“We have believed – I have been taught — that there are two scarcities in society: talent and attention. There are only so many people with talent and we give their talent only so much attention — not enough of either.

“But we are shifting, too, from a culture of scarcity to one of abundance. That is the essence of the Google worldview: managing abundance. So let’s assume that instead of a scarcity there is an abundance of talent and a limitless will to create but it has been tamped down by an educational system that insists on sameness; starved by a mass economic system that rewarded only a few giants; and discouraged by a critical system that anointed a closed, small creative class. Now talent of many descriptions and levels can express itself and grow. We want to create and we want to be generous with our creations. And we will get the attention we deserve. That means that crap will be ignored. It just depends on your definition of crap.”

This is so, so true…   One of the things that I find most encouraging about this era of media evolution is that every day I encounter a wider variety of unexpected jewels. Many of them are rough, or nascent. But they’re there, and I can find them if I look for them.

Even more importantly, I get to discover what resonates with me — and with other individuals. I don’t have to just settle for the kind of content I’m “supposed” to like (i.e., serious objective journalism, crisp professional audio, slickly produced video). I can focus on what I really like — and what has meaning to me. By getting to define my own criteria for “quality content,” I get to challenge my assumptions and expand my concept of who I am, and who I could be. My world is much richer for it.

This is exactly why I’ve always enjoyed going to see local music performances practically at random, while abhorring commercial radio for music discovery.

Picking up on my post yesterday, Univ. of Florida journalism professor Mindy McAdams challenged me (and her other readers) to translate my quick list of what j-schools should be teaching into a something more testable and measurable that could be translated into a curriculum.

Here’s my first shot at that:

• Content management systems (including blogging tools): First, I’d have the students run a group blog on a topic of their choosing for a year to get comfortable with the content and commenting apects of blogging. (A group blog is likely to get more activity and discussion than individual blogs.) This blog should be based on an expandable, customizable tool like Wordpress. Then the students should be taught the basics of information architecture, and from that figure out how to expand or customize their blogs to deliver or integrate new kinds of content or services. This could be as simple as finding and installing Wordpress plugins to add features, or integrating content from other places (such as Flickr or del.icio.us). The goal would be to get them to not just understand, but demonstrate that on their own they can envision, research, evaluate, and act upon options to do more with their content online. There’s a lot you can do without getting too geeky. They need to gain the confidence that many options are within their personal grasp — they don’t always need to get permission or beg someone else to do things for them.

There’s a lot more on my list, of course…

• Mobile tools and mobile media strategies. These students all have cell phones anyway. Require them to subscribe to mobile news and information services, and critique the quality of the service and user experience. Also, require them to create whatever kind of content their phones support (photos, video, audio, GPS data, even just SMS to Twitter, etc.) and post or stream it from their cell phones. Include participatory exercises based on SMS or MMS to include students who don’t have data plans on their phones. Free services like NowPublic, Flickr, Qik and CNN’s iReport could be especially helpful and even fun for your exercises.

• Social media. The point here is to help students learn a key tool for engaging communities, while also gaining experience with how influence works and information travels through social media. I suggest starting with whatever social media services most of the students are already using (like Facebook, MySpace, Ning, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Twitter) and explore both the one-to-one and group interaction options through exercises. For groups, it’s probably better to get them involved with existing, active groups on these services — rather than try to start a new group from scratch. Where possible, use both web-based and mobile options for these services. They should learn to use these tools for community outreach, story/issue research, and promotion of their work.

• Economics and business theory/models. Journalism students should be taking courses in the media business that offer the fundamentals of historical, current, and emerging media business models. They should learn what budgets and balance sheets look like, how grant funding and investment works, and how to evaluate the economic environment they’re operating in — including how it’s changing. Get them used to seeing the big picture and looking ahead. Practical skills could include analyzing the economic environment of the local community, spotting emerging trends that could offer journalistic or other media opportunities, and writing a basic business plan to capitalize on those opportunities.

• Business skills. This could involve evaluating and estimating revenue options from grants to investors to advertising to subscriptions to partnerships and more, as well as knowing what steps to take to pursue that funding. Example exercise: Develop a strategy and action plan for increasing online revenues for the campus or local daily paper — including calculation of expenses and revenues, and a timeline for implementation. In addition, they should be aware of what it takes to start and run a business — requirements for taxes, healthcare, getting SMS shortcodes, working with advertisers, etc. No part of the business that supports their journalism should be alien to them.

• Management skills. I’m envisioning this both from an entrepreneurial and organizational perspective. In all exercises, put the students in a decisionmaking role and guide them through learning how to manage time, resources, and people — whether employees, collaborators, or community members. For instance, if a class project is increasing online revenues for the campus paper, divide that mission into sub-tasks, assign someone to manage each part of that project, and require them to make decisions and delegate. Teach them how to use tools like Basecamp to coordinate team efforts. In fact, it might be a good idea to coordinate projects with other j-schools around the country or world, since increasingly in the media business project teams are widely distributed. The point is to encourage them to take charge of the process, not just to pigeonhole themselves as content creators.

• Marketing, advertising, and SEO. In addition to taking a marketing basics class oriented toward media products and services, j-students should learn the basics of search engine optimization — since findability generally translates into traffic, engagement, and revenue for most media ventures. Exercises can include learning to use Wordtracker to optimize headlines, stories, and metadata to increase both traffic and relevance; using Google Analytics to analyze traffic patterns to a news/info site (such as for the campus paper) and suggest strategies to boost traffic and engagement; developing and running Adwords campaigns (with a modest budget) to promote a class project; researching niche ad networks that might help support various types of coverage or beats, etc.

• Community engagement and management. This is perhaps one of the most marketable skills any journalist can have for the next several years or decades. The point is to get them used to creating news as part of a conversation, rather than simply as a one-way product for publication. It’s about promoting constructive public discourse through active engagement. Exercises could include participating in an active community forum; working as a volunteer moderator for an active forum where contentious topics arise; taking and active role in editing and discussing a Wikipedia page of interest; helping to coordinate (not just cover) local events like town hall meetings, conferences, or festivals; participating in or running local meetup groups, etc. These experiences tech how to handle conflict, foster consensus and diversity, produce events, and demonstrate respect and understanding for communities in order to build credibility. In this respect, working through local government, advocacy groups, social service agencies, neighborhood associations, and ethnic or religious groups could be as valuable (maybe more valuable) than working through journalistic or media organizations.

…I realize that my list sounds like a hell of a lot of stuff, but I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface in terms of what today’s journalists really need in order to take advantage of current opportunities, spot emerging opportunities, and take charge of their own destinies (rather than relying on a paternalistic news org to shelter them while they write, write, write).

I realize also that there may be resistance in journalism schools to much of what I propose, for reasons ranging from “we’re not a vocational school,” to IT staff resisting implementing the kinds of tools I’ve mentioned, to the need to integrate curricula more closely with business schools, to the tenured faculty who must teach at least some of these topics not knowing or caring much about them.

I’m not saying this would be easy. But I do think what I’ve outlined, in addition to teaching core journalism skills and values, is what today’s j-students really need to prepare for the kinds of careers they are most likely to have — and the kinds of media they can play a key role in inventing or developing.

Thoughts?

(And thanks, Mindy, for making me think this through more.)

Here are a few highlights that appeared on this editable site as of the posting of this Tidbit (although I can’t guarantee any of this will still appear exactly as described, or at all, when you go there):

• Definition of newspaper: “(obsolete) Defunct media form, no longer supported.” Also on that page, don’t miss the instructions “to add content to a historical newspaper.”
• 5 Return from La Brea Tar Pits: Breaking news story with hyperlocal focus.
• The sports schedule has a World of Warcraft category.
• Crime blotter for 5285 Pine Street (Madeline, Amanda, and Carolyn’s House): “Sunday March 23rd, 3:04 pm: Complainant reports dirty guacamole bowl loitering in sink since Suspect A’s Saturday night get-together.”
• Obituaries, DIY-style.
• International News: US Gives Rationale for War With Iran

Want to join the “staff” of the Los Wikiless Timespedia? just sign up as a Bunkwiki contributor and post/edit to your heart’s content!

(I cross-posted this piece from Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits. Thanks to David Thomas for the tip via Twitter.)

For the last few days at Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits, I’ve been blogging examples of innovative ways that online media is being used to cover the Southern CA wildfires. It’s been astonishing. There have been cool efforts from mainstream news orgs like SignOn San Diego and the Los Angeles Times and even FOX News.

But also, regular people and even some government officials have been using blogs, forums, mapping tools, social media sites, citizen journalism sites like NowPublic, media-sharing services like Flickr, and even Twitter to share news, information, updates, and assistance.

Personally, I think this is shaping up to be a watershed moment for online news. This time, it all seems to be coming together in a new way.

In particular, the collaborative tone of this content that strikes me as significant: map mashups, databases, forums, photo groups, social media, Twitter updates… You can really get a direct sense of how people fit into this story, what they’re doing, and what they want or need. It’s personal, diverse, detailed, and comprehensive.

This is a whole different concept of “news.” It’s becoming a verb, something you DO — not just a noun (a thing that you passively receive)….

In this case, I would go so far as to say that what average people are doing right now, especially with online and mobile media options, is as important (if not more important) than the coverage offered by mainstream journalism.

I’m not saying this shift doesn’t present significant questions regarding credibility, accuracy, ethics, information overload, relevance, etc. Yeah, there are problems. There always are with any major change. I’m not dismissing them.

Time will tell if this really is a watershed media moment. But if so, that would fit in with the history of news: Major public crises have always been magnets for media experimentation and innovation.

…Anyway, here’s my latest Tidbits post on this theme. Check out its sidebar for links to related coverage on Poynter.org, including Tidbits posts from the last few days.

Oh, and in my latest post I’ve asked Tidbits readers to help brainstorm about ways to implement live, accurate, hyperlocal maps and updates that would be useful to people on a streer-by-street level. If you have ideals about that, please comment over on Tidbits.

Thanks. And those of you in Southern CA, stay safe.

As I mentioned earlier, on Oct. 1, I helped moderate an excellent panel discussion at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism in Los Angeles called It’s a Conversation, Stupid! Blogs, Wikis, Social Networking, UGC meet Journalism. This was part of an intriguing seminar at the Knight Digital Media Center called Journalism in a 24/7 World: Decision-making for the Online Editor, and my panel was offered in partnership with the Online News Association.

The video for this session is now online! You can watch the whole thing here. (Scroll down to the bottom of that page.)

Michelle Nicolosi of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and I are co-chairing a panel at 5pm Pacific. It’s called “It’s a Conversation, Stupid: Blogs, Wikis, Social Networking, UGC meet Journalism.”

UGC…. UGH!!!!! I loathe the term “user generated content.” It smacks of mechanism, hierarchy, and just plain condescension.Unfortunately it’s common among mainstream-media types, and you can bet I’ll have something to say about that! Like: Why don’t we just call it “contributed content?”

…Ahem… Anyway, this is part of an intriguing seminar at the Knight New Digital Media Center. (because “new media” ain’t new anymore) called Journalism in a 24/7 World: Decision-making for the Online Editor. Tonight’s event is offered in partnership with the Online News Association. If you go to this page at 5pm Pacific, you’ll find a live link to the webcast.

You also can submit questions during the event via this form. I’ll ask them on your behalf during the event as time permits. No softballs, folks!

Here’s the official blurb for the event:

“What happens when the audience becomes content producer on the nation’s top news web sites? Do you ‘moderate’ or let ‘er rip? How do journalism values and standards survive a User Generated Content world? Hear how USAToday.com and USA Today executive editor Kinsey Wilson, Yahoo! News editor in chief Neil Budde and CNN.com vice president and senior producer Mitch Gelman are opening their web sites to their audiences as never before. Get a chance to weigh in from your cell phone and laptop as Newsvine CEO Mike Davidson paints the future of collaborative journalism. Moderators will be Michelle Nicolosi, assistant managing editor for interactive at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Amy Gahran, conversational media consultant and editor of Poynter Institute’s E-Media Tidbits.”

Hope to see some Contentious readers there. Please say hi!

Internet Archive At one time, Zipingo apparently offered a fair amount of content. (Click image to enlarge) Now it’s gone.

This morning, I learned via the Ajax blog that yet another site that relied on content contributed by its user community has shut down. On Aug. 23, Zipingo, a small business review site launched in 2002 by Intuit, shuttered its site. All that remains is this announcement — none of the other site content remains accessible.

But looking on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, I saw that, at least as of Mar. 1, 2007, Zipingo offered a fair amount of content: 122,324 total ratings (I’m not sure if “ratings” were actual reviews or something else on this site), 734 of which came in during the prior week. Unfortunately, you can’t look up actual ratings/reviews via the Internet Archive.

So all that content that people took the time to create and contribute has simply vanished, apparently. Seems awfully disrespectful to Zipingo’s user community, such as it was. This is yet another reason why sites like Furl, which allow you to save your own searchable archive of web pages, can be crucial — things get moved, changed, or deleted all the time online, without notice. Even your own stuff. That can suck.

Seems to me that any site that relies on contributed content should have a content exit strategy, whereby if the site tanks people can still access their content. Or at least, contributors will be notified before the site vanishes so they have an opportunity to save a copy of their contributions if they so desire. Just taking people’s content and trashing it is likely to discourage anyone from contributing to a community site.

Also, this experience seems like one more reason why a good “Me Collector” tool or service is needed.