First, nothing should be said about BCNI without thanking the Temple University Department of Journalism as the event’s main sponsor. Without , the conference would have been in my basement in Fishtown, and nobody wants that.

I’d also like to thank eMediaVitals for picking up the tab to try taping the sessions, Technically Philly for the labor and lunch help, SPJ for helping pick up the cost of supplies and WhoWhatNow for paying for breakfast.

Variety’s Chris Krewson once called BCNI a Philly Cheesesteak: messy but ultimately satisfying. And in that spirit this post will be kind of all over the place.

The Stats:

208: signups
118: actual attendees
225: bottles of water
24: cans of Sprite
48: cans of Cherry Coke
4: boxes of Herr’s chips
5: sponsors
24: sessions
16: boxes of Joe
7: left unopened

The Final Schedule:

10 am

• ‘But if we don’t change how will we make money?’ Brainstorming better business models than paywalls Pattie Reaves @pazzypunk
• The Insight Graph – CRM for Journalists. Drew Geraets – American Public Media
• Who What Now – Jim MacMillan’s

11 am

• Journalists, Salespeople, Clients, Users and me. The thrills and spills of running a newspaper website.
  Marc Steel – City Paper
• From $3MM to $60MM How Penton Media Developed its Online Ad Revenues
  Prescott Shibles @pshibles
• Rethinking Our Thinking: in order to do better in journalism. Greg Linch

Noon

• An Emerging Hybrid – The Hawaii online-only new startup
  Howard Weaver
• SEO + SMO for Journalists Susan Jacobson – Other presenters welcome
• Best Ways to Use YouTube Direct (roundtable discussion) Jack Lail
• Lead, Don’t Follow: News can move to the front, not behind Google Facebook and Twitter
  Mike Buchanan News & Information Taxonomies (an open discussion about identifying types of web sites)
• Twitter is Stupid… …and other Foundations of our Content Strategy
  NEastPhilly (a hyperlocal site)

2 pm

• Hyperlocal Roundtable @JuliaEveHays
• Democracy Journalism – Peer to peer politics of new funding models Conor White-Sullivan Localocracy
• Do what you do best and link to the rest Publish2
• Failure Is Not An Option, It is a necessity, lessons in screwing up Technically Philly
• Social Media / Social Money Jameel Farruk – Venmo
• Mobile Journalism – Publish to iPhone, iPad, Android on new platform Ken Kay – icihere.com

3 pm

• Show Your Work- How do we use the internet to create/rebuild trust and authority in the news?
• Using Social Media as a Reporting Tool @JuliaEveHays and @EmilyKostic
• Design Roundtable “News Sites Still Suck” – Major Highfield
• The Evolution of Journalism Education – Temple University as a case study. Andrew Mendelson
• Leveraging the Community with WordPress M U on Mason.com and George Mason University
  @AramZS

Links:

• Jack Lail: Where journalism gets reinvented
• Lauren Rabaino: BCNI Notes: Design Roundtable “News Sites Still Suck”
• Lauren Rabaino: BCNI Notes: Howard Weaver on an emerging news biz model
• Lauren Rabaino: Notes from BCNI: Greg Linch on “Rethinking our Thinking”
• Lauren Rabaino: BCNI notes from “The Insight Graph: CRM for Journalists”
• Ryan Sholin: Philadelphia and the pace of innovation
• Greg Linch: Rethinking our thinking
• Daniel Bachhuber: BCNI Philly: APM’s Public Insight Network
• Daniel Bachhuber: BCNI Philly: Peer News, emerging news hybrid in Hawaii
• C.W. Anderson: Why Philly matters: The intersection of bankruptcies, Pulitzers, networks, foundations, and geeky “edglings”
• Faye Anderson: Venmo the Money

Some Tweets we liked:

Etc.

• Videos taken will be available soon.
• Other than Philadelphia, I’m pretty sure Sacramento was the most-represented city
• Other than Temple, Rowan University had the most attendees.

And probably, the coolest part, is that there is a BCNIBoston in the works.

Coming in at the 11th hour, the Society of Professional Journalists has announced that they will be lending support to BarCamp on Saturday.

We thank SPJ for its help this year (and last)!

The Annenburg Building at Temple University has three floors where presentations will be given. However, our big schedule board will only be in the building’s atrium. To solve this problem, Carl Leiby has kindly allowed BCNI Philadelphia (again) to use his awesome scheduling application.

The application, which formats the schedule to be read on iPhones and mobile devices, was originally used during BarCamp Philadelphia. That means there will be no need to run up and down steps to check and see what presentation you would like to attend next.

The schedule won’t be live until Saturday, so bookmark http://s.bcniphilly.com on your phone.

We asked our friends at the GPTMC: Where can BCNI attendees get some grub?

Surprisingly they pointed out a whole bunch of newly opened restaurants that even locals like us weren’t aware of. Happy dining!

New Offerings From Celebrated Chefs:

• On the heels of opening MidAtlantic Restaurant & Tap Room last fall, chef Daniel Stern has set up shop in Two Liberty Place with R2L, an Art Deco-inspired restaurant and lounge featuring his unique take on creative American cuisine (rabbit nachos with jalapeno mousse, chicken daube with braised winter vegetables) and an extensive wine and cocktail list. 50 S. 16^th Street, 37^th floor, (215) 564-5337, r2lrestaurant.com

• Italian maestro Marc Vetri of Vetri and Osteria fame has gone back to his Washington Square roots and opened Amîs, an authentic Roman trattoria specializing in rustic small-plates like lamb sausage and fried artichokes, a small but focused wine list and a rock ’n’ roll soundtrack. 412 S. 13^th Street, (215) 732-2647, amisphilly.com

• Celebrity chef Michael Schulson, who built his name at Stephen Starr’s Pod, his own Atlantic City spot Izakaya and TLC’s Ultimate Cake-Off, brings small-plate Asian cuisine to Midtown Village with Sampan. The sleek open kitchen dishes up satays, noodle dishes, dumplings and sushi, spanning the Pacific Rim and beyond. 124 S. 13^th Street, (215) 732-3501, sampanphilly.com
  
• Vegetarians are rejoicing with the arrival of Thoreau, the Loft District’s new meatless grill from Mike Jackson, the chef and owner of the highly regarded Blue Sage in Bucks County. Eclectic global fare like blue corn asparagus tacos and tamarind peanut noodles are prepared with flourishes from the chef’s vegetable and herb garden out back. 1033 Spring Garden Street, (215) 232-9001, thoreaurestaurant.com

New Restaurants, New Restaurateurs:

• The wines are low-priced at Zavino’s marble-topped bar in Midtown Village, and the eats cooked up by chef-partner Steve Gonzalez—pizza with toppings like béchamel, local mozzarella and Kennett Square mushrooms and antipasti (cured meats, artisan cheeses and seasonal specials)—are sophisticated yet similarly affordable. 112 S. 13^th Street, (215) 732-2400, zavino.com
  
• New American cuisine goes underground at terra, the intimate, low-lit 40-seater below Tavern on Camac where chef Eric Paraskevas turns out such whimsical dishes as pork and cheddar spring rolls and the “blithering idiot braised lamb shank” with turnip puree and Brussels sprout escabeche. 243 S. Camac Street, (215) 545-1102, terrapa.com

As a quick scan of our attendees list will show, BCNI draws a diverse crowd. Newspapers, startups and universities have all signed up to come.

For your logo-viewing pleasure, here are just some companies scheduled to attend:

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re pleased to announce that WhoWhatNow has agree to sponsor BCNI’s breakfast!

The project, by University of Missouri professor and Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Jim MacMillan, aims to be a wire service for citizen journalism. MacMillan says he wants to take crowd-sourced news to the next level and find a way to reward independent journalists.  For more details visit WhoWhatNow.com.

We thank Jim for his support, but BCNI is still looking for a few more sponsors to sponsor Lunch and our after party. For details check our sponsorship page or email Sean Blanda.

At a typical conference, the only way you’re able to present is to cross your fingers and hope some special committe gives you a call. At BarCamp NewsInnovation, however, getting on the schedule is as easy as filling out an index card and posting on the schedule grid (above).

BarCamp follows the “unconference” model where the attendees fill the schedule board with their own presentations. Besides, the best way to get everything you can out of BCNI is to present!

What should I present?

The only requirement is that your presentation has something to do with news. Some ideas:

• Present the latest project you, your team or your company is working on. For example, last year the Washington Post showed off how they got Sprint to sponsor their real-time news aggregator.
• Have a round table discussion on a topic you’d like to know more about. For example the CoPress crew presented on “How do you reinvent j-school for 2020?”
• Propose an idea. What would you like to change in the industry? Do you have a new monetization strategy? Share it!
• Share a lesson you have learned over the past year. For example Philly.com shared how they “swarmed” the Obama-Clinton Pennsylvania primary.
• Still stuck? Check out our uservoice forum or the list of last year’s presentations.
• When doubt just make sure it is something we haven’t heard before. BCNI is about moving the conversation forward.

The technical stuff

• You have an hour. Take as much of that up as you’d like.
• All rooms are college classrooms, and most have computers.
• Each room has a podium, a Microsoft Windows machine and Microsoft Office.
• Each room has a projector.
• You can bring your own laptop and hook it up to the projector, though we suggest you just stick your presentation on a USB drive and back it up on a Google Doc instead.

Hope that helps and see you there!

Where to stay for BCNI. Click to see the entire Google Map.

Several people have asked where is the best place to stay for BCNI.

It is probably best to stay in Center City Philadelphia and take the Broad Street Line to the event. Click the picture to the right to see our quick illustration of the area you want your hotel to be in. The closer your hotel is to the Broad Street Subway line (shown in orange) the easier your travels will be.

If you are having trouble finding a hotel, the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation has a handy hotel search that allows you to search by price and location (remember: you’ll probably want Center City hotels).

While last year’s afterparty had us all treking to old city, this year BCNI aims to make your post-BarCamp life easier.

BCNI 2010’s afterparty will take place immediately after the event at Temple’s very own Draught Horse, a nine minute walk from the event.

The afterparty will undoubtedly be amazing, but we’re looking for a sponsor to chip in to make the event extra special (read: open bar). For under $1000, Draught Horse is willing to provide at least two hours of free drafts and well drinks to all attendees.

If you are interested in sponsoring the afterparty (or BCNI) contact organizer Sean Blanda.

As of now the day will follow the following schedule:

9:00 a.m.: Doors open / breakfast
9:45 a.m.: Opening remarks, explanation
10:00 a.m.: First sessions
11:00 a.m.: Second sessions
12:00 p.m.: Lunch session
1:00 p.m.: Third session
2:00 p.m.: Fourth session
3:00 p.m.: Fifth session
5:00 p.m.: After Party