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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#newsrw train thoughts #1
In an industry looking for answers, it was great to go to News:Rewired a day of listening to and talking with people from completely oppossing views on how things should happen in the media.
That may sound like a contradiction – but it isn’t. There can’t be a one size fits all solution to the changes in the media world (whether that be mainstream, hyperlocal or personal news environments).
On one hand we had a classic us vs them, journalists vs (dirty term of at least one session) citizen journalism. On the other the idea of journalism=(0r at least should/must=)entrepreneurism compare to a pair of entrepreneurial journalists who operate in some very old school media ways while being innovative at the same way (that will be the SoGlos team).
There was legal advice that equalled “this ain’t the Wild West and the law still applies” and some excellent advice on how to get into datamashing.
What was a pleasure was being in the same place as people who care, are thinking and sharing. (and a personal pleasure to see members of my network whom I know and get a chance to chat to and others I’ve never met face to face).
I’ll be blogging and link sharing to other people’s blogs as I wend my way from London back to Cardiff.
And then I travel 200 odd miles to meet a hyperlocal journalist who is operating in my home city too – Llandaff News. Small world etc.
Nuff said (at least for a short while).
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- news:rewired Crowdsourcing (onemanandhisblog.com)
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Better make it look good if you want people to pay…
Paywalls: shall we try to make them more attractive than the Berlin Wall? ยป malcolm coles
Malcolm has done a nice little look at the experiments going on in Johnston Press and what that means for the customer – importantly from the value for money point of view.
He says:
Sadly, a quick glance at paywalls shows that publishers – and Johnston Press in particular – need to massively improve the way they promote the benefits of subscribing …
Well worth a read
test post since rss
Still getting an rss error, I wondered if the upgrade to the latest version may have altered it.
See what happens now
Communities vs network of practice
- Image by Harold Jarche via Flickr
Been reading a lot about Communities of Practice recently and thinking I’m not quite looking at the right thing – particularly as Wenger and Lave are talking about communities within the same organisation. But one thing that has struck me in what I have been reading is this quote:
It is life itself that is the main learning event. Schools, classrooms, and training sessions still have a role to play in this vision, but they have to be in the service of the learning that happens in the world.
Some of the most useful things I’ve picked up in my life haven’t been in the classroom, but from outside it. – from teachers, colleagues and former colleagues, friends and passing acquaintances. This kind of informal learning is vital to what we do. Read more