @malcolli) came up to me and wanted to brainstorm more about this. Rebekah was particularly interested in creating training for young girls who are interested in becoming journalist-developers, since this niche field is dominated by males.
I’m extremely excited in seeing where this idea leads. I will be putting together a Wave to help us brainstorm the idea and would love for anyone who is interested to contact me to get involved.
Kudos to the organizers of WordCamp Miami for putting on a successful event, especially to David Bisset (Twitter: @DimensionMedia). I was also thrilled that one of my new coworkers, who recently started a blog of her own, attended the event and was able to get a lot of ideas.
Awesome people who made my week
Creative Commons photo by Flickr user Himmelskratzer.
This week, I’ve been helping to put together a presentation that would inspire a group of South Florida non-profit CEO’s to embrace social media. The world of non-profits is new to me, so I was thrilled when I stumbled upon Beth Kanter’s blog. How Nonprofit Organizations Can Use Social Media to Power Social Networks for Change. If you’re working for a non-profit, you should bookmark this blog. If you’re working professionally in social media, or just interested in new ways social media is being used, this blog should be bookmarked or added to your RSS feed.
Also, a quick shout-out to Dharmishta Rood and Nick Soni, whom I have been collaborating with on this project this past week. Dharmishta has been leading the project and does awesome stuff (like the Populous Project, blogging for Mozilla, ). Nick is an awesome designer. Thanks guys!
Hired.
Just a quick note to let you know that I’ve found work at the Knight Foundation, here in Miami, where I am interim Online Community Manager. I got word shortly after my last post when I announced that I was officially unemployed. As I find my footing, I will post about some of the exciting things that are being done at the foundation to help transform the future of journalism, among other things. For now, you can catch me on Twitter (@loritodd) and over at the Knight Blog.
A news designer’s farewell to newspapers.
This week has been a roller coaster of emotions. While my last day at the Miami Herald was December 26th, Monday marked the first official day of my unemployment. I went to the office one final time to sign a severance agreement and returned home to find myself struggling to navigate the State of Florida unemployment website. It was the first week my time off didn’t feel like vacation. I spent Tuesday sorting through years of newspaper clips, scattered around three or four different hard drives. On Wednesday, I started applying for jobs. For the first time in my life, I found myself without a plan.
By the time I graduated from the University of Miami in 2006, I had already been working part-time at the Miami Herald and had two great internships under my belt. Before I began my job search, I was offered a six-month news design contact in Milwaukee. After my first real fall and winter, my contract at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was up. Again, before I started to plan my next move, another job fell in my lap. As I was digging my car out of ten feet of snow, I got a phone call from a friend in Austin. A chance to thaw out in the Texas Hill Country? I was game. The Austin American-Statesman turned out to be a wonderful place to work and I made many great friends there. After a year and a half, I found myself still unable to call Austin home. What was missing? Family. So I hatched a plan to return to the Miami Herald. I stayed in contact with the graphics editor and despite the layoffs that were underway, we were able to secure me a spot on the presentation desk just one week before the second round of layoffs began. I was home, and regardless of how difficult things had quickly become in the industry, I was happy.
In the short time that I was back at the Miami Herald, I found a new passion for journalism. As I first started out, I thought of myself as a designer, who specialized in news. After a few years, I learned that I was much more than that. I was a journalist who had a passion for visual storytelling, and that design was just one of the tools available to me (and one that I am extremely passionate about). Perhaps I didn’t express this new passion in the best light, as my new bosses came to think that I had grown unhappy with my job. It’s important to note that while I was working at the Herald, the news design desk had shrunk from 15 people to ten (and now eight), but while our top editors had made lofty plans initially to compress the paper (and therefore reduce the work load), none of those plans came to fruition. We quickly found ourselves multitasking and most of us doing the work of two people or more. Stress and morale were at thier lowest.
As this new passion for journalism manifested itself in social media and news video, I was not awarded any time in my schedule to work on them. I did most of it between sending pages or I’d come in early or stay late when I had the energy to do so. I can’t fault my bosses for not allowing me more of a chance to spend on my new interests, they were in a precarious position to begin with. They supported me as much as they could afford to.
That brings me to today. While I don’t know what my next step is quite yet, I am looking forward to life outside of newspapers. And hopefully, I will still be able to call myself a journalist.
2010: A clean slate.
New Years resolutions, in my option, are doomed from the get-go. While the new year is a good time to reflect on the past year and make goals for the next, I feel that announcing to friends and family (hell, even if you just keep it to yourself) that “This year I will [insert an unrealistic goal here]” adds unneeded pressure to the new year. I don’t need any more pressure in my life. 2009 was too difficult to stomach. It had it’s high points, but it ended on quite a sour note. For me, 2010 is a clean slate. Here’s a list of what I’m looking forward to in 2010:
New career
Note, I did not simply say “new job”. 2010 will be a year where I try something new. I don’t know what it will be quite yet, but I am looking forward to a future outside of newspapers.
More time with friends and family
Having worked as a newspaper journalist since graduating college, I’ve not had a single Christmas or New Year’s off in many years. My weekends have fallen on just about every combination other than Saturday and Sunday, too. In 2010, I’m planning to spend the holidays and weekends with my friends and family. They come first in 2010.
The elusive Apple Tablet
Rumors surrounding the Apple tablet are running rampant. At the time of writing this, it seems likely that the tablet will be announced January 26th. Catch up on all the rumors and “news” on Gizmodo (tag:appletablet).
Grooveshark for iPhone
If you haven’t tried Grooveshark, the streaming music site from a start-up out of Gainesville, you’re missing out. Supposedly, an iPhone app has been submitted to Apple for approval, but it’s been a while since we last got an update on this. We can only assume Apple hasn’t yet gotten around to it yet. Find it in the app store soon.
EVENTS
- Olympic mascot ice sculpture in Whistler, Canada. Creative Commons photo by Flickr user Tim Gillin
2010 Olympic Winter Games
Vancouver, February 12 to 28
I’ll be watching the games from the comfort of my couch. Or my bed. Or online, even. The Olympics are one of my favorite sporting events and the Winter games allow me to imagine a world with seasons. Sure, I love watching figure skating, but in the past few years I’ve learned to appreciate the fine art of curling (Etienne’s infatuation sparked my interest) and ski jumping (thanks to Wii Fit).
For more information on the games, visit the official website at Vancouver2010.com. In the US, you can catch the games on television on NBC (and NBC HD) for free. Visit NBC’s Olympic website for TV listings.
South-by-Southwest Interactive Festival
Austin, March 12 to 16
I’ve been planning to attend this conference for over a year now. Things didn’t work out this past year because there was no budget at the paper to send anyone. This year, even if I’m still unemployed, I plan to (somehow) attend SXSW. I simply cannot pass up the opportunity to experience it for myself. Not to mention it’s a great excuse to see all my Austin buddies.
This year, many South Florida techies will be in attendance and I am hoping that we can make our presence known to the greater geeky audience. Brian Breslin, Davide Di Cillo, Alex de Carvalho, and Peter Martinez will be holding a panel discussion on our burgeoning tech community called “Coconut Valley: Building a Tech Community on the Beach.”
Some of the speakers/sessions I plan to attend include:
- “Yelp Effect: When Everyone’s A Restaurant Critic” by Addie Broyles (my former colleague and food writer for the Austin American-Statesman)
- Clay Shirky’s unnamed presentation
- “DSLR Filmmaking: Unlocking New Visual Possibilities” by Philip Bloom
- “Why Self-Promotion Will Save the World” by Peter Shankman from Help a Reporter Out (HARO)
- “StoryCorps 2.0: Social Networking Meets Storytelling” by Suneel Gupta, The Kahani Movement
- “PayTV vs. Internet: The Battle For Your TV” by Avner Ronen, boxee
- “Interactive Infographics” by Casey Caplowe, GOOD magazine
- “I Don’t Trust You One Stinking Bit” by Chris Brogan, New Marketing Labs
- “Funemployed: Success Stories From the Laid Off Community” by Chris Hutchins, LaidOffCamp
2010 FIFA World Cup
South Africa, June 11 to July 11
I remember watching Brazil win it’s fourth World Cup title in 1994. I was just a kid, but it was the first time I remember watching a sport on my own. My interest waned since then, sparked only for a summer when I abroad in Prague in 2004 and we watched the Czech Republic games broadcast live in Old Town Square. In 2008, I was glued to the television, watching each game, and even DVR’ing the games I missed while at work. This year, I can’t wait to be sucked in again. On my couch.
Visit the official site at http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/ for more information and the latest news. In the meantime, watch this really cool video that shows how the official match ball is made, from start to finish:
We can’t afford your conference.
This post is co-authored by Mallory Colliflower and Lori Marie Todd. Mallory graduated in spring 2008 from the University of Florida and works part time at the Miami Herald as an online content producer. Lori graduated in 2006 from the University of Miami and has worked at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Austin American-Statesman before returning to the Miami Herald as a news page designer in September 2008.
We’ve got a bone to pick with some of our favorite professional organizations. At a time when most people in the US have had to adjust their lifestyles because of the economic downturn and as the newspaper industry is struggling to survive, industry-wide training and conferences have simply gotten too expensive for many of us to attend.
THE FACTS
There have been 31,757 layoffs and buyouts at U.S. newspapers since June 2007[1].
If you’re lucky enough to not be counted in the figure above, you’ve likely had to take a pay cut (many people have been docked as much as 10%[2]) and/or mandatory time off work.
In addition, company training budgets are getting slashed, and many are nearly non-existent. At Lori’s last job and her current one, the papers were unable to send any employees to the Society for News Design annual conference. Lori was able to negotiate time off to attend the National Press Photographer’s Association’s Multimedia Immersion and Convergence09 conference in June because she was willing to foot the bill for the entire thing (which came to over $2,000 after tuition, airfare, hotel and minor gear purchases – Thank you, MasterCard).
THE CONSEQUENCES
Expensive conferences create a pay-to-play environment [3]. While it’s easier than ever to catch a livestream of a conference (The Online News Association did a fantastic job, utilizing technology and equipment from Livestream.com), physical attendance is invaluable. You cannot network like you can in person. Those lucky few who are able to afford attending these conferences are able to make connections with big names in our industry, not necessarily because of merit, but because they can afford to be there. Even if they can, the current work environment in most newsrooms is strapped, leaving little or no staff to cover shifts.
Expensive conferences put out-of-work journalists at an even greater disadvantage. Attending industry events and keeping skill sets up-to-date are all we can rely on to market ourselves in a suddenly flooded field of applicants. Attending a conference is resume material. Following a conference online is not.
Sending only newsroom veterans is counterproductive to innovation. Recent college graduates who are employed should be attending these conferences because they are bursting with optimism and ideas and are the future of our industry. So often do newsroom veterans look to us, the wired generation, for clues and tips for adapting news for the Web and starting conversations with the audience. They need our help. We should be better equipped to give it to them.
We realize that there’s a lot of cost associated with putting on a professional conference. Venue fees. Speaker fees. Bandwidth charges. And so on. However, it seems that the cost of these conferences have not adjusted to consider the state of the industry. Some of the speakers at these conferences are reimbursed for every penny spent. That’s not to say that they shouldn’t be, but it’s ironic given that these are the people who can often afford the conference in the first place.
THE SOLUTION
Mark S. Luckie of 10,000 Words provides a great list of resources for journalists to learn technical skills. We urge journalists to take advantage of the these opportunities. However, they are no replacement for in-person training and networking.
We want an affordable alternative to the big annual conferences, with a comparable level of networking and training that you’d pay hundreds of dollars at SND, ONA, NPPA or other conferences. We propose a BarCamp-style unconference.
What’s that? As defined on BarCamp.org:
BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants who are the main actors of the event.
At Miami’s last BarCamp, Greg Linch (of Publish2, who at the time was a University of Miami student), led a track called NewsInnovation, which focused on creating better ways to deliver news.
Holding a similar event in your area, either on your own with fellow journalists, or in conjunction with an already established BarCamp, is one way we can train one another on the cheap, and still get to do a lot of the face-to-face networking that you would do at a national conference, but on a regional scale. We are in the very early stages of doing this ourselves and will blog it as it comes together.
If you have any ideas on how to make conferences more affordable, or want to throw around your ideas with us, leave a comment below or chat with us on Twitter. Mallory can be reached at @malcolli and Lori at @loritodd.
Footnotes:
1 This number totals those reported on Erica Smith’s Paper Cuts, a Google Maps mashup which tracks layoffs and buyouts at U.S. newspapers. It does not include job cuts made through attrition. (Numbers as of October 10, 2009.)
2 At McClatchy owned Miami Herald, employees making over $25,000 a year were given a 5% pay cut, over $50,000 were given 10% pay cut. On top of this, all full-time employees had to take five furlough days between before October 31, 2009.
3 We do realize that some concessions have been made in consideration of the economic state: NPPA’s Convergence09 workshop was under $100 for members (professionals and students). SND froze registration rates and members paid 2008’s rates and students who registered early did not have to pay any registration fees.