What to do for Monday, Nov. 4

I thought that was a fascinating discussion with Terry Williams on Monday. Between Terry and Meg you should have a very good sense of where the industry is at right now and where it might be going. You might even have a sense of the role you would like to play as you move into the profession. I found both presentations very positive. I’m kind of jealous of you guys just getting started on your careers. Don’t forget too that Meg and Terry are excellent contacts who will go to great lengths to help you out. Don’t hesitate to ask them. I’d still like to talk more about this idea of paid content, which nobody else seems to care much about. I think it’s something that needs to be sorted out since it will obviously face anyone who is publishing online. For Monday, please read this column about paid comment from Forbes magazine. An ad will pop up, so you have to click on “continue to site” in the upper right to get to the column. You could us it for a blog posting and we’ll discuss it in class.

Meanwhile, the saga of the PowerPoint presentations goes on. OK, so we have eight of 11 projects on Dropbox. I think Emily and Katie may be missing, along with someone else. If we can get these all up there, and you can all post your reactions/suggestions/whatever to them, as we were going to do for last Monday, then we’ll be in great shape and ready to move on. So let’s get this taken care of for Monday — all presentations will be in dropbox ASAP; everyone will have posted comments on their blogs on each of the 10 presentations (you don’t have to comment on your own, obviously) again, ASAP; each of you will read ball the comments posted to date about your project; once you have read everything there is to read about your project pitch (some might still be missing, or you need to get going on the last part of this assignment before seeing them all), you will post on your blogs your reaction to what you have seen; finally, you will revise and polish your pitch and bring the revision to class on a thumb drive, ready to make a pitch presentation accompanied by the Powerpoint in class Monday. I know this has been kind of a fiasco due to technical challenges, but let’s see if we can get these pitches behind us and move on.

Our Monday guest had canceled on us, so we’ll focus on the project pitches in class.

I will make this simple, since it's getting late in the week. For Monday, please read in Entrepreneurial Journalism Chapters 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7. Also, I know it's been frustrating, but try and get me copies of your Powerpoint pitches. Check out as many of them as you can. On your blogs, post comments, suggestions, reactions, thoughts, etc. about each of the pitches you see there. Currently there are four pitches up there. Hopefully everyone will be up there soon. You should have received at least one email from Blogger inviting you to join the folder. Here is the link in case you need it.

Our guest next week is Terry Willliams, President and Chief Operating Officer of the Keene Publishing Corp. and a great and generous friend of the UNH Journalism Program. Here is his bio:

Williams came to The Keene Sentinel in April this year with responsibilities for the company’s strategic planning; advertising, online and circulation sales; website and digital media; and new product development.

Prior to joining the Sentinel, Williams was, for nearly 19 years, president and publisher of the Nashua Telegraph based in Hudson. He also held roles as assistant metro editor and managing editor at The Telegraph, where his career stretched nearly 25 years. He also oversaw McLean Communications Inc., owners of New Hampshire Magazine, New Hampshire Home, Parenting New Hampshire and New Hampshire Business Review.

His newspaper work prior to 1988 included time as a reporter and city editor at The Sun of Lowell, MA, and as a reporter at Foster’s Daily Democrat in Dover.

Williams is a past president of the New England Newspaper and Press Association; past president of the former New England Associated Press News Editors Association; a member of the Publisher’s Advisory Board for Stars & Stripes newspaper in Washington, DC; and incoming vice president for the New England First Amendment Coalition.

Williams, who grew up in Springfield, VT, is a 1980 graduate of the University of New Hampshire in Durham with a bachelor’s degree in environmental conservation.

He lives in Amherst, NH, with his wife Julie, a teacher and tutor. They have two grown children, Christopher of Portland, ME, and Heather of Windsor, CT.

Powerpoint pitches for next week

In the reading you did for Monday and in class we talked about "The Pitch." Guy Kawasaki, the author of those handouts, suggests it takes 25 practice pitches to get it down. It was suggested in class that too much practice might lead to a wooden performance, like the first guy on "Shark Tank." Good point. Obviously, you are not going to practice 25 times. But a few wouldn't hurt. "All of these pitches don't have to be to your intended audiences," he writes. "Your co-founders, employees, relatives, friends, and even your dog are fine auditors." And your classmates are too. I'm not a big Powerpointer, but it can be a powerful tool in certain circumstances and remains ubiquitous in the business world.

So, using the suggestions the Kawasaki handout, combined with the thought you have given to the new company you want to start, prepare a 10- or 15-slide slide Powerpoint pitch presentation with voiceover that you can post to your blogs (we have guests for the next three weeks, so we'll have no time to view these in class.) You can pretend that you would be sending these to potential investors. The presentations should be three to five minutes long and can be as wild and creative as you'd like. If you prefer you can do your pitch in a video, or combine video and stills. Title your presentation with a clever three- or four-word mantra. These should be posted by Monday, Oct. 21, at noon at the latest. Otherwise, there are no particular guidelines -- it's your show.

If you don't have the Kawasaki handouts, there are still a few on my office door. See the handouts for more information on mantras if you weren't in class Monday.

(Powerpoint is one of the products in the Microsoft Office software suite. It is available pretty much everywhere if you don't already have it on your own computer. It is very easy to use, and there are plenty of tutorials online. Here is a tutorial on how to do voiceover or narration. Here is another one on embedding the show in your blog posting.)

Our guest next week

Our guest next week will be Meg Heckman. She plans to talk about her recent trip to Chicago to attend the Local Independent Online News Publishers Association summit. She is riding the crest of the wave into the new world of digital reporting and publishing. Meg will join the UNH Journalism Program faculty as a lecturer in January. Here is her bio:

I’m a post-platform journalist with more than a decade of experience covering communities both big and small. I attended the University of New Hampshire and completed fellowships with the Poynter Institute and the New York Times Foundation. I'm currently a graduate student at Northeastern University where I'm researching women's roles in emerging digital news organizations. My recent work has been published by Poynter.org, Editor & Publisher, NetNewsCheck.com, the Columbia Journalism Review and the Center for Digital Ethics & Policy at Loyola University. 

Meg asks that you read this piece that she wrote recently for NetNewsCheck.com before Monday's class.

What to do for next week, Oct. 7

I have never met anyone like John Herman. I trust you enjoyed his visit as much as I did. He is an excellent resource and contact for all of you.

Next week we will start talking about basic business arithmetic. It's not as sexy as Monday's topic, for sure, but it's necessary for anyone who wants to start a business or even to understand how a business works. Every journalist should know this stuff, if only so he or she can report knowledgeably on the business world.

Our guest will be Joe Burke, the fool guy who bought my magazine a few years ago. We were delighted to sell Points East to Joe and his wife, Joanne (who teaches nutrition at UNH), because we knew that with 30 years in the high-tech industry he would run it as a disciplined business rather than a seat-of-the-pants hobby/excuse to spend lots of time on boats. The added bonus is that Joe and Joanne are super-nice people. Bio: Joe worked in operations and marketing capacities for several high tech companies for 30 years before finding his true calling as the publisher of Points East. B.A and M.A. from Boston College, M.B.A. from Babson.

To prepare you for Joe's visit, I have assembled a reading and study list for you. This is the simplest, kindest explanation of business accounting principles I could find. Please go through each one carefully and stick with it until you understand the concepts. If you don't, it will be very hard to follow Joe's presentation. This all comes from the Web site "Understanding accounting."
Feel free to read all the sections on this site, but again be sure to read and understand the following sections. We'll do a very quick quiz on some of the key concepts and terminology on Monday.

Glossary
Balance Sheets
Revenue and Expense
Bases of Accounting
Receivables and Payables
Fixed assets and depreciation
Statement Preparation
Goodwill

And don't forget your blog postings. The frustrations and challenges of understanding business accounting may provide some inspiration. You could also write about your reactions to John's visit.

Meet our Monday guest

Our class guest Monday is John Herman. You may have met him during one of his visits to UNH. John is a very interesting character, to say the least. He does many things and he does them all well. "Artist, teacher, writer, web adventurer," he calls himself on his website. Oh, and actor. And director. And producer. And very good friend of the UNH Journalism Program.

But one of his most remarkable qualities has been his ability to brand himself through intensive use of social media. As an entrepreneur, that is exactly what you need to do and what you need to be thinking of all the time -- every time you tweet, every time you post on Facebook, every blog you create. It is a constant process that requires constant attention, and that's what John is going to help us with.

I'm looking forward to it. I know you will enjoy it.

What to do for next week, Class #5, Sept. 30

Next week is class #5. That puts us one-third of the way through the course. Yesterday we discussed -- or attempted to discuss -- ideas for the new ventures you will be creating this semester. Clearly some of you have thought a lot about this and are energized. Others appear not to have found a focus yet. We need to all get on the same page before any more time goes by. This is idea week. Through your reading and blogging, we will firm up your idea. Please remember that your idea/project/product must have some connection to journalism.

For next week, before doing anything, read chapters 9-12 in Newsonomics (you should already have read Chapter 11, actually) and Chapter 8 in Entrepreneurial Journalism.

You should also have already read Chapter 5 of the Briggs book. Review it if you need to. In it, Briggs says, "...the idea alone is never enough. Ideas become sustainable only when they are transformed into a product or business -- and that's a constant process of development, marketing and improvement." So let's begin that process. Here's what to do:

1. State your project idea as concisely and precisely as possible. Keep it very focused. A sentence or two should do. Post this to your blog.

2. Socialize your idea. Run it by three people who are not hotshot business people -- just regular people who might someday become your customers. Friends, strangers, parents, uncles, aunts, neighbors -- doesn't matter as long as they will give you honest answers. Take notes on their responses so that you can quote them exactly later on. You could also record their responses or even videotape them. Add these responses in any creative way to your blog. Identify the three people by name, age, gender, and profession. For those of you who know multimedia, it might be fun to do it in a video or slide show that you can upload to your blog.

3. Copy and paste the following Q & A to your blog and answer the questions as thoroughly as you can:

Question: I have read your idea and I would like to understand a little more about it. What need does this idea fill? Is this a need that you have yourself? Who would share this need?

Answer: 

Q: At this point you should have some idea of who the average user of your product will be. What is the profile of that person?

A:

Q: Who wants this product that you intend to develop?

A:

Q: What problem or need are you satisfying for your customers? (Remember, the customers aren't necessarily the people who will be using your product. For example, television audiences aren't customers unless they pay for the product, as in HBO. The customers are advertisers.)

A:

Q: Who wants this product?

A: 

Q: We all have to live. Where is the money in this product?

A:

Q: You are a journalist. Where is the journalism in this product?

A:

Q: We've read that passion is key to success of a new venture. Money alone will not sustain it. So where is the passion in your product?

This should all be done by class time next week so that we can look at them on the big screen.