BarCamp NewsInnovation Philadelphia

Thanks for coming!

Sean Blanda — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 04:05:29 +0000

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

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.

SPJ to sponsor BCNI

Sean Blanda — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:17:04 +0000

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)!

Coming Saturday: BCNI’s very own scheduling application.

Sean Blanda — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 11:30:32 +0000

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.

Lucky you, Philly has a few new restaurants opening

Sean Blanda — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:36:14 +0000

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

Who’s coming (in logos!)

Sean Blanda — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 19:38:09 +0000

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:

WhoWhatNow our latest sponsor, join them!

Sean Blanda — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 19:57:12 +0000

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.

Your guide to presenting at BCNI Philly

Sean Blanda — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:42:08 +0000

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 should I stay?

Sean Blanda — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:00:23 +0000

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).

Want to sponsor the BCNI afterparty at the Draught Horse?

Sean Blanda — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:06:53 +0000

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.

The rough schedule

Sean Blanda — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:45:57 +0000

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