RJI-Collaboratory-program

Putting Feet on the Streets for Journalism

January 21, 2009

8:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.

Fred W. Smith Forum

Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute

University of Missouri

Columbia, MO

[This is a general plan; details to come.] 8:30 a.m. -- 11 a.m.

  Overview of the day's goal: to develop the foundation for a news organization incubator
  Case studies: Successful Web-based news organizations (ad-supported, nonprofit, very large, medium, very small, geographic-based, topic-based, 
  founded and led by journalists, founded and led by non-journalists)
  Identify basic issues that entrepreneurial journalists and existing news organizations face as they create 
  Web-based news organizations or make the transition to becoming Webcentric news organizations.
  

11:00 - 11:45 a.m.

  Organize afternoon groups around these questions:

• What does a news organization incubator do exactly? We think an incubator can provide advertising strategies and techniques, technology services,

business planning, Web shell (information architecture/structure or organization of information) and design services, and ethics guidelines. But what else? And how does it provide its guidance and services?

• What roles can other colleges and departments of the University of Missouri play in a news organization incubator? Could computer science

students develop online services for entrepreneurial journalists? Could business school students work with entrepreneurial journalists to develop robust organizations?

• What could an incubator do in the first year? The second year? The third year?

• What does a news organization incubator need to get started?

• Does a news organization incubator derive funding from the organizations it nurtures? If so, how? If the news organization incubator is part of

the university, what is the incubator's intellectual property policy?

• How does the news organization incubator develop partnerships with other centers or journalism schools?

• How does the news organization incubator develop partnerships with organizations that might be interested in funding start-ups?

11:45 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.

   Lunch (box lunch provided)

1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

   Working groups meet.

3:00 p.m. - 3:20 p.m.

   Break

3:20 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

   Working groups report; entire group assembles basic foundation of news organization incubator

5:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

   Next steps, wrap-up.

HOW TO ATTEND

We hope you are able to join us. To have a productive conversation, we're limiting the in-person attendance to 60 people. Please let us know as soon as possible if you can attend. Send an email to jstevens@mmjourno.com, or call 707-495-1112.
For those of you who are out of town and can't make the trek to Columbia, but still want to tune in, send an email to jstevens@mmjourno.com, and we'll set up a way for you to tap into the conference through Adobe Connect. We're limited to 100 people on Adobe Connect. You don't need any special software to connect; you'll just open a url.

Jane Ellen Stevens, Fellow, 2008-2009
http://www.rejurno.com
Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute
University of Missouri
Associate faculty
Knight Digital Media Center, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
jstevens@mmjourno.com
MOBILE: 707-495-1112

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Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute
Missouri School of Journalism
Columbia MO 65211
573-882-2922