Category Archives: ecosystemics

Bloggers of the world unite! But differently.

tn_pickupbasketball.jpg Ad-hoc teams, producer coops quickest way to better freelancers’ lot

I’m still catching up from being out of town last week which makes this my first chance to react to a discussion on TechCrunch about efforts to unionize bloggers. The discussion was provoked by articles such as an (click here) Associated Press account that suggested there is a labor glut in the blogosphere:

“About 11 percent of American Internet users have created Web pages or blogs for others while eight percent have created their own online journals or Weblogs . . . with pages focused on everything from bird watching to celebrity footwear, more than 120,000 blogs are created every day and more than 58,000 new posts are made each hour . . .”

The post drew many dismissive comments but German-born, Los Angeles-based freelancer  Janko Roettgers observed in his riposte that a union for work-from-home scribes could begin with subtle but effective moves:

“One example: I’m a member of the German Verdi union that offers freelancers a simple online forum to anonymously post their wages, which proves to be a great tool for negotiations. “

The German example is interesting and I wish the U.S. organizers every success.

That being said, I think the shortest path to increasing one’s labor power is to team up with other people who can add value to your work or vice versa. Put your energy into cooperation rather than confrontation and I suspect more of the output of time and labor will redound to your benefit. (I have written one, two, three postings on how a producer’s coop or guild would enable independent operators to combine their efforts to better their circumstances.)

Thanks to Greg Sterling for pointing me to the TechCrunch post and the ensuing discussion. He keeps a blog on the search engine space at Screenwork.com.

 If you didn’t stop to scan it earlier, the AP article is quite good. Here is another chance to click through to it.

3rd BlogHer conference has community-building tips

tn_community_panel.jpg Amy Gahran says all-female panels like this are rare at tech/media conferences

Poynter Institute commentator Amy Gahran has been posting from Chicago where the BlogHer community of women-centric web publishers has been holding its third annual conference — which is also the group’s third anniversary.

Gahran’s summary of conference happenings included this nugget about how to encourage “lurkers,” who visit sites but do not contribue content, to join the conversation:

“In any online community, only a small fraction (1-9 percent of members) will ever post at all, even just a comment. The first time anyone new speaks up, acknowledge them, respond to them, and treat them well. Lurkers watch these interactions closely. They want to see how you treat new voices before they decide to start talking.”

On the topic of community building let me throw in a link to one of my prior posts, Community Building Tips From Slashdot, one of the premier user-generated sites for tech news. My posting is an extract from Slashdot editor Robin Miller’s Online Journalism Review article titled, “Five rules for building a successful online community.”

Given that Slashdot is presumably de facto if de a guy thing, it would be interesting to correlate Miller’s tips with Gahran’s observations to note the similarities and dissimilarities. And I wonder: do Slashdotters get together like the BlogHerinos? And if so, what do the conferees do to unwind, i.e., Slashdot, drum circle, BlogHer, pedicure?

Before any further attempts at levity irritate half the blogging planet, let me congratulate co-founders Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort and Jory Des Jardins for coming so far, so fast in bringing BlogHer from idea to startup to community.

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Postscript: Apropos of Gahran’s observation about the lurker-to-contributor ratio, this briefing from the Center for Media Research passes on some recent findings about user-generated content. The numbers seem awfully high given the 1-9 percent rate that Gahran mentions and which I’ve seen elsewhere. I assume the discrepancy is one of definition. The Center’s estimate seems to include the raw number of those who upload photos and/or videos to photo-sharing and video-sharing sites. And I wonder if those are discrete individuals or whether one person posting to Flickr and YouTube gets counted twice.

OJR article offers financial hope for hyperlocal

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Print and online editor Tom Grubisich (pictured above) offers an encouraging yet level-headed look at the economics of hyperlocal journalism in a July 19 article in Online Journalism Review.

In his “back-of-the-envelope” analysis a five-person startup, drawing slim paychecks supplemented by stock options, could compensate contributors and still eke out a thin profit on an advertising base as low as $425,000 a year.

Grubisich cites market research data suggesting that’s not too much to expect of a hyperlocal site in an affluent area, such the Northern California communities  of Palo Alto, San Mateo and Sunnyvale that were part of the now-defunct Backfence venture.

The key, he worte,  is to create destinations that “connect with their communities and produce content that users find generally interesting, sometimes significant and occasionally indispensable,” going on to say that:

“To succeed, grassroots sites need above all experienced and passionate editors collaborating with experienced and passionate citizens . . .  Working with them, editors can help pinpoint the sometimes elusive themes that shape a community’s identity. Experienced citizens know why one neighborhood school is succeeding and another is failing or why one church or synagogue in particular has a thriving congregation, but mentoring editors can help them to be better  communicators.  . . . I propose that regular citizen contributors – working, say, 40 or 50 hours a month – be paid a $1,000 monthly stipend. That comes to $20 to $25 an hour – not a lot, but not an insulting amount, either. If you’re a retiree, a stay-at-home mom (or dad) or somebody looking to close a household budget gap . . .”

Again the article is here, and if you go there do look down at the comment of Steve Crozier who offers his Dallas hyperlocal site, Lakewood-Now, as an up-and-running version of the sort of hyperlocal site that Grubisich merely postulates.

Does Amateur Hour Now Run 24×7?

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Back in the 1930s when radio was the hot new medium a show called Amateur Hour created a venue for people to parade their talents — an American Idol without the faces, so to speak.

Today the amateur has moved from entertainment to just about any field imaginable. Consider citizen journalism which author and journalism school dean Nicholas Lemann regards with disdain in a August 2006 New Yorker article. (I once likened citizen journalism to school yard basketball, which is fun to play and watch; just don’t expect a fat contract or endorsements). The image above, for instance, is taken from the cover of a CD sold by amateur musician Mark Stepakoff.

Because I’m a professional media guy (as in I get paid to write) I tend to focus on the amateurs on my turf. But I recently learned of an Oregon State University group dedicated to helping amateur programmers. It is called End Users Shaping Effective Software or EUSES and its mission statement says:

“the number of end-user programmers in the United States is expected to reach 55 million by 2005, as compared to only 2.75 million professional programmers. The(se) ‘programming’ systems . . . include spreadsheet systems, web authoring tools, and graphical languages for demonstrating the desired behavior of educational simulations.”

One recent tidbit to emerge from EUSES is a spreadsheet debugging tool. Here’s a link to the GoalDebug tool and to a press release about it.

That is not my particular interest. But once this outfit crossed my radar screen it occurred to me that EUSES might be the type of group to help programming-challenged writers like me figure out the technical stuff needed to turn social media into a business or at least a hobby that earns some income.

I once did a post called “Calling All Programmers” that suggests what rank amateur ‘programmers’ like me might need. Now it occurs to me to ask EUSES for an assist. So I will.

By the way I have observed one behavioral trait shared by amateurs who, like me, perform in public — in my case as a wannabe social media entrepreneur. They tend to have no shame.

The real Guy talks tools, trash, numbers

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Guy Kawasaki, one of high-tech industry earliest and most gifted hypesters, recently wrote a blog post spelling out how he launched a web site called Truemors for a little over $12,000. I think it competes with Michael Arrington’s rumor-mongering Tech Crunch.

 

But I don’t care about the rumors. It’s how Kawasaki did it. And, yes, he’s bragging but this post is packed with information about how to launch a web business on the cheap, and with attitude that reveals who Truemors so quickly gained visibility. Writes Kawasaki: “to my amazement, there were 14,052 visitors on the first day” because, after two decades of tooting his and others’ horns — and some leaks by Arrington — there were 14,052 people curious to see what Kawasaki was doing. To bloggers who say that it’s unfair he should have more visitors on his first day than a schlub like me gets in a month, Kawasaki says:

 

“I did spend 24 years of schmoozing and ‘paying it forward’ to get to the point where I could spend $0 to launch a company.”

Delicious! I’ve got to thank my pal, Berkeley software project manager Tim Bishop, for telling me this is a must-read post. Here’s another link to Kawasaki’s how-to.

 

Also on the tools front, Tom (SiliconValleyWatcher) Foremski reviews the beta of Movable Type 4.0 and says:

 

“It has social/community features built into the platform. Users can rate posts and each other; they can be given special publishing rights, they can be given permission to write posts without moderation, they can even publish their own blogs on the blog.”

Finally when it comes to getting attention, my sister Tina (Parental Wisdom) Nocera continues to teach her smarty-pants brother a thing or two. She recently pointded me to a widget on the website of the Advanced Marketing Institute that offers instant analysis of any headline up to 20 words. I had some fun with it and you may find it useful. But after 20 or 30 years of writing stories and headlines, it’s hard for me to rely on an artificial intelligence. Kind of like asking John Henry if he wouldn’t rather use a steam-drill.




					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				What is ecosystemics & why care?
			

								


				

			
tn_garden.jpg


Making up new words is the privilege of those who invent new things or live in interesting times. Northern California where I live — this is a picture of my front yard — is one of the headquarters  for the (painful) reinvention of media. Skills that once were separate — such as reporting, writing, picture-taking and editing — are being fused together by technology and deprofessionalized at an astonishing rate — or at least so it seems to people like myself who are currently on the inside of corporate media.  Mass media are shedding jobs the way a drought-stressed plant drops leaves.


 


Media is my livelihood. Gardening is my passion. I have combined the two in a mental framework that helps me understand how the new media may evolve so as to pick up some of the functions mass media are surrendering — covering neighborhoods and niches, for instance. Ecosystems is just a word to suggest that we search for lessons in nature about how to organize living things in ways that are loose and eclectic yet functional.


 


None of this is original except perhaps the word and the notion of applying a natural metaphor to media organization. I am inspired by folks like businessman and author Paul Hawken whose Natural Capital Institue builds on the appropriate technology and humanized economics associated with Amory Lovins and Barry Commoner. From a more net-centric direction ecosystemics takes its cue from folks like Howard Rheingold and David Weinberger.


 


What lessons are to be gleaned from thinking about new media by analogy to gardening? Well, I  have no global view at this point although I have written around the edges of this topic. (Here is a link to my ecosystemics archive; if anyone knows how to make WordPress  fix this explanatory blog entry at the top of the archive please point me to the how-to info.)


 


My lack of experience in organizing new media communities also demands a certain humility in any observations I might offer in this regard. I did moderate discussion groups back in the early days of SFGate.com  but that experience is archaic given the progression of social media. I’m only reminded of it now because I ran into John Coate  yesterday in San Francisco who, among other credits, co-founded the Gate.


 


But whatever use this metaphor may be it disguises the human cost of the media makeover. Several colleagues have already lost jobs in a slow-motion downsizing that could yet devour me. Yesterday, while I was off tending my garden, long-time friends and co-workers were let go. I’m too sad and apprehensive to do much other than note the fact. But Tom (SiliconValleyWatcher) Foremski accompanied me to one of the goodbye parties last night and wrote this posting that has some minor inaccuracies (yesterday was not the start of the layoffs; a handful occurred last week) but nevertheless captures the aerial view of the current mess:




“At no other time in our lives will we be witness to such massive, disruptive changes in the media industry. And as media professionals, at no other time in our lives will we be part of such historic, disruptive changes.”


That’s all well and good, and in keeping with an ecosystemic view of media. But today I feel more like one of the plants than the gardener and it makes me wonder when I prune and thin for the greater good whether the discards weep?

					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				Health care for U.S. freelancer writers?
			

								


				

			
For a couple of years now I’ve tracked MediaBistro, a networking and job-seeking site for writers. New Yorker Laurel Touby started it about a decade ago as a gossip and drinks gathering for writers in Manhattan. She took it online in the late 1990s and got some venture cash along the way to roll it out nationwide.


 


MediaBistro evolved into a site that tracked the comings and goings of magazine editors, offered listings for full-time writing jobs and freelance commissions and — true to its roots — held drink-and-gossip gatherings in major metropolitan areas. I’ve attended a couple in San Francisco with a certain self-loathing that stems from the realization that I, too, am one of that whining, pitiful breed called writers who, when not badmouthing one another, bemoan the fact that the world seems to have so little regard for their talents.


 


Anyhow, since I’m currently on staff as an ill-tempered reporter for a middling metropolitan daily, freelance networking has not been terribly important (though that could change).  And I only find the parties tolerable after the second Martini (and drinks are like $10 a pop in; last time I showed up broke and nursed a glass of water on a cocktail napkin until shame drove me away).


 


But this morning I got note from Laurel Touby offering freelancer writers in the United States a chance to  join a group health care plan. I’m sure there are all sorts of clauses and caveats that must be studied. For one thing the prerequisite is paying a $49 annual membership fee.  So if anyone familiar with the offering has critiques please comment. For instance, does the plan screen out pre-existing conditions? Is a physical required for admission?


 


Even without being aware of those details, however, I thank Touby and MediaBistro for giving freelancers this option. It is so damned difficult for people who are not  payroll employees to get group health coverage. The National Writer’s Union recently started offering some sort of health plan for freelancers. I think they used to offer a health plan and then stopped for some reason and have now resumed. But I was pleased to discover there may this second option for freelancers at a time when insurers seem to be dropping group plans that aggregate individuals.


 


Anyone with suggestions of other group plans for media freelancers please comment. There is no more important common issue for the self-employed than group health.


 


Anyhow, being so excited myself about this development, I sniffed around this morning to see what others were saying about MediaBistro and its founding maven, Laurel Touby. I found not praise but rather a snarky and continuous stream of criticism emanating from Nick Denton’s Gawker and aimed at Touby and MediaBistro. Seriously. It looks like Gawker has created a Touby-bashing beat. Some of the jibes are funny (such as when 200 folks applied for a job as Touby’s assistant). And Gawker speculates that MediaBistro is for sale (what isn’t?).


 


But for the most part the Gawker stuff reads like the undisguised envy one would expect of people who work in Manhattan. I do not say “New York” because I believe people in the outer boroughs are not nearly so spiteful — with the possible exception of Park Slopers who not only think and act like Manhattanites but carry the cross of not being able to afford to live there.


 


I only mention this because of the decisions I’ve made in a life full of foolish choices (i.e.) I have never regretted leaving New York, the city which author Robert Wright once described as the world capitol of ambition — or words to that effect, as I couldn’t find the citation when I went to look for it this morning though the phrase has long been lodged in my head.