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Once upon a time, each medium published news in their own little world. 

Instead, stories should begin on social media platforms then move to mobile and web, and print should be an opportunity to go more indepth with stories, analyze and summarize. 

When will the media begin to take social media seriously as a unique platform for publishing news?

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Can't bring the speaker to you? Get them on Skype, then have your students live Tweet the presentation. The homework assignment is then to "write" a story using Storify. In this pic, guest speaker @ZackShapiro talks to my Contempory Media class at San Francisco State University during the fall 2010 semester.

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Okay, I'm not really famous on MySpace. But don't you just love the t-shirt?

There are way too many people running around the internet claiming to be experts. But it's time for me to admit I'm one of them. For reals. I have more than 10 years experience working with a variety of organizations to help shape their online presence. Just look at my resume.

Yes, I'm an expert. I've been on the internet since 1996. I don't have all the answers, however, I'm always happy to share what I've learned with others. This year, I'm talking less about how to use social media and more about how to set goals, measure and report your success.

My first workshop will be with the 2012 John S. Knight Fellows at Stanford on Nov. 2.

Please share your favorite tools and techniques with me in the comments. 

Slides from my presentation:

Social Media for Journalists

Resources from my presentation

Welcome to the revolution (Video)

Insightfy - Online survey tool 

65% of online adults use social networking sites -Social Media Study (Aug 2011) from Pew Internet & American Life Project

The Social Technographics Ladder (Forrester Research) 

My SXSW 2012 Panel - Audience Centric Media: Wants and needs in news 

The Storm (Video) 

Microsoft Productivity Vision (2011) (Video) 

Some of my favorite tools

Timely.is 

TweetReach 

Topsy - Twitter search tool

Crowdbooster 

Klout 

Trunk.ly 

Google Reader 

Bitly 

Helioid 

A list of even more social media monitoring tools

Contact info

About me 

@girljournalist on Twitter

LinkedIn

Girljournalist Facebook page

Stanford Engineering on social media

http://www.twitter.com/stanfordeng

http://www.facebook.com/stanford.engineering

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stanfordeng/

http://www.youtube.com/user/stanfordeng

A real social media story - Camilla SDO

Camilla SDO on about.com

Camilla's Facebook page

Camilla on Twitter

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Juan De Anda Periodita/Flickr

The old saying is true, a picture is worth a thousand words. Some editors may even say a picture is worth a thousand clicks, but a gallery is worth millions. I may not be a big a fan of audio/photo slideshows, but I do love photo galleries. I've seen the stats, and our audience also LOVES photo galleries. Images are an important part of digital content - from websites and tablets to mobile phones and even the Kinect!

Today's journalism grads need to be familiar with the basics of photojournalism, as well as photo-sharing communities, licensing and various tools for embedding images and creating photo galleries. As mobile phone cameras continue to improve, students must learn to master the smaller form, understand the strengths and learn how to overcome the weaknesses of mobile phones.

I caution against teaching specific hardware, software and tools. However, most digital lessons require using hardware, software and various tools to complete a task. Technology changes so quickly; I believe it's best to teach students concepts and critical thinking. As long as you can incorporate larger lessons, teaching students to work with the latest and greatest technology is not a bad thing.

New Year's 2009 in Okinawa, Japan. My photo was featured on the Flickr blog. photo: Girljournalist/Flickr

Flickr may not be the newest online community, but in my opinion, it's still one of the best photo sharing communities on the web. I LOVE Flickr, and I've been a member of the Flickr community since 2005. I've utilized Flickr at several organizations where I've worked as a web producer. And have continued to leverage it in the classroom.

I've been working to incorporate more mobile phone and social media lessons into the curriculum for my digital news gathering class at SF State. I started with a list of learning outcomes and worked backwards to develop the following activities and homework assignments.

Learning outcomes: 

1. Students understand how to search Creative Commons for Flickr images. 
2. Students join a photo sharing community, create a personal profile, and learn how to share photos via personal profiles and groups.
3. Students understand and execute best practices for optimizing images and providing context via titles, descriptions and tags.
4. Students know how to embed photos from Flickr on a web page (edit the HTML code and properly credit the photo). 

Before class activities

It's a good idea to have students setup a Flickr account in advance of the in-class exercises. They need to think carefully about their Flickr username and their profile description. (After all, it's part of their personal brand!) As a homework assignment, I ask them to sign up for Flickr and upload a self portrait. I also require them to join the class group on Flickr and add their portrait to the group. (Instructions for adding photos to a group are available via Flickr's Help.) They can also review the Getting Your Stuff onto Flickr guide if they need additional help. If they have an iPhone they can install a FREE Flickr app. For Android users m.flickr.com/ is probably the best option. PicPlz is also an awesome app to let students experiment with on their phones. They can download the PicPlz app for iPhone or Android and upload pics to multiple sites including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr and Dropbox.

In-class activities

During class I spend about 10-15 minutes walking them through the basics of adding a title, description, tags, etc. to photos they've uploaded. I also give them a quick tour of Picnik, an online photo editing tool available through Flickr.

We usually spend about 10-15 minutes discussing how images are used online and looking at various examples. Then, I introduce them to Creative Commons and the concept of crowdsourcing for images. I let them explore the Creative Commons search by asking them to find photos related to a recent news story.

Homework assignment 

• Publish a "Top 10" story that includes 10 pictures from Creative Commons. 
• All images must be licensed for commercial use and each should include a caption, image credit and link back to the image's Flickr page. In the captions, please explain why the item is on the list.
• All images must be embedded in a blog post using the Flickr embed code.
• I like BIG images, so edit the HTML to make the width of all images 640 px (the max for our particular blog template).
• Also include a 250-word introduction to the list.

Example: The Top 10 Northern California Beaches

Mobile photography - an entirely different beast!

Last fall I asked photojournalism professor Scot Tucker to guest lecture on "best practices for mobile phone photos" in my digital news gathering and contemporary news media classes. Many of my students are not photojournalism majors, and even those who are needed to think differently about taking pics with their mobile phones. Scot is an amazing photographer, and he has many valuable tips to share with the students.

In the digital news gathering class, we decided to use Scot's lecture as an opportunity to let students practice taking photos with their phones. Scot gave them five tips for taking good photos and we told them they had five minutes to snap at least five pictures of Scot. Then, Scot showed various examples of mobile phone photos that he's taken, as well as some examples from other photojournalists. While he walked through the examples I "manned" the lab classroom's lights. I turned lights on/off in various combinations to provide different types of lighting. The two key lessons we wanted the students to practice were: 

1. Always shoot with the light BEHIND YOU (YOU, being the photographer.) This helps provide the best lighting for your subject. Not always an easy thing to do, but if you make it a habit to look for the light and stand in front of it, you'll get better pictures.

2. Hold still; wait for the pic. People tend to snap, snap, snap and we take thousands of photos, most of which stink. Especially with low light you have to plant yourself and hold still. Be patient and persistant, and you'll get the pic you want/need.

3. Upload photos from your phone directly to Flickr and add to the class Flickr group. (This works great if everyone has an iPhone or Droid with a decent data plan; otherwise, students have to bring their cables to class and connect their phone to the computer to download the pics.)

After the five minutes were up, students uploaded their photos to Flickr, picked what they thought was their best photo and added it to the class group on Flickr. Scot was then able to click through the photos in the group and give each of the students feedback on their photo. 

As part of their homework assignment, I asked the students to create a set for their five photos of Scot, complete with a title and description. I also gave them an assignment to cover an event and publish a photo gallery along with a 250-300 word story.

I hope this information has been helpful. Please share your tips, tools and/or techniques for teaching photography in the comments below. I'd also like to hear how you're incorporating mobile phone photography lessons in your journalism class curriculum. 

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(Update May 16, 2011: Download the Xpress Magazine for free from iTunes)

Innovation sometimes means just going for it. 

It also means pushing it to the limit, working 13-hour days, coming up with solutions for problems you can't believe exist, and cussing like a sailor. It's not easy living on the cutting edge, but I love it and I'm trying to convince my students to love it too.

Magazine Professor Don Menn watches as Multimedia Editor Aaron Williams and Professor Beth Renneisen setup a demo of the Xpress Magazine iPad issue at the SF State Journalism Department fundraiser in March.

This spring, I got it in my head that the SF State journalism department student-run Xpress Magazine needed to be on the iPad. It wasn't enough that we launched a new website, I wanted more, and I believe the students did too. They need to be excited about journalism, about digital media and about the future.

So, one day, I hit up my colleague Beth Renneisen, who teaches visual journalism and design in our journalism department. I said, "Beth, we should do an iPad magazine!"

Actually, our conversation began last fall when I was attempting to put together a Hacks/Hackers-like iPad magazine challenge. My original plan was to invite journalism students and professionals to spend 36 hours developing an iPad magazine. I envisioned a weekend that married Longshot Magazine (a magazine that's written, edited, designed and published in 48-hours) with a Hacks/Hackers event. I was scrambling to find professionals willing to join my crazy, sorta last minute cause. I talked to producers, designers and product managers from a variety of magazines and media companies. When I met with Chris Peters, Product Manager for Emerging Platforms at Car and Driver I asked him about publishing platforms. According to my research it would cost us a cool mil to publish a magazine on the iPad. But I refused to believe that we couldn't do this on our own. Chris told me about an Adobe InDesign plugin that was still in beta... He had me at "beta." I was all over that. 

I shared what I learned with Beth and sent her a link to the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite (which essentially includes a plugin for InDesign that allows you to easily incorporate interactivity - photo slideshows, audio, video,spinning 3D graphics, etc. - in an InDesign document.) Beth ran with it. And after about four months of nearly tearing her hair out, she's figured out all quirks and learned how to organize files in a way that makes publishing and packaging the magazine files a snap. What's great about the InDesign plugin is that you can easily take a product that you've laid out for print and turn it into an interactive magazine for the iPad without having to do any coding. None. Zero. Zip. Zlich. 

Just recently, Adobe released the professional version of the Publishing Suite and announced it's formal plan for pricing. Sadly, they have priced us (and probably most university journalism publications) out of their product.  However, I am now more convinced than ever that building an iPad-friendly site using good 'ole HTML is the way to go. We don't have the money to spend on a properitary publishing system, and quite frankly, I really don't see the need for it. Heck, we would probably be better off publishing the magazine for the Kindle and as an ePub doc available via iBooks and leave all the fun, interactive stuff for the website. We haven't had our post mort yet, but when we do, that's what I'll be recommending. Despite the fact that Beth spent an entire semester learning a tool we probably won't use again, she and I both know that we learned a whole lot more than just an application, we learned how to tackle a digital magazine publishing project.

Five main take aways from our experiment:

1. It's important to approach the tablet as a unique device. It has unique design AND content requirements. Shovelware sucks (learn from the mistakes of news websites circa 1997.).

2. Develop a workflow that involves editors, writers, photographers AND designers. Communication is key. Get everyone on board and thinking about interactivity from the get-go.

3. Navigation is the name of the game. Determining how to direct readers around a tablet publication requires thinking and planning. For example, scrolling pages need home and end buttons to allow readers to quickly jump up and down on a page.

4. Creating an interactive story is about so much more than just adding photo galleries, audio and/or video. Interactivity is not an add-on, it requires thinking different from the start. (See take-aways one and two.)

5. Building an app for BOTH horizontal and vertical viewing requires DOUBLE the work. Keep that in mind.

Our first foreray into tablet magazine publication isn't particularly cutting edge or innovative, but we made the leap, and we learned a lot. And if you ask me, it's far better to try and learn from your experience. At SF State we're not ignoring the current (or future) media landscape. Instead, we're taking on new challenges and welcoming new technology with open arms. Magazine Professor Don Menn played a big part in the sucess of this experiment. He was able to guide the magazine staff not only with their writing but also with their interactive components. Don even shot a little video on his Flip Cam for one of the stories!  I should also give big kudos to our student editors, Grace Dulce and Meghan Dibitsky. They put in long hours helping with production and wrangling media files from photographers, writers producers. Grace and Meghan graduate in just a few weeks, so if you're looking for a couple of digital savvy divas, better snap them up before it's too late.

In the video below, Xpress Magazine editors Grace Dulce and Meghan Dibitsky give a demo of the iPad issue (due out sometime this month (update: May 16: Download the magazine for free from iTunes). Let us know what you think! Also, both Beth and I are happy to answer any questions you might have about process, the Adobe Publishing Suite or our first issue. Hit me up on Twitter @girljournalist.

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My collegue, Justin Beck created a word cloud to visulize the online journalism students' answers to his poll about their media habits. Very cool.

I asked my class of digital news gathering students to define "news as a conversation." So, I thought it would be interesting to visualize their answers in a word cloud too. Easy to do with Wordle. Results in the image below:

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This semester was the first for San Francisco State University's journalism department to offer an advanced journalism class focused on mobile media. I had the privilege of developing our curriculum and teaching the class. I learned a few things this fall, about developing new courses, student priorities and the importance of of being forward-thinking.

If you want to know more about my classroom experience, hit me up in the comments. For now, here's my condensed list of tips for journalism profs and journalism schools looking to teach mobile media:

1. Our students (twenty-somethings) use their mobile phones everyday. In fact, I'm pretty sure most of them wouldn't survive without their mobile phone. However, that does not mean that journalism students know how to use their phone as a JOURNALIST. You have to teach them to put on their "journalism" cap when they're out to get a story. I learned that although they carry the equipment to report the news when they happen to stumble upon it many of them say they wouldn't pull out their phone and start reporting if they weren't officially "on duty." I think it's important to create a habit for them, to make it an instinct to reach for their phone when they see or hear something newsworthy.

2. Mobile media IS social media. Twitter and Facebook are the most popular right now, but there are all sorts of cool mobile apps (like photo sharing app Instagram) springing up that tap into the social aspects of mobile media. It's hard to keep up with all of the new apps popping up, but make to emphasize the need to stay on top of the latest tools, tech and innovation. I had my students subscribe to the RSS feeds (and/or Twitter accounts) for sites like Mashable, Engadget, CNET, CNN's Our Mobile Lives, Knight's News for Digital Journalists, and Nieman Journalism Lab.

3. Find ways to make them Tweet. I let, no, I required my students to Tweet "key points" when we had guest speakers. For one assignment, my students live Tweeted an event. You should also encourage them to participate in the weekly Wednesday night #wjchat. 

4. Don't waste a ton of time teaching them how to use apps, tell them you want them to produce a 45 second video and make them find the right tool to use. But do spend time looking at mobile video examples (both good and bad) and teach them the tips and tricks that will help them tell a better video story using their mobile phone. I think my proudest moment of the semester was today, when one of my students told me she got stuck working on her final assignment, instead of chasing me down, she solved the problem herself. There really isn't much more a teacher could ask for. As someone who's taught a lot of technical classes, I always feel like I've done something right when a student is able to solve her technical issues on her own, live to tell about it and is excited to share their accomplishment with me.

5. Ask students to evaluate tools and technology and blog about it. We had some reps from Google speak to our class about some of the latest and greatest Google tools. Students were asked to evaluate tools and blog about it. They wrote about Google Translate, Google Goggles and Google's Public Data Explorer. We also had Max Garrone, a former Senior News Producer for SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle visit the class and talk about geo-location and mapping. One of the students, Khaboshi, wrote about the amazing things you can do with maps.

6. Spend time looking at mobile news products - both apps and websites. Most of them are flat-out terrible experiences. Ask your students to pick a news org and evaluate their mobile experience. They'll tell you about the wonders of mobile and the potential for media. You may be surprised by what they like and don't like.

7. Forget about offering an entire class that focuses solely on mobile media unless you're going to concentrate on the technical side of things and students are actually going to create mobile websites or apps. And, if you're going to do that, you need to be sure to discuss mobile product development (from an audience needs and marketing point of view). Otherwise, my advice is to integrate mobile tools and techniques in all of your reporting and/or digital storytelling classes. I don't know about your program, but for us, the last thing we need to do is add yet another class to our already jam-packed curriculm. Are your students learning how to develop audio stories? Have them use their smartphone to record and edit the audio like SFSU student Jackie did with her "Tuned In" series. Teaching video storytelling? Let them use their smartphone to record and edit video like SFSU student Anthony did in his interview with CNET technology news blogger Sharon Vaknin.

I'm really looking forward to the spring semester. I hope to revamp some of my curriculum and begin to integrate mobile reporting (tools and techniques) into our digital skills and intro to online classes. I'll also be teaming up with other professionals for the Knight Digital Media Center's mobile symposium to be held at three locations (Los Angeles, Omaha, and Missoula). We'll be discussing mobile media with top editors and publishers of local newspapers as well as journalism educators. More info on that coming soon...

Have you lead a mobile journalism class? I'd love to hear your tips, tricks, favorite apps, etc. Please share what you've learned in the comments below and if you've got a syllabus you can share too that would be great!

But don't just read what I wrote, check out these tips from the my students:

• 5 tools/tips essential to the mobile journalist
• Mobile reporting now easier than ever
• 5 tips for mobile journalists
• 5 super simple ways to network and market yourself online
• 5 tips for mobile journalists
• 5 fundamental tips for every mobile journalist
• Tip #3: be wary of kids and the elderly. Tips for mobile journalists.
• 5 tips for using your mobile phone for reporting
• 5 tips for mobile journalism
• Five helpful tips for mobile reporting

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A little Googling and we discovered it was part of the second annual Sausalito Lighted Yacht Parade and Fireworks Spectacular. We had a great view of the show from our friend's balcony in Tiburon.

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The University Planning and Advisory council attempted to have a formal meeting with faculty to discuss the restructuring of SF State's colleges on Friday, Dec. 10, but not enough faculty showed up. More in the story by SFSU student and [X]press reporter Eric Green Quorum not established, no decision made in UPAC meeting. 

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This week I had the opportunity to meet with a group of Chinese journalists who were visiting San Francisco State University as part of a program with the Institute of International Education. The delegation came to the United States thanks to the Department of State's International Visitor Leadership Program arranged by Meridian International Center. 

The first thing I did, once we got through introductions, was whip out my OWLE. Needless to say, I think they were impressed. There were a lot of "ohhhhs" and "ahhhs" and everyone wanted to play with it. In the end, Mr. Zhang (pictured above) ended up commandeering the OWLE. I'm so glad he did! He took some great photos of the group. I've posted them in a set on Flickr.

I've never talked to such a large group before and had my ramblings translated. It was an interesting experience. I warned the translators that I talk fast, but they said it was no big deal. I was impressed that they managed to keep up with me, but they sure did.

The two interpreters Diana Li and Ruby Shu Lai managed to keep up with my ramblings as I shared my background and experience with the group.

I think the most fascinating thing I learned during our exchange was that the traditional Chinese media and the internet news sites are sort of at odds with each other. Sound familiar? The editors from the traditional Chinese newspapers seemed kinda pissed that the internet sites just "lift" their content and publish it on their portal sites. At one point, Mr. Zhang made some comment about how, sometimes, the internet sites pay for stories, but they're cheapskates and don't pay what the stories are worth. 

Chinese journalists appear to be facing many of the same challenges that journalists in the U.S. are facing: ethical issues, competition with "citizen journalists", problems with "free" content distribution. I told them the the web is still really the wild, wild west and we're all experimenting, trying to find the best way to create, distribute and mange digital content.

There I am in the middle, can't miss me, I'm the white woman wearing the "I <3 NY" t-shirt, posing for a picture with the Chinese journalists in the reading room at San Francisco State. More pics posted in a set on Flickr.

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I've been wanting to blog more regularly, but I was having trouble selecting a topic. Last week, I was inspired by my students at San Francisco State University. 

Today, I launched Big Macs and Merlot - a blog dedicated to finding the perfect drink to go with your favourite fast food.  I sent out a Tweet asking for suggestions, and I was pleasantly surprised by the cleverness. 

@laurenmichell: "Guide to Dying of Cardiovascular Disease Before You're 50"

@alvin: "McSloshy"

@megmccannmedia: "Fast Food and Firewater" or "Junk food and Dranks"

@missingwords: "Drive-Thru Drinks"

@toddrazor: "The Whoppertini" "The Big Gin" "The Tacoquila" and "Bacocheese Bourbon"

@jfhatesmustard: "Booze Clues"

@evicious: "Big Mac and Merlot"

In the end, I went with my gut (haha) and settled on Big Macs and Merlot. (Big thanks and a shoutout to @evicious, aka Eugenia, editor of the infamous MuniDiaries, for the ingenuity.)

I only hope the site will live up to it's awesome name.

I'm game for trying everything from the KFC Double Down and Cabernet Sauvignon to the Filet-O-Fish and Chardonnay. In the name of fine dining and science, of course. And I'll be coaxing my husband and friends to taste test along with me. It is my goal for Big Macs and Merlot to be the definitive resources for pairing (fast) food and wine.  

Be sure to follow @bigmacsmerlot on Twitter and/or subscribe to the RSS now so you don't miss a thing.

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My husband Jay is a private pilot and I'm his "spotter." I help look out for other planes, and birds. It's a pretty important job and I must say, I'm pretty damn good at it. "Southwest! Big Southwest plane! 10 o'clock." But once a journalist, always a journalist and although my job as spotter is a necessary one, I have other things on my mind. I can't help but ask questions, take photos and shoot video.

Is there such thing as a flying journalist?

Not everyone has a private pilot at their disposal, so why not take advantage of my time in the air and document our travels? So, I use our trips to hone my mobile reporting skills. 

Today, Jay is getting his instrument rating, which means he will be certified to fly through the clouds and the fog... which means we can really start exploring California, from the sky! (It also means my job as a spotter will be obsolete, but that's great, more time for me to work on documenting our flights!)

Last Saturday I flew with Jay and his instructor Lucy from Palo Alto to Oakland, around Livermore and back to Palo Alto. Of course, I was armed with enough gear (and backup gear) to cover a major news event. (See photo below.)  These days, I consider myself a mojo (mobile journalist). That means I usually carry around an iPhone, OWLE, Nexus One, zi8, headphones and a notebook (along with their power cords and sync cables). My video of the San Francisco skyline (shot with the NexusOne) was featured on ABC News' UReport.

I really enjoy seeing earth from the sky and of course, documenting all of it. It gives you a fresh perspective on the world. The photo gallery below highlights some of the pics from our flight. You can watch more videos from this flight and others on my YouTube channel "Flying."

See the full gallery on Posterous

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Newly admitted journalism students had an opportunity to meet faculty and fellow classmates during new student orientation on the SFSU campus Saturday, August 21. 

See the full gallery on Posterous

During my "stand up" at new student orientation I told students this is an exciting time to be studying journalism. It's also an exciting time to be teaching journalism.

Our industry is in a state of flux. Journalists and media organizations are challenging the very definition of news. They're looking for innovative ways to reach new audiences, developing new business models, experimenting with technology and testing new ways to distribute content across a variety of media. This is all really exciting, experimental stuff.

We all know that college is a time to experiment, but I hope our new journalism students won't just experiment with drugs and alcohol, but they will experiment with journalism. I believe it's our duty as faculty to encourage students to push the envelope, to innovative, to consider new ways to gather, produce and publish news and information... To break some rules.

As a journalism educator I see myself as a guide, here to help journalism students make their way through all the software and technology, but I'm also here to support them as they try new things. And I really hope they try new things. The future of journalism sorta depends on it.

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