RJI-Collaboratory-program

RJI Talkfest: "Putting Feet on the Streets for Journalism" -- The RJI Collaboratory

Wed., Jan. 21, 2009
8:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.
Fred W. Smith Forum
Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute
University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65211

RJI COLLABORATORY TALKFEST AGENDA

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21 2009
8:30 A.M. - 5:30 P.M.

WHAT WE’RE DOING: We’re creating a news organization incubator-- the RJI Collaboratory -- to serve Web-based entrepreneurial journalists, whether they’re independent or within existing journalism or non-journalism organizations.

[Definition of an entrepreneur: a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.]

OUR TASK: What does the RJI Collaboratory do for its community? How does the RJI Collaboratory provide services and products for its community?

THE COMMUNITY: Entrepreneurial journalists, no matter where they are, if they’re in a position to take advantage of what the RJI Collaboratory has to offer. Other groups: communities without journalists, students, organizations that want to hire entrepreneurial journalists.

Arrival: 8:30 a.m. - 9 a.m.

The Morning: 9 a.m. - 11:45 p.m.

9:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. Introduction -- Why are we doing this?

9:30 a.m. - 10:15 a.m. Who’s doing entrepreneurial journalism successfully?

BREAK 10:15 - 10:30 a.m.

10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. The group provides answers to this question: What can we do on the Web that we couldn’t do before in other media? We’ll focus on these four areas: Community-building. Advertising and marketing. News and information. Mobile.

11:30 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. We set up the afternoon breakout groups, introduce the graduate students and their roles, explain how the groups work, and organize participants into groups.

LUNCH 11:45 a.m. - 1 p.m. BOX LUNCHES PROVIDED

The Afternoon:

There will be four break-out groups, with approximately 15 people each.

Each group will be repeated four times.

Participants will rotate through all four groups.

Graduate students will facilitate the groups, type up notes, and present the notes to entire group.

1:00 p.m. - 1:40 p.m. 1:45 p.m. - 2:25 p.m. 2:30 p.m. - 3:10 p.m. 3:15 p.m. - 3:55 p.m.

1. Building and Integrating Community. What does it mean to make the community a news organization’s visual and functional engine? What does it look like? How does it work? How does a jurno report differently? What does the structure of the network look like? How does it function? What does the RJI Collaboratory need to provide to support jurnos to accomplish this aspect of setting up a Web-based entrepreneurial journalism network? What’s the absolute minimum required? How does it become more complex?

2. Web-based News Entrepreneurship 101 -- What must an entrepreneurial journalist need to know to start a Web-based news organization? What does an entrepreneurial journalist need to know about business regulations? How can an entrepreneurial journalist determine if her idea can work? What does the RJI Collaboratory do for these entities?

3. Advertising and Marketing -- How can an entrepreneurial journalist determine if her Web-based news organization can be supported by ads? Are there different approaches for different types of organizations, i.e. geographic v. topic-based? What’s the absolute minimum required? What’s the simplest way to accomplish that minimum? How does an advertising approach grow and change? How can a jurno use search-engine optimization? What can the RJI Collaboratory provide in this arena, and how? What ethical questions will a journalist face? How can the RJI Collaboratory assist?

4. Mobile -- How does mobile fit into social/news/information networks? What does an entrepreneurial journalist need to know to distribute content (news, information, ads, social networking) to a mobile platform? What’s the absolute minimum required? What’s the simplest way to accomplish that minimum? How does an entrepreneurial journalist grow mobile? What does the RJI Collaboratory do for these entities?

The Wrap-up:

4:15 p.m. - 4:45 p.m. Graduate students present summaries from the break-out groups.

4:45 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. Group discusses the challenge: What can we do now? Can we set goals and milestones? What do we want to happen?

We will put a start-up local health site on the RJI Collaboratory Network so that people can participate in its development. We will ask for other volunteers to do the same.

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