Susan Mernit's Blog

May 17: Speaking at Carlos K. McClatchy Symposium at the Journalism School at Stanford

Sun, 13 May 2012 21:30:47 -0800

I'm honored to say that I've been invited to be part of an annual Stanford John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships program this coming week. The topic of the event is "#Hashtagged: How Social Media are Revolutionizing the News" and the other speakers are from NPR, Google and Yahoo; we're going to be talking about the impact of social media on news, a subhect dear to my heart.

The symposium is being help on Thursday, May 17th, on the Stanford Campus; deets here: http://comm.stanford.edu/mcclatchy/

Besides me, the other speakers are:
Krishna Bharat, distinguished scientist and founder of Google News, an automated news service aggregating more than 50,000 sources, with more than 72 editions in more than 30 languages. He is on the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships Board of Visitors.

Andy Carvin, senior strategist, NPR Social Media Desk. During the Arab Spring, Carvin developed a large following on Twitter who came to rely on his messages and retweets of news and information developing in the uprisings.

Sheigh Crabtree, lead editor and strategist for social, Yahoo! News and Yahoo! Finance. Crabtree has extensive expertise as an interactive strategist, editor and producer. Before joining Yahoo! she was executive editor of UberMedia and has journalism experience with the Los Angeles Times and the Hollywood Reporter.

James Bettinger, director of the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford, will moderate the symposium, which is open to the public and The symposium, part of a series that began in 1964, is sponsored by the Department of Communication. It will be in the Vidalakis Room of the Schwab Residential Center.

The symposium is open to the public and will be followed by a reception. http://comm.stanford.edu/mcclatchy/

I'd like to think that I was invited to speak because of the great job the Oakland Local team has done in using social media both to source the news and community voices and because of our use of social media to cover local issues with national interest, including Occupy Oakland, the trial of Johannes Mehserle and the killing of Oscar Grant, and the recent shooting death of Alan Blueford, a young man shot and killed last week by an Oakland police officer. The format of the symposium is informal, but I'll be preparing some comments/thoughts to post here to complement the talk.

Thank you so much, John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford, I am honored.

Love, love, love, love my Oakland community

Sat, 05 May 2012 19:13:07 -0800

Okay, if you know me at all, you probably know I am a workaholic, Work to live, live to work, work work work...the whole deal. No sleeping till 10 am, etc. And today, I didn't do any work. Instead, I rested--along with many others in what I am more and more coming to feel is "my" Oakland community. Here's how it went:
10 am: Digging in the garden with my most fabulous housemates, pouring out chicken manure and planting pole beans while discussing House of Local, Oakland Local and why the East Bay Express and Oaklandish somehow happened to name their new t-shirt line Lokal (like, should we complain or just say no biggie, huh? Maybe we'll just started the Oakland Express line--oh, I forgot, we called something Oakland Express a while ago and the Express protested.)

Anyway, we got the garden all set up, at least for now.

Then 12:30 I was in North Oakland, at PLACE on 64th, for a wedding of two friends. Both the leaders of social justice organizations, they had a potluck wedding at a communal space and invited their community to attend. What can I say about such an amazing gathering? It was so lovely to be with so many people working for change in Oakland, come together through shared purpose and transformed into friends and community. The energy and the love was magnetic, so special, and it was easy to spend several hours there, eating the good food, chatting with friends and dancing to the best 80's funk around.

By 4 PM, I was at my friend Susie's new house in North Oakland, sitting outside in her yard with a bowl of strawberries and a bevvy of her friends contemplating coconut water vs. procsecco ( I had both, eventually). One of Susie's friends is a handyman with 3 sons, one of whom plays/played bass, and we had a terrific talk. Another is helping to raise money to transform the 17th street train station, another is an editor...and so on.

Sitting there in the yard, talking and feeling the sun, Oakland felt like such a good place to be.

And then, by 6:30, I was home, and back outside my my own yard, now alot cleaner and more organized than it was this am, playing catch the ball with my dog.

Throw Catch Throw Catch Throw Catch Throw Catch Throw Catch The dog doesn't tire of this, probably because he thinks he's doing it to please me.

Thinking about checking out Heart and Soul, a Religious Science congregation many of the folks at the wedding go to, tomorrow am, but also resolved to catch up on all the work I didn't do today (and go out with a friend tomorrow night).

Ah, Oakland. Today you really feel like my place.

Covering Occupy Oakland/May Day General Strike @ Oakland Local

Tue, 01 May 2012 22:14:48 -0800

It's 10:15 on May 1st. At 8:30 am, I started getting materials ready for Oakland Local's team to cover the Occupy Oakland General strike. With three people in the field, and 3 volunteers in the office, OL managed to pump out more than 300 photos, 60 tweets from the scene, and 3-5 articles, depending on how you count the updates to the stories. We'll be filing more stories tomorrow, including some reflection/opinion pieces from the reporters, who are welcoming a chance to share some impressions now that May Day is (almost) over.

How did we manage to create content that was picked up and carried across the country with a team that's part-time, could definitely be better paid, and was 50% volunteer?

Or--to put it another way--how come we keep doing this work when the calls for support for funding our Occupy Oakland coverage-which probably more than 6,000 people read today, if previous stats mean anything--didn't even net us contributions to cover the way too small sum we spent on our hard-working reporters?

Part of what keeps me working at making Oakland Local work is the pride I have in the talented team. We have a number of people--our managing editor and several reporters among them--who've worked with Oakland Local for more than 2 years (we're 2.6 years old).
These people tell me they stay with OL because they believe in what we're doing and think it can work--and they thing our reporting and trainings are making a difference in Oakland.

To me, that sense of dedication was evident in the reporters we had out there today. Our team started at 10 am, covered more than 3 actions and marches all over the city, came into our workspace and filed and dumped photos so volunteers could process their work, then went back out and kept working late into the night. Unlike the folks at the mainstream media outlet when went off shift and were done for the night,our team chose to keep going right till the last policeman moved people out of Frank Ogawa Plaza.

As the editor/publisher of this enterprise, this is a great moment to reflect not only on the good work we did, but on how Oakland Local motivates people. With the late-night,woozy haze of a glass of wine and post half-watching a movie, some reflections:

People on the team choose to work here. OL doesn't pay well enough that people who are unhappy, feel misunderstood or unappreciated have incentives to stay. In a way, it's a zero sum game--if it works for you, you enjoy it. If it doesn't, you split.

People on the team know their work has impact and makes a difference. In such a flat organization, people are appreciated for what they can do--and they can make substantial contributions fairly quickly. One of our newer reporters, who has a flair for social media, has incredibly enhanced our work by live-tweeting from the field, for example.

We try to have a play to your strengths environment. You do video, you like to live tweet? You're all about data visualization? Because OL is about shared and mutual incentives, we try to support and use the skills and passions people have, as well as help them learn new things.

We haz food. Yep, food. I'm positive that our reporting team did such a good job, in part, today because when they came back for lunch, as we'd arranged, they found trays of Vietnamese sandwiches (including a vegan one for the vegan), fruit, salad, home made smoked trout salad, crackers, cold cuts, a fruit smoothie, soft drinks, beer, chips and energy bars. This food a) gave them some more energy b) showed them people cared and valued what they were doing.

We're all invested in what we do. Yes, we're all proud of Oakland Local. We're proud of what we do even as we wish it paid more, swear it needs to pay us more, and wonder when it will. The money's not so great, but the human capital and the pride are valuable--as is the resume credential for many of our writers.

A place of my own 2012

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:46:56 -0800

I've just set up a workspace and table in our living room for myself, facing the front window. Through the thin blinds, I can see people walking up and down my street.

When we moved in here, I set up the back office as my work space, with the idea A had an office and a job to go to. Later, after he started working from home, he asked if I would agree to reconfigure my space to allow him to share it and I reluctantly agreed.

We changed to larger desk, added more bookshelves and moved cabinets around; after we'd finished, we had a space that fit us both but felt too small for us to use at the same time. (A's a big guy, 6"4, 230 lbs, who likes to spread out).

Fast forward 18 months and A's computer and stuff is spread over the dining room table, taking over a shared space, and I'm in the back. office. Dining room table is always messy, making it seem not public, not shared.

Then, when the idea of the biofeedback machine as an life management tool for A came back to life--along with the purchase of a series of programs and some training sessions to use it-he needed space to spread out the monitors, computers and music speakers he wanted for his biofeedback program.

Ergo, time for a new workspace. For me.

My new spot is my old white wooden gate-leg table from Ohio, which I have worked on for more than 25 years, with the same white painted wooden chair I bought off a farmer moving to the city.

I've written poems on this desk, consulting documents, site plans, pitches, essays...pretty much everything. And now it's nose up in a corner of our living room, facing the front windows, wireless humming just as nicely as can be.

Right now my new desk has a funky old linen tablecloth cover, tea cloth sized, and soon it will have a functioning desk light and a desk cover. I've been working here for an hour or two and in feels, in a way, like a coming home. A place of my own.

driven by rage gets results

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:21:09 -0800

Sometimes I am amazing how powerful a tool anger is for getting me to address things. This week, I got a packet from my insurance company that told me that, in 3 months, my policy would increase by 27.8%. That means my health insurance would pretty much start to cost like a home rental. NOT GOOD.
SO I immediately got online and researched options with my current provider, then called their health line and talked to someone. That person recommended a high deductible policy with MUCH lower payments: I have about a month to decide.
I then went online, check out the local HMO and applied for coverage there--that's almost half the price of these other quotes and won't have the honking huge deductible.

I'd like to be angry enough to apply this to my auto insurance premium (could be lower), cleaning the house more often, and reducing other insurance costs. Man, it feels good to get in front of a problem for a change.

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 09:56:04 -0800

I just got back from the Knight Foundation Media Learning Seminar 2012 and wanted to share some of the materials I provided for the attendees.Here's a list of useful llinks and white papers focused on civic engagement and future of news projects:

The Knight Foundation Community Information Tool Kit, http://www.infotoolkit.org

Released in April 2011, this tool kit helps leaders harness the power of information to advance their goals for a better community. It offers a simple, easy-to-use set of tools to help take stock of your community's news and information resources, and take action to improve them.

(See a related video discussion with Mayur Patel: http://vimeo.com/19721589 )

Getting Local: How Nonprofit News Ventures Seek Sustainability

http://www.knightfoundation.org/publications/getting-local-how-nonprofit-news-ventures-seek-sus

How are successful non-profit newsrooms engaging audiences and diversifying revenue? The Knight Foundation's Mayur Patel, with Michele McLellan, studied eight well-funded organizations and reports on the results in this fascinating survey.

From Idea to Implementation, Taking your project to the next level, http://slidesha.re/vbDUjQ

This presentation by KCIC Circuit Riders Susan Mernit, Michele McLellan and Lisa Williams offers essential tips and resources for kicking off a successful project that are useful to everyone who has to execute on an idea.

Thinking about site sustainabiity, talk by Ben Wirz, The Knight Foundation

http://www.knightdigitalmediacenter.org/site/resource/3373/?/seminars/video3-3/knight_community_information_challenge_bootcamp_2011/

What are important indicators for sustainability to think about in the early days of your project? What lessons can Silicon Valley Startups teach us about building for success? Wirz' talk is loaded with useful ideas.

Web Development 101: Getting Your Site Right From the Beginning, Lisa Williams

Preso: http://www.knightdigitalmediacenter.org/seminars/agenda/boot_camp_for_knight_community_information_challenge_projects1/

Video: http://www.knightdigitalmediacenter.org/seminars/video4-2/boot_camp_for_knight_community_information_challenge_projects1/

What do you need to know about web developers BEFORE you start a new project? What do you need to know about what you want? Circuit Rider Lisa William takes you through key questions to ask.

Social Media for News Sites, Susan Mernit, Kwan Booth & Amy Gahran

http://bit.ly/vtISpi

This on-line module focusing on social media, civic engagement and tools for news provides an easy-to-read window in some of the fine points of using social media tools and is part of the Knight Citizen News Network from J-Lab at American University.

The Top Ten List: Tips and tools for managing a civic engagement project

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 09:53:24 -0800

I just got back from the Knight Foundation Media Learning Seminar 2012 and wanted to share some of the materials I provided for the attendees.Here's a very useful list of cloud-based tools:

The Top Ten List: Tips and tools for managing a civic engagement project

There are so many different tools and resources available to help plan projects, manage virtual teams, and tap into open source civic engagement projects that figuring out what's useful for you and your projects can be an overwhelming job.

To streamline the process, the Knight Community Information Challenge Circuit Rider team spoke with a number of grantees about online and virtual tools and resources that were useful to them as they thought about projects, planned projects and got started actually building projects that focused on civic engagement as a key component.

What follows is a list of some of the most useful tools out there--a Top Ten Tools list to check out and share. Each of these tools is easy to use, free or low-cost, and considered best in class by Knight KCIC grantees, Circuit Riders and staff.

· Basecamp, Easy to use project management software, http:// basecamphq.com

· Doodle, Help your group find a meeting time online, https://www.doodle.com/

· Dropbox, Send big files easily, http://www.dropbox.com/

· Freeconference.com, Phone conferencing tools, http:// freeconference.com

· Github, Software code sharing repository, https://github.com/

· Google Apps for nonprofits, free tools for site operators and project teams, http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/nonprofit/index.html

o Google Apps Mail, Set up mail for your domain, http://www.google.com/apps

o Google docs, Share documents and collaborate online, http://google.com/documents

o Google Calendar, Create team and project calendars, https://www.google.com/calendar

o Google Groups, Create a group for shared communication, http://groups.google.com/

· Google Analytics, The go-to resource for measuring traffic and engagement on your web site, http://google.com/analytics

· Google alerts: Monitor your reputation and what's being posted, http://google.com/alerts

· Toggl, Time tracking for projects, http://www.toggl.com

· Toodledo, time and task management tool, http://toodledo.com

Jargon Watch: Words for the wise you'll want to know

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 09:36:59 -0800

I just got back from the Knight Foundation Media Learning Seminar 2012 and wanted to share some of the materials I provided for the attendees. This list, Top Twelve List: Words for the wise you'll want to know, is part of series of posts I did for attendees that I'll also share here:

Top Twelve List: Words for the wise you'll want to know

What are the emerging ideas, buzz words, and concepts you'll want to make sure you're familiar with in 2012? Here's a list focused on civic engagement, digital solutions and digital inclusion that will make you feel super-clued in to some of the topics we're discussing at the 2012 MLS.

Apps: Short for web application, an app (formerly known as a widget) is a piece of software that runs over the internet so that it can execute queries and display results in a web browser, or via a mobile platform

Civic media: What is the relationship between emerging forms of media and civic engagement? Civic media is media that goes beyond news and story-telling to help citizens and communities become more informed, engaged and involved in the issues of the day.

Crowd-funding: Why not ask the public to help fund a project? Sites like Indie GoGo, Kickstarter and Knight-funded Spot.us enable the public to give directly to projects they want to support.

Crowd-sourcing: Increasing, conferences are crowd-sourcing speakers by Marchhaving prospective attendees vote on speakers and programs and reporters are using social media to find original sources for their stories. Both of these are examples of crowd-sourcing.

Data catalog: A data catalog is a centralized, online listing of available information, often presented in both APIs and flat files, that developers can work with to build apps.

Data commons: A data commons takes the data in the data catalog and organizes it to ensure there can be standardized access, delivery and accuracy of the information provided.

Data visualization: It's possible now to tell stories with numbers as well as pictures; data visualization is the art (and the science) of presenting large sets of complex information in visual form.

Digital inclusion: Digital Divide denotes the gap between information technology haves and have-nots; digital inclusion is the intention to make sure civic leaders, educators and industry work together bring everyone into the digital commons so they can participate and have a voice.

GIS services: As mobile phones become ubiquitious, location-based services, aka geospatial information technologies, become an important part of the data we need. Adding GIS data to projects is increasingly relevant and allows users to locate places, views maps, and add data to specific locations.

Engagement: On the internet, page views(the number of times pages on a website are loaded) surely matter, but user engagement--the amount of time a visitor spends on a web site and the number of pages they read per session are increasingly important as ways to measure a reader's level of attention and even participation.

Gov 2.0/Open Government: How can technology solve civic problems, make information more accessible, and support government accountability? Gov 2.0 and Open Government are both catch phrases for projects--both local and national--that are built on these ideas

Hack day: Hack days are brief--often one to two day--public events where developers, product managers, designers and others gather to focus on identifying and discussing specific problems and then building software that offers solutions.

Creating a web presence: workshop for business folks

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:51:18 -0800

Just gave a workshop in Oakland on creating a web presence, focused on business folks. There were about 35 people there, very attentive. My fav moment: the woman who asked why social media would help her business, and when I explained why it might said, “Wow, I never realized that before.”
Here’s the preso I made for it:

Developing a web presence 2012

View more presentations from Susan Mernit.

California Media: Sites that are thriving without giant budgets

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 05:37:47 -0800

I was thrilled to hear about the CIR/Bay Citizen merge plans, but Ken Doctor's post about it leaves out so many things I had to write my own post. You see, if you just read Ken's post, you might think tat things today were just like in 1999, or maybe 2003, and that the only new news models to get excited about were the big ones, with budgets over $2MM (The Bay Citizen had a projected 2012 budget of $6.2MM before the merger; CIR's was about $3.2MM). In reality, local news entities can't and shouldn't aspire to budgets of this size unless they are a) in wealthy communities b) have friends with deep pockets c) are doing a scale of work that requires 17 + reporters, a rarity for most news operations today).

What's more viable--and not mentioned by Doctor's post--are the smaller local news outlets bringing valuable news and discussion to their communities and making a go of it. Not only is there the no-so-small Voice of San Diego, there is the Voice of Orange County, Noozhawk in Santa Barbara, Oakland Local, Berkeleyside, Sacramento Press, SF Appeal, SF Public Press, Natomas Buzz, Lake County News, YubaNet, and all the local sites supported by local J-Schools, Mission Local and The Alhambra Source. And that's far from a complete list.

Most of those sites are 1-8 person operations and they're making it work--and the scale of the budgets are much more in line with sustainability.

One of the things I'd like to see come out of the CIR/Bay Citizen merger is a way for the new entity to work MUCH more effectively with smaller local news partners than Bay Citizen did in the past. These sites are the drumbeats of their communities, Ken, and they are another important piece of the media landscape of the future.

Update: Maybe some of us are "surviving", as much as thriving. But let's not be overlooked.

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead: Inspiring

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:32:22 -0800

Okay, I just watched the Joe Cross movie, and it is inspiring. Getting off processed foods will save your life, whether you go raw vegan or not. And the standard American diet is toxic.
But I have some issues with this movie:
It's all men, big brawny men
No one seems to struggle with going on juice and going cold-turkey on everything else
How enduring is it? As with May I be Frank, the Cafe Gratitude/Frank Ferrante film the big issue isn't only the miracle transformation, it's the sticking with it.
Hell, I weighed 40 lbs less 10 years ago and 20 pounds less 4 years ago.

Warching this movie made me go look up my BMI. Looking up my BMI made me view photos of people with this BMI. And that...well that made me think about how I could do better with what I ate--and didn't eat.

Bay Citizen may merge with California Watch, CIR

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:31:44 -0800

I started hearing these rumors three weeks ago, and then, today, the Bay Citizen scooped itself, posting that Phil Bronstein would likely come in as CEO for the troubled Bay Citizen--and help it merge with California Watch and The Center for Investigative Reporting (disclosure: I consulted for CIR for a year).
This is one of those moves that is not only fiscally sound (merging two organizations each having annual budgets of over $3.4MM would surely result in economies of scale), it's editorially wise, since The Bay Citizen's problems all along have had to do with finding a unique voice and making good use of all their resources and people, and California Watch's issues have been not around a voice or content (they have some terrific editors), but around distribution.
Further, the story goes that folks like Bronstein and CIR's director, Robert Rosenthal, were instrumental in helping Warren Hellman shape his thinking before The Bay Citizen was launched, and that in fact, there was some surprise that Hellman formed the organization without CIR.
There's also the important cash flow fact, which is that while CIR has done a brilliant job raising money from both national and local foundations to support California Watch, some of its largest funders are now pulling back, both because o f a change in direction and because it is rare for a foundation to supply large funding for more than 3 years.
One interesting question is--what would the merge look like? With two organizations that both have reporting teams of more than 13 people each, a "reduction in force" would seem inevitable, even as efficiencies of scale would be valued.
I'd love to see this happen--there are some terrific people at both organizations--and the Bay area could use a broadly focused digital news voice that had the funds to do deep-dive investigative reporting--and partner with organizations like Oakland Local for more local coverage.

Tearing through work

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:31:25 -0800

One of the best ways to approach a big project is to just start working on it. I've done a huge chunk of work for a client on metric for hyperlocal news sites and after getting the initial work done, put it aside for six weeks. Next week, I am giving a webinar on the materials. I realized I was totally stressed about this paper and preso and that the only thing to do was spend a chunk of today working on it so my unreal fears could be replaced with real fears (or not).

After 5 hours, I've rewritten the big, clunky paper into something still long (25 pages) but very readable, planned out the webinar, and feel able to write the preso and spend no more than 2-3 hours on it. (This is a huge relief). I also realized what the follow up project should be--and have plans to do a one-sheet on value and impact for my idea.

What else did I do today?
Work on Oakland Local
Write proposals for a panel and a workshop for Netroots Nation
File 2 FOIA requests
Play with the dog
Get photographed with my fabulous friends
Go out to dinner at Ninna with same friends
Hit the local hot tubbery with said friends
Play with the dog
Come home and talk about how to change the world with my super great housemate
Hit the interwebs

It was a really productive day, and getting my big rock done makes me feel very calm.

The Bay Citizen: $6.2MM budget and no leaders?

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:17:36 -0800

In about ten days,editor Steve Fainru is leaving the Bay Citizen, just around the same time their CEO, Lisa Frazier, is departing. Has there ever been an organization whose benefactor--the recently deceased Warren Hellman--made sure there was millions in the bank--but whose entire leadership team has departed? (Original EIC Jon Weber left several months ago).

Rumor has it that the Bay Citizen's traffic numbers are not strong, and that the company is so focused on their deal with the New York Times that it's taken attention off building traffic to their web site. But as an organization--with a union, no less--that has more writers than just about any California non-profit (except for maybe California Watch and the Center for Investigative Reporting)--the whole situation is just plain strange.

(And of course, despite all the money raised, Hellman's death may have left large sources of future funding in limbo).

So, whither Bay Citizen? Are more consultants in the wings to take over or plan next steps?
This is such an unusual situation--it would be interesting to know.

Shit Silicon Valley Says (Video): Priceless

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:50:48 -0800

OMFG, this is so funny—and so true. Well done, folks! Tom Conrad/Kaie Imbach, more, more!