Learn to love the data
Numbers aren’t sexy, they are sometimes difficult, sometimes wrong (if they get inputted incorrectly) but they are to be treated with respect – and well worth having a conversation with.
Your readers/viewers might not want to see a data table full of figures – so you can use tools like Many Eyes Wikified to visualise them….
Highlight of the day at News:Rewired (at least as far as I’m concerned) was the data mashing session with the OU’s Tony Hirst and Francis Irving from My Society.
I’ve been looking at how to mash data, picking up ideas which have led me to start looking at Access, JSON, Python and Django (depending on what day of the week it is and the latest thing to fly across my social networks).
One of the great things was how the worked as a pair – Tony on how to do in-browser mashing using datasets (like Guardian datasets), get them into a Google Docs spreadsheet in a machine-readable format and then use Yahoo Pipes to clean, create your own bespoke search tools and then export the results to other tools such as Google Maps.
Sounds scary – well the language of IT can sound like that. But pleasantly for most people (after the initial shock of being an a room with two knowledgable people, and Tony introducing himself as a lecturer in telematics) this is something doable by people with a brain rather than hard core tech skills.
Lots of similarity to some of the visualisations created by CAR, but this was open and networked tools rather than closed in Excel/Access stuff. Okay, that means that other people can see your raw data and could potentially get the story – but as Tony pointed out over a beer, it will improve your network by attracting experts. A good return on investment as it builds your reputation – not all editors may understand that important lesson though.
Not every journalist is going to want to do this, but we don’t all do the same things at the moment anyway. But again, as people found with journalism and technology-related skills, if you are getting it then you could be ahead of the game.
If you are interested, look at the presentation posted by Tony.
Check out the buzz from News:Rewired
If you are interested in the raw material from News:rewired, then have a look at journalism.co.uk’s News:Rewired buzz page
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Elearning and journalism – tackling the same issues
I’ve mentioned this before briefly, but what continues to amaze me is how much my two spheres of interest are essentially colliding. Not only are the same issues being talked about in both journalism and elearning on a regular basis – how should we change the conversation, ‘push or pull’ and on-demand content – but the same tools and concepts keep cropping up too.
Both Amy Gahran and Mindy McAdams have been looking at what a journalism school needs to do to help its students equip themselves for the 21st century.
Note to e-learning types from other fields, these two bloggers are well worth reading as part of your wider blog trawls – good stuff on teaching and technological support tools here.
Cool new toy
I’ve been signing up for loads of web 2.0 apps and services again, will list them later. I’m going to log what I’ve got and then look at what I’m using on a montly basis.
But one fun one I’ve been testing is qik (prounced quick as you’d expect in a web 2.0-styley, it’s a site and app that lets you stream live video from a smartphone – I’m playing with the N95 at the moment.
Had a fun one tonight, been trying to get a couple of friends to comment on it because (drum roll please) you can see their comments on the phone while it is streaming.
I’m afraid I’ve deleted the first couple as I look like a complete bufoon – need some in front of camera training to get this right (very painfully self-concious so ideas about using this kind of thing for broadcast might take some work).
As you’ve guessed I’m egrommet there – but as of 21.50 on March 5 there’s nothing there. Stay tuned for an embarrassed looking Gromm yacking total nonsense at you.