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Thursday, Oct. 18
Time: 10:45 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.
Running a Digi-Newsroom on the Cheap
So your newsroom has decided to go digital, but cost is an issue. This panel discusses low-cost alternatives to traditional software programs, content management systems, finding the right staff, purchasing gadgets, etc.
Getting Started With Databases
PHP, MySQL, ASP, Ajax, Django, Python, Ruby on Rails: The list of options and techniques for using online databases can be staggering. Hunker down for a hands-on workshop for beginners that will help you get started creating great database projects.
Using Serious Games to Engage Readers
There's a reason people like to play games — they're fun! But that doesn't mean they're frivolous. So come to this fun — and not frivolous — panel to learn how news Web sites can use games to engage readers and better convey information. After all, people learn better from doing stuff than from having stuff explained to them. And with this panel, the audience will "do stuff" too.
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Time: 1:15 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.
What Makes Web Sites Work? Analysis and Design Decisions
Page view reports aren't just for the advertising, business and marketing departments. How can editorial read, understand and make use of page view reports to inform coverage and design? What hidden gems can editors, reporters, designers and producers find to help them create a more informative and more engaging news Web site? Experts present their research and offer tips on how to improve your site.
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Becoming a Community Evangelist
This might be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Learn how to harness the passion and creativity of your community to become a local sensation and a meaningful online gathering place.
The Future of Publishing
The Web is quickly being transformed by social media platforms and, in some cases, supplanted by alternative content delivery methods. What happens when the Web is no longer enough? Digital media gurus discuss innovative new ways that companies outside of journalism are starting to use cell phone networks, instant messaging services and more to distribute editorial content.
Time: 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Covering a Tragedy
Among the many questions asked following the tragedy at Virginia Tech was a this journalistic one: how did people on campus get their information? And where did journalists turn to look up names and faces? From Facebook to SMS, new resources and tools are helping people find each other in a crisis. How does this impact journalism and journalists? What resources might journalists want to consider; what lines might they not want to cross?
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Are You Living a Second Life?
Well many people are. We take a look at this phenomenon through the lens of the journalists who cover it and the people behind it to try to better understand its implications on the way people use technology and the impact on our industry.
Time: 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Partnering With J-Schools: The Innovation Incubator Project
If there's anything today's newsrooms value, it's innovation and original thinking -- particularly when it comes to reaching new audiences and serving new communities. And if there's anything college students are good at, it's thinking creatively and reinventing the status quo.
That's the premise of the Innovation Incubator Project, a collaboration among seven journalism schools around the country designed to harness the creative energies of college students to produce original, affordable, and executable new applications for and approaches to community news. Under a grant from the Knight Foundation's News Challenge program, more than 40 students and faculty have been working since June in an "open-innovation" process to develop three online news projects that meet those standards.
They'll present those projects at today's session, invite newsrooms to adapt and adopt them, and describe the incubator process as a model for similar partnerships between newsrooms and their own local journalism schools.
The Innovation Incubator is a joint project of Michigan State, University of Kansas, Kansas State, Western Kentucky University, Ithaca College, University of Nevada-Las Vegas and St. Michael’s College.
Time: 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Covering Elections
Elections always get lots of coverage, but how much of that really informs the electorate? With the U.S. presidential contest already underway — and several other countries girding for their own elections — this panel will take a look at how online news organizations can prepare themselves and come up with new ways of helping readers understand and take part in the process.
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Using Metrics to Make Your Site Sticky
How do you know if you have a successful site? What do traffic numbers really mean, and do they reflect your actual user audience? How can you turn a story viral, so that eventually directs more traffic to your site? How can you get the most out of blogs, video and other stories? Learn the basics as well as trends in metrics reporting at this informative panel.
Managing Online Communities
One of the greatest challenges news sites face is how to encourage - and cope with - community interaction. What are the best practices for ensuring your message boards, user blogs and more are successful havens for dedicated users, rather than lairs for spiteful trolls?
Time: 5:15 p.m. to 6:45 p.m.
As more journalists take up blogs -- for both professional and personal interests, newsroom are grappling with how to respond. If you are an editor trying to give your reporters clear boundaries for their blogging or if you are a blogger and want to make sure you stay out of trouble, both legally and professionally, join us for this discussion on blogging ethics. Together, we'll craft ONA's first set of guidelines to help newsrooms and bloggers, both affiliated and independent, avoid running into problems with their blogs. Participants are asked to get permission from their companies to submit their blogging guidelines for this session or bring their own suggestions. Members can submit guidelines on the ONA wiki.
Friday, Oct. 19
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
Finding Your Voice Online
"Voice" is the secret to the success of the most successful bloggers. No one wants to read a bored blogger. Similarly, for better or for worse, cable TV is increasingly being dominated by big personalities. The challenge is to shed a lack of passion without shedding impartiality, fairness and our accuracy. See how different online personalities achieve that feat.
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The Cutting Edge of Online Data
The Web is bursting with data being gathered and presented in astonishing new ways. Take a tour of the latest trends in online information and learn how these methods can make your site a must-have for your users.
Leading a 21st Century Newsroom
What does it take to lead a 21st century newsroom? How do you embrace the signature features of Web 2.0 - video, social networking, user-generated content, etc. -- without compromising your journalist standards? Editors will discuss their sites' strategies, challenges and the lessons they learned.
Time: 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Broadcaster Strategies for the Web
Learn how to leverage the resources unique to broadcasters to implement a successful online strategy. Find out where some of the brightest minds in the industry think the future lies.
Integrating Multimedia in Storytelling
As the use of photo slideshows, Flash graphics, audio and video proliferates online, how are sites working that content into their site? Are they separate elements, or integrated elements? Different approaches work for different content and sites. See examples of success stories and how to make multimedia as much as part of the story as it deserves.
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Legal Panel
A blue-ribbon panel of Internet law experts, hosted by Jon Hart, author of Internet Law: A Field Guide (BNA Books 2007), will discuss the legal issues that are on your mind . . . and those that should be. If you publish on the Internet, is there anything you can do to protect yourself against getting sued anywhere in the world that your content can be accessed? When can you be liable for content that your reader post? Are you better off policing user postings or remaining hands-off? Is it OK to buy (or sell) advertising that is triggered by keywords that correspond to other companies' trademarks? Can other sites really post your headlines without your permission? What can you borrow from other sites? Why do websites display privacy policies and visitor agreements? Newspapers don't. Come armed with questions; this session will go where you want to take it.
Time: 3:15 p.m. to 4:15 p.m.
Integrating User-Generated Content
What issues are facing organizations as they try to adapt to a user-generated content world? How can that content be integrated into news sites without compromising journalistic integrity, confusing the reader, and informing the coverage? Our panel discusses how to encourage meaningful contributions, rely on users, and integrate that content into the site.
>>Panel tipsheet<<
Advertising 2.0
Traditional banner ads don’t carry nearly as much impact as they did three years ago, so advertisers are looking for alternative ways to reach consumers. How will this impact publishing? If banner ads are out, are video ads in? What about alternative ad delivery methods, such as widgets, text messages, ads within RSS feeds and Podcasts? Industry experts offer insight into the future of web advertising and marketing.
Revamping Your Curriculum for Online Journalism
Leading educators at various stages in the process will offer practical tips for revamping your curriculum to include online journalism tools and practices.
Time: 4:45 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Superpanel: Journalism Next: Impact of Aggregators, Blogging and Social Networking on the Industry
Should today’s online journalists embrace, fear or ignore YouTube? What about the bloggers who are scooping beat reporters and developing robust sourcebooks to break news? With Google News and other increasingly popular aggregator services delivering news content catered to individual tastes, are editors worrying too much about what to put on the front door? Hear the diverse viewpoints of leaders from new media outlets and the online arms of traditional news sources in our special ONA SuperPanel.
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