Wikipedia
“There is no such thing as information overload, only filter failure.”
Digitize your life: use digital tools + services to manage your day without drowning in e-mails, status updates, blogposts, etc.
Digitize your journalism: use technology to improve productivity + make journalism more meaningful to audience
Your Digital Life:
- Organize e-mail
– “Inbox Zero” — look at each e-mail message only once
– Spend two minutes or less per e-mail
– If you can’t reply in less than two minutes, file it for later
– Goal — zero e-mails in inbox after e-mail session
- Find right personal productivity tools:
– Develop a strategy
* What you need to manage + the right tools to manage it = personal productivity
* Variables to consider when using tools:
1. How much are you willing to pay? — many solutions are free
2. Do you need to integrate with other systems or with a mobile device?
3. Do you need an offline solution?
*Investigate possible solutions:
1. Office suites: Google, Office Live, Zoho
2. Specialized solutions: Instapaper, Remember The Milk, Oh don’t forget, Evernote, Jott, Dropbox, Backpack, Basecamp, Socrata, MindMeister
3. Latest tips and info: www.lifehacker.com, www.43folders.com, mashable.com/category/productivity-lists
– Bring order to your contacts:
* Use digital, not paper-based, information storage systems
* News organization can build reader database from e-mail addresses from readers/by advertising and inviting readers to join
* Reader networks used effectively in many situations, especially when sources or feedback are needed
– Bring order to your work:
* Project management programs allow you to assign tasks, share files, establish deadlines and include notes (Basecamp, Zoho)
* Can be used to track all kinds of projects
* Take courses/read books on project management
Data-Driven Journalism:
* Using databases, spreadsheets and other forms of structured or fielded data in news coverage or story development
* Almost any assignment can be broken down into datapoints + organized for customized manipulation
* Most daily newspapers have event calendar databases; visitors can access most recent information at any time; event planners can add events directly into database
- Why is data-driven journalism important?
– News organizations are making their Web sites data destinations, providing information to audiences in a searchable database format while streamlining their own operation and cutting down on data entry
- Every story is a field of data — can break any story into separate fields for analysis and entry into a spreadsheet or database online
- Telling stories with data:
– Use data to create “alternate story form” for print edition
– Break down information into common parts — subject, location, date, action — build information resource that grows as you gather more
– Databases can help solve problem of slowly developing stories
– Helping reporters do their jobs:
* Computer algorithms sort through databased information much more quickly than human investigative reporter
* Reporter can use database to discover potential story leads that might never have been found
* Often leads to great stories
– Sharing data:
* Application Program Interface (API): allows anyone to tap into data and build tools and Web pages; connection of data and technology between two different Web sites
* Closed systems + absolute control over content don’t work in digital information ecosystem
* U.S. government created Web site at USASpending.gov that allows journalists to mix and mash all that data with other information sources according to their own specific focus
Building Spreadsheets, Databases:
- Creating a spreadsheet easy
– Often easier to use a spreadsheet as first step to creating database
– Sometimes a spreadsheet is all you need
– When setting up a spreadsheet, include as many fields as possible
– Fielded data is key to sorting efficiently + being able to group items
– Use Excel or Google Docs to create spreadsheets
Moving from spreadsheet to relational database:
- Turn”flat” list into relational database
- “Relational” — one type of information relates to another
- Database allows you to view each record as its own page
- Software solutions can help build database once information is in spreadsheet (Microsoft Access for Windows + FileMaker for Mac; free online solutions Socrata, Zoho or Grubba)
Map Mashups merge data from different sources:
* Product of taking physical location data (addresses, points on a map) and organizing them based on a category/information type
* People have created map mashups with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft maps for everything from pub crawls to tracking buses in Bangalore
- Map mashups tell stories, too:
– Heavy on manual labor
– Homicides: example of ongoing stories that benefit from use of data visualization + power of capturing information + sorting it into right buckets
– If structure for data done correctly, computer software makes it easy to update + produce
- Applications in breaking news:
– Databases and maps can be used for breaking news stories
Build An Interactive Map With Data:
* Build own map mashup with actual code or third-party service
* Free online services will build map for you (MapBuilder.net, ZeeMaps, MapAlist.com, UMapper, and Google’s My Maps)
- Think beyond single-use maps:
– News organizations discovering power of building entire data ecosystems from geographically based journalism, data and user-submitted content
– Some local newspapers have projects that display several types of news and information based on geography
– Instead of a single-use map mashup, Web audience can see data feeds + recent news stories based on location
– The best allow audience to contribute information to share with the neighborhoods — a one-stop shopping for news and information tailored to your geography
- Location-aware devices changing the game:
– Displaying information, or interacting with audience, based on geography is powerful new frontier for many local news organizations
– Can reach growing portion of audience that carries GPS-enabled mobile phone depending on where they happen to be
– Location changes everything: inputs + outputs
– Locative technology demands different presentation (non-linear) because it’s a different experience for the user
Better Life, Better Journalism:
- “Data literacy more important now”
- “Beat reporters should know how to obtain, analyze and write about data on their beats”
- Get the most out of data — store electronically then convert, organize, update and enhance
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