MiniMediaGuy

Journalism has the Pulitzers. Hollywood has the Oscars. Popular music has the Grammys. And young though the endeavor may be, blogging has its own competition, suitably named the Bloggies. Washington Post columnist Leslie Walker wrote a lead up to the already-concluded 2005 competition that included this quote from the founder of the event:

“The point of the Bloggies is to highlight the best blogs around, especially ones that are good but nobody’s heard about,” said Nikolai Nolan, the University of Michigan senior who created the contest in 2000.

But don’t expect to get rich or even famous if you should win a Bloggie. “As for awards, winners mostly get contributions of coupons or $20 from their fellow bloggers,” according to the article, which added that “the affair is more about pride than prizes.”

For beginning bloggers the competition is really about ideas, examples and inspiration. It has 30 categories, which have changed a bit from year to year, but cover many of the basic human interests, such as humor, won in 2005 by Heather Hamilton, a web designer turned blogger who writes under the name of Douce.

There are wide open categories, like best topical blog — someone who blogs about a passion. The 2005 winner here was Bookslut — obviously an edgier view on the literary world than might be found in you family newspaper. Other nominees in the topic category include The Policeman’s Blog, written by a British copper and TreeHugger, which may have began as someone’s personal diary but not describes itself as “a fast-growing web magazine, dedicated to everything that has a modern aesthetic yet is environmentally responsible.” (This may be an instance of a dedicated blog turning into a business, a rare though obviously not impossible occurrence.)

Browsing the bloggies will give you all sorts of ideas. For instance, the best designed site in 2005 was Loobylu, “the personal web site of Claire Robertson … an illustrator and toy maker living and working in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia.”

San Francisco Bay Area resident Michael Chu won the 2005 competition for “best food weblog” with his site called Cooking for Engineers. It’s a hoot. Chu posts recipes in an index-card format. A note at the bottom of his screen says he is seeking a patent on the display format. Another instance of an idea, put into a blog, that leads who knows where.

Of course there are entries on politics, technology and other topics central to the Web. Browse the Bloggies for ideas. I did not see a posting yet for the 2006 awards. But when it appears, scan it for what is new and possible. But blog about whatever topic would motivate you to spend many hours each week pouring your thoughts and energy into what may either be a void or your destiny. You’ll never know which unless you try!

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
‘Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media

Doing research for a one-day blogging seminar, I came across a Wired News article that steered me to a course announcement: in 2002, UC Berkeley media teachers John Battelle and Paul Grabowicz taught a class entitled, “Creating an IP Weblog.” They posted their syllabus and a list of additional resources. The latter was a particularly great assist. Thanks.

Using that as a starting point, let me flesh out the topics on the history and ethos of blogging in the outline I charted yesterday.

As regards history, Rebecca Blood wrote a lovely essay in 2000 as the blogging movement was gathering steam. It’s chatty and full of names and though perhaps not the last word on the subject, it will acquaint newcomers with how it was “back in the day.” Nowadays Blood posts her thoughts in Rebecca’s Pocket where we are remined that her essay led to a book contract for the 2002 how-to entitled, “The Weblog Handbook.”

Another piece from the Berkeley list that stands the test of time is John Hiler’s 2002 essay entitled, “Blogosphere: The Emerging Media Ecosystem.” It defines and explains the term “blogosphere” and shows how blogs interact with mainstream media to create a new type of news flow. I had not seen the essay before this morning, but have seen and read similar explanations, written much later. They make Hiler’s piece seem all the more prescient. He still writes about blogging and other aspects of electronic publishing at Microcontent News.

The resource list contains many more items but some seem dated. The list is also focused on news blogging — the course was taught to journalists at a j-school. Moreover that class met 16 times and I am planning a one-day seminar. So after a certain point the resources seem too voluminous and narrowly focused — especially for the seminar I plan that assumes prospective bloggers have interests other than news-gathering or criticism. Nevertheless I am thankful the list exists, and if your interests incline toward journalism you might explore the resources at your leisure.

But I’m afraid I already did that, and in so doing I used up my morning blog time (I set aside an early-morning blog time before my regular workday; I don’t know how you run your life, but unless I schedule things into my routine they don’t get done. And my mind is freshest in the morning.) Tomorrow I’ll pick up with best practices and blogging personalities.

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
‘Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media.

What tools and skills are required to be a successful blogger? Over the next few weeks I will use this space to answer that question. As I mentioned last week, I will be coordinating a one-day class (Jan 21) through UC Extension in Berkeley, this is the best time to do my prep work and park my research.

The metaphor I will use to organize my thoughts is the tree, branch, twig and leaf. The tree will be the greatest summation of skills. Branches will be main categories, twigs will be refinements off the categories and leaves could be examples. That might even suggest a visual indexing system to display the results but that is down the road. Because I am literally thinking out loud, I’d anticipate a lot of backtracking and revision before the tree takes shape.

One way to divide the skills is by the actions:
creation (writing or otherwise populating the blog with material);
publishing (the technical skills required to present material on the Web);
networking (gaining attention and visibility for your work);
sales (making money through advertising, subscription, speaking, other);

These actions spring from the soil or environment of the blog, specifically, its:
topic or theme (the focus of the author or authors);
the topic depends on or builds and audience (whether you start with a following or try to collect one);
and an audience may require measurement and tracking (if your blogging is to be anything more than a hobby).

While the universe of topics is endless, I’ve chosen three broad categories to shape the class:
politics (general commentary, special interest, organizing, and etcetera)
passion (artistic expression, pursuit of a hobb or of a cultural rather than a political cause)
profit (publishing for revenues, using a blog to support a business or consulting practice)

Finally, whatever topic or topics a blogger pursues, whether for self-amusement or self-support, it pays to know:
the history and ethos of the blogging community;
its notable personalities;
its contests and other ways to discover best (or at least popular) practices;
and how to tap into its buzz.

I’ll pick up the thread Tuesday.

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
‘Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media

Here’s a thought that rings true top anyone who’s worked at a newspaper. “Newspaper copy desks attract—how should I say this?—a quirky bunch of people.”

So wrote columnist Margie Peterson of the Allentown (Pennsylvania) Morning Call in an ode to a copy editor who took what in the newsbiz is called “the buyout” — a compensation package designed to induce people to leave a paper that wants to downsize its staff.

There’s a lot of that going around these days, and Peterson was lamenting the loss of institutional memory that occurs when a paper loses a veteran fact-checker. As she writes:

“having (copy) editors who know that a crime in Bethlehem couldn’t have happened at the corner of Broad and Market because the streets never intersect is important to the paper’s credibility. Most copy editors toil in obscurity. We’re like air traffic controllers: The public has no cause to notice us unless we goof up.”

Thanks to the Poynter Institute for pointing to Peterson’s column. But this reporter has little time to lament the fate of copy editors. I have to climb the learning curve. Poynter columnist Steve Outing writes “the future of print journalism is … video!” noting that the UK Press Association is “undertaking a big project to help convert many regional newspaper journalists into video-journalists.”

That effort is being led by broadcast journalist turned university lecturer David Dunkley Gyimah, who has created a web portal to teach print newshounds the tips and tricks of doing video.

In the U.S., broadcaster Michael Rosenblum is another advocate of one-person video journalism, although as far as I am aware, he has been working on showing current TV journalists how to work alone rather than in crews. I’ve blogged about Rosenblum a time or two if the topic interests you.

Meanwhile, I haven’t forgotten about checking to see whatever transpired with the Peninsula Newspapers ESOP I mentioned yesterday. But the keepers of those memories are some copy editors — and experience has taught me that when seeking to extract knowledge from these “quirky” folks, it’s wise to suck up first.

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
‘Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media

Imagine success. You’ve successfully bootstrapped a new media business up to several million dollars a year in revenues, with fat margins and you’re thinking of how to cash out without selling into a big company that will turn your brainchild into a waystation in their content factory. A cover story in December’s INC. Magazine argues that employee stock ownership plans let owners have their cake and eat it too — giving them an immediate cash-out, rewarding the employees who helped them succeed, and perhaps leaving the firm energized to grow without them.

Alas I cannot provide an immediate link to the piece because INC. appears to delay posting of the current issue (though there are back issues posted as recently as November and I found a 2003 piece that focused mainly on the tax advantages of ESOP sales to retiring owners.)

Eventually, however, INC. should post the full article, which is excerpted from the new book, “Equity: Why Employee Ownership is Good for Business.” The co-authors (full list at the bottom of this capsule review) include Corey Rosen, executive director of the National Center for Employee Ownership.

So this is a story told by true believers, and even the casual reader may recall that United Airlines became an ESOP of sorts and it has certainly had its share of turbulence. On the other hand in searching on the topic this morning I learned that Proctor & Gamble also has an ESOP, and that is surely one of the world’s best regarded companies. I think the P&G’s brand of ESOP is akin to the stock-option programs prevalent in high-tech firms. The ESOP Association provides information about these plans, and when I visited its site this morning I saw this note:

“In a bizarre and completely surprising move, the President’s Advisory Panel on Tax Reform recommended that President Bush ask Congress to eliminate all current law defined contribution plans, which of course would eliminate ESOPs. The ESOP Association and its members find such a recommendation shocking.”

The site linked to a white paper arguing against any such change.

I mentioned ESOP because it’s my belief that a media business, in particular, is the expression of a vision, and that founders might want the vision to continue even if they want to cash out — if they ever get to that happy place where that is an option. Yet while I believe empowering employees should create a stronger enterprises, I recall that ESOPs were invented by Louis Kelso, a newspaper publisher in the San Francisco Bay Area. As the story goes, in the early 1970s Kelso persuaded then Louisiana Senator Russell Long to push the notion into federal law. Fast forward to now, and I believe the small newspaper chain that was Kelso’s first ESOP has been subsumed by traditional newspapers chains. I couldn’t find anything on this via web search this morning, but I know people who worked at those papers and lived some of these events so I’ll poll them and report back when I can.

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
‘Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media

In January I will coordinate what I hope will be the first in a series of “how-to” sessions on blogging. The one-day class, entitled “Blogging for Politics, Passion or Profit,” will be offered in San Francisco through the UC Berkeley Extension. It is aimed at novice and beginner bloggers. Berkeley software engineer and blogger Tim Bishop will lead the technical sessions and offer hands-on training and encouragement. Joining us for special panels will be bloggers Lisa Stone and J.D. Lasica. To learn more about the class or the instructors please visit the site Tim erected, BloggingClass.com.

I cooked up the idea for the class because, while I’ve been disciplined enough to blog five days a week, I remain baffled by the technical aspects and am therefore unable to make full use of the medium. In addition to being the most attentive student in the technical sessions, I hope to provide context about the blogosphere, a quick overview of journalism standards for accuracy and fairness, and an awareness of libel, slander, defamation and other perils of which new personal publishers may not be aware.

Speaking of journalistic standards, Boing Boing recently posted an essay by publisher Dale Dougherty that was critical — but unfortunately fairly so — of made-to-order news stories like the annual day after Thanksgiving holiday sales story. To be fair to the guild of organized scribes (of which I am a dues-paying member) Dougherty’s critique relied in large part on an article by Carl Bialik, the Wall Street Journal’s “Numbers Guy,” who earns his moniker by debunking th pseudo-facts we often see in print.

Nevertheless, as someone on the inside, I must sadly agree with Dougherty’s closing lament:

“The funny thing is that this same news is made every year in the same way as reliably as the turkey at Thanksgiving. The Internet allows us to see how news is made, as though we were walking through a factory tour, and we can compare the very similar results of a mass production system. Turns out the news can be as fake as a department store Santa.”

On a related note, if you are concerned about broadcast and Internet media, the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee will hold a series of hearings next year on hot button issues such as broadcast flag, video content, municipal networks, Internet pornography, and etcetera. Thanks to Paid Content for noting this some time back.

Tom Abate
MiniMedia Guy
‘Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media

The cover of a recent Forbes article shows a fist rising out of computer to deliver uppercut to a corporate guy in a red power tie. “Attack of the Blogs,” screams the headline of a piece warning companies to be on guard against online character assassins.

The blognoscenti reacted with swift and predictable derision. “Why they omitted “gouge their eyes out with forks,” “clamp electrodes to testicles,” or “ship them to Gitmo by the crateload,” I don’t know,” quipped Boing Boing’s Xeni Jardin, echoing sentiments expressed by Dan Gillmor, Doc Searls and Steve Rubel.

Ok. So the Forbes piece was melodramatic and reflected the angst of powerful people who either don’t understand — or have suddenly come to realize — that there has never been a better time for individuals or small groups to propagate ideas with viral contagion.

While I ultimately believe grassroots media will be a liberating and positive force, every tool can be misused and so the flip side of this revolution means thousands of people may now publish whatever hurtful or untrue remarks may occur to them in the heat of the moment.

What is to be done? Well, first off, let’s not worry about big companies. They have more money than sense and can employ scads of people to safeguard their brands. I only hope they can restrain themselves from seeking to intimidate critics with SLAPPs — the acronym for strategic lawsuits against public participation. I’m sure the Electronic Frontier Foundation will be alert on that front.

At the same time everyone who exercises the right of self expression must understand that they have the responsibility to be truthful, accurate and fair. Many of those we target with our words will be people as vulnerable as ourselves, or perhaps even more so if we have the greater experience with this new gatling gun for firing off ideas. Long ago Shakespeare’s Othello moaned :

“Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.”

I’ve been a journalist and writer for many years and yet this is the first time that words meant for public consumption have gone directly from my mind to yours without some editorial intervention. It’s been a liberating experience and I blog because I enjoy thinking out loud.

But this is a new arena for the thousands who have suddenly discovered they can have a voice. So perhaps we ought to thank Forbes for publishing such a loaded piece. At least we’re thinking about the real likelihood that many people — real people of flesh and blood, not the “fictitious persons” that are corporations — will be undeservingly hurt by those who unthinkingly hit the send button on comments that may not even be true.

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
‘Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media