Multimedia Maverick @kennedymedia - Tumblr Blog

Posts

"In social media posts, our journalists must not express partisan opinions, promote political views, endorse candidates, make offensive comments or do anything else that undercuts The Times’s journalistic reputation."

Interesting to see how the Times is working to maintain its credibility, recognizing that is crucial to rebut the false narrative of being a source of "fake news." Smart.

"I’m afraid that more and more people in news organizations use 360 for stories that are not interesting. Bad content will keep people away from watching it."

Still lots of room to define the medium's content with new visual grammar rules.

The future is shaped by today’s decisions. Failure to make decisions ends leadership. Forward-facing decisions always impact behaviors. If behaviors don’t change, everything stays the s…

Love this post from Dan Rockwell. His questions are so relevant to our times.

"I think that [Trump] challenged our language. He will have changed journalism, he really will have...We didn't know how to write the paragraph that said, 'This is just false.' We struggle with that. I think that Trump has ended that struggle."

Reading this interview, I’m thinking of my former colleague Nancy Gauss who now has a key role in shaping the video report at The New York Times. Dean Bacquet is watching and considering it a key to ongoing change there. That’s important.

(via Tippy-Toe Leaders and Other Dysfunctional Problem-Solvers) Thought-provoking post from Dan Rockwell re ways leaders can thwart effective problem-solving. I particularly like the ten questions he raises as a framework for confronting problems

#problem-solving questions leadershipstyles leaders

A new Reuters Institute report reaffirms familiar trendlines in digital publishing: "People are using mobile more and more, but we are not yet getting the revenue out of it that we would like to get."

Lots of questions still about where the revenue is going to come from to sustain quality news reporting in an increasingly digital world.

onaissues

The internet and the social Web enable journalists to do powerful work, while at the same time helping to make the business of publishing journalism an uneconomic venture.

Emily Bell, Director at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School.

Read more: Facebook is eating the world - Columbia Journalism Review

(via onaissues)

"A graphic may tell you a compelling story, but it can also invite you to expand the shoreline of wonder in ways that its creators didn’t predict."

I so appreciate the perspective on gaining knowledge through exploration being expressed by my good friend Alberto Cairo. The questions we ask should always be expanding opportunities to seek new knowledge that increases our “shoreline of wonder.” Well done Alberto.

lifeandcode

The Journalist's Learn To Code Resource Guide

This is a list of resources you can use to begin to write your own programs, written with journalists in mind. I focus mostly on free resources that are available to anybody online, and resources useful to people starting from scratch. I will be adding to this over time. If you’d like to know about new additions, subscribe to this blog (or follow us on Tumblr). If you have additions or corrections, please leave a comment below. You can also follow me on Twitter, where I am @lisawilliams.

Learn-to-Program Resources

Javascript Codecademy Lifehacker Night School Khan Academy Welcome to Computer Science

JQuery JQueryFundamentals 30 Days to JQuery

Python Learn Python The Hard Way Invent Your Own Games With Python Google’s Python Class learnpython.org A site that lets you do exercises online, much like Codecademy, except for Python. The Django Book – free e-book with tutorials to help you learn Django, a web framework for Python A Byte of Python

Ruby Codelearn.org Hackety Hack RubyMonk Bastard’s Book of Ruby Why’s Poignant Guide to Ruby TryRuby.org A site that lets you do exercises online, much like Codecademy, except for Ruby. RubyKoans - Online book with examples. Setup guides for Windows and Unix. Learn to Program with Chris Pine

PHP PHP For the Absolute Beginner

Perl Getting Started With Perl

Erlang Learn You Some Erlang For Great Good

Processing Learning Processing

HTML5 HTML5 Rocks!

Tutorial Sites

NetTuts I love this tutorial site. Many good things here. Tutorialzine Excellent video/text tutorials on a variety of web development topics. The New Boston – Free educational video tutorials by Bucky Roberts. CodePlayer – describes itself as “if you could look over the shoulder of a developer as she works” – lots of short video tutorials here.

Free Online Computer Science Courses

Intro to Computer Science, Harvard – videos of all lectures and notes are available for free online as part of the Open Courseware movement. Very engaging instructor. EdX is Harvard’s new online education portal, which now has many courses. Stanford Engineering Everywhere offers full video of lectures of many computer science classes, along with downloadable study materials. Free. Intro to Computer Science, MIT – Full video and course materials via MIT Open Courseware. Google Code University “This site provides sample course content and tutorials for Computer Science (CS) students and educators on current computing technologies and paradigms.” Lecturefox has computer science lectures and courses available for free online from many universities.

Programming Concepts, A Tutorial for Novice Programmers – CUNY. Programming Literacy – A Comprehensive Introduction To Programming Khan Academy says it wants to “make a world class education available to everyone for free.” They have many courses, from K-12 to college level courses, with video lectures, exercises, and more. Here are their computer science offerings.

Not (Always) Free, but Notable:

Udemy offers online computer programming classes. A small number are free, while many others hover between $79 and $99. Online course materials that go along with Zed Shaw’s Learn Python the Hard Way is only $29. Udacity has a Computer Science 101 course that I’ve heard good things about.

Books

A Very Long List of Freely Available Programming Books Zed Shaw’s Huge List of Free Programming Books Hackershelf, community curated free e-books on technology 6 Free Javascript eBooks Eloquent Javascript – Book freely available online; you can buy a print copy if you want one

Getting and Finding Answers

StackOverflow This is a Q&A site for programmers. You can actually post a code snippet here and say “Why doesn’t this work?” But be sure to search first to make sure your question hasn’t been answered! You’ll get snark if you don’t.

Meetups

I strongly recommend that you find a local group devoted to the programming language you choose to start learning in. If you are using books or online tutorials, at some point you will get stuck. If you don’t have anyone to help you, you will stay stuck. You can check Meetup.com for these. I was helped immensely by the members of the BostonPHP Meetup group.

Setting up a development environment on your computer

You will want to create a “development environment” on your computer. This replicates the web server you’ll eventually use to host your programs, and typically includes web server software, a database, and files and packages required by the programming language you intend to use.

There are several (free!) bundles for popular operating systems:

MAMP (MacOS, Apache, MySQL, PHP)

WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP)

When you download and install these, you have a small, live webserver on your laptop that you can load your programs onto and test.

For other programming languages, you may have to download and install things to make it work:

Ruby Setting Up Ruby on Mac OSX (Expert level; looking for beginners’ guides suggestions) Setting up Ruby on Windows

Python Using Python on Mac OSX Using Python on Windows (Expert level; looking for beginners’ guides suggestions)

Text Editors

You’ll need something to actually write your programs in. Programmers have extraordinarily strong opinions about these. Two popular editors, vi and EMACS, both run in the command line in Unix. I’ve restricted this list to graphical text editors. (Thanks to Greg Linch and Chrys Wu for additional suggestions of free, graphical text editors).

BBEdit This is what I use. Not free, but free trial. TextMate MacOS editor. People I know have said good things about it. Not free, but free trial. TextWrangler is the free “little sister” of BBEdit. gEdit is a simple, lightweight text editor. Free and open source. AmyEditor is an online, collaborative text editor (that is, you can edit code in the browser while another coder looks on from over the web). Free.

Version Control

A version control system stores your code safely and allows you to “roll back” your changes to a point in time before you screwed it up. You will want it.

Git is the version control system I use. Git is relatively new. SVN is probably the version control system in widest use today, and CVS is the old warhorse of version control.

Github for Mac – a graphical client that lets me see my “repositories” and check in code to Github, the popular online code-sharing site. Github is a hosted version of Git (read: you don’t have to download and install Git). In addition to doing all the things you want a version control system to do, it stores your stuff in the cloud, AND you can browse and share code. Many news organizations, including the New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, and ProPublica have Github pages where you can view – and download! – their code. (Here’s where you can find my code on Github. Friend me when you get there.)

Bug Tracking

One happy day you’ll move your baby code onto the web and launch something…and then you’ll have to track bugs and new feature requests! To keep that from devolving into a pile of inscrutable email, use a bug tracker. It will let other members of your team make notes about bugs, or about new feature requests. You’ll end up with a neat, cleanly ordered list of requests which you can rank by priority.

16Bugs – This is what I use. It’s VERY simple, but I like that, and it also integrates with Basecamp. Free for single projects.

Programming resources for women

Girl Develop It PyLadies and on Twitter: @pyladies Web Start Women and on Twitter @webstartwomen Codagogy

Programming resources for kids

Hackety Hack – teaches kids to program in Ruby. Good for former children, too. Scratch – a programming language and environment developed for kids; designed to encourage kids to create games and animations. LearnScratch.org has great video tutorials for Scratch, delivered in a very fetching French accent. Snake Wrangling for Kids – Free downloadable e-book teaches programming in Python. Python4Kids – tutorials for kids age 8 and up. How to initiate kids – or anyone – in coding - great list of resources. Intro to Scratch for Kids – Scratch is a visual programming environment created for kids. Lets them make games and animations to share online. It’s really great. KidsRuby Have fun making games or hack your homework with Ruby AgentSheets lets you create agent-based games via a drag and drop interface Alice is a 3D programming environment aimed at kids who want to create games and animations Hack the Future is a hackathon/self-guided hacking experience for people from the ages of 10 to 19

Programming Blogs

(I’ve only listed blogs here I actually personally read. Please do feel free to suggest more!)

Coding Horror Scripting.com (Not always about programming, but always worth reading).

Newshacking blogs

With thanks to Matt Thompson’s excellent post on Poynter, “Show Your Work.” John Keefe’s Things I’ve Learned Derek Willis’ The Scoop Brian Boyer’s Hacker Journalist Michelle Minkoff’s blog Jonathan Stray’s blog

Things I’ve Written about Learning to Program

This page is a list of ingredients – but a list of ingredients isn’t a recipe. If you’re looking for pointers on where to begin, read Learning to Code for the Web: Starting from Scratch. If you’re a journalist and you’re wondering why you should learn to code, or whether it’s practical for you to learn, read Learning to Program for Journalists: The Epic HOWTO. For this site’s most popular posts, check out our GreatestL nnnnnearning to code takes effort, and everybody has to answer the all-important “why bother?” question for themselves. Here’s mine: Code To Make a Point; Code To Make Change

kennedymedia

Excellent compilation of useful links.

Looking for ways to inspire your staff and boost your business? Try these 10 tips for getting your employees to think more creatively. Useful thoughts for 2015.

REALITY INTERPRETED

As a young boy, I first discovered the magical allure of photography when I stepped into a darkroom, developed my first roll of film, and then began to make my first prints. The wonder of seeing an image emerge from the chemicals in a developing tray touched me to the depth of my being. I was inspired by my grandfather, an ardent amateur photographer who spent happy Florida retirement years, principally photographing cloud formations and the impact of light on the beach landscapes he enjoyed.

As a photographer who left the street early to become a photo editor, I realized that is where my true professional gift most likely lay and I’ve followed that muse for a very long time. However, that first love of seeing the world around me and trying to translate it into an image has always lurked in the background. Recently, I have begun to try to recapture that sense of joy and wonder, using my iPhone as a camera. I’ve fallen hard for using certain apps to try to translate the experience in front of me into something I can share with others.

At this stage of my professional life, as I continue to coach and mentor others to develop their storytelling skills on visual platforms, I am using this opportunity to keep my own visual senses alive. I am happy that using an app like Hipstamatic gives me the chance to explore and share. Getting feedback from others on Instagram is useful in further honing my own visual skills and bringing me full circle. It has given me back the enthusiasm of an amateur and the sense of wonder that I first felt as a boy. In all that, I feel lucky and feel that I still have much to learn and work out visually.

#clouds #biking #hipstamatic #rain #hipstajunkies #hipstamaticaddicts #storm #coming #grungefilterfun #beach

It's Your Business

I write regularly for the Strictly Business column of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP). This wee, the blog is offering a series of quick thoughts designed to offer inspiration in the midst of summer doldrums. I cite a quote I really like from Tony Schwartz about the value of openness and curiosity.

"Inspiration is the greatest gift because it opens your life to many new possibilities. Each day becomes more meaningful, and your life is enhanced when your actions are guided by what inspires you."

Bernie Siegel

Pushing back veil of sleep. Morning beckons; it is a new day with new possibilities, opportunities, and demands. But most importantly, the chance to find new inspirations to fuel our life journey.

#morning #light #newday #sunshine #waking #stillalive

#newday #stillalive #light #sunshine #waking #morning

Playing With Light

Love looking at something old and familiar in a new way at a new time. In this case, it was our dining room table in late afternoon light. There is something about using my smartphone as a camera that has brought me back to the joy and wonder that photography first held for me as a 10 year-old playing with an old box camera. What about you?

#lateafternoon #tabletop #floral #arrangement #playingwithelements

#floral #playingwithelements #arrangement #lateafternoon #tabletop

See What's Missing to Fuel Creativity

“You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not’?” – George Bernard Shaw

I first heard this quote while in high school when Robert F. Kennedy used a slight paraphrase as the theme of his presidential campaign in 1968. At the time, I saw its application to addressing the burning political issues of the day. While still thinking it applies to situations addressed by politics, now more than ever, I also see its crucial relevance to the creative process employed by photographers.

What Shaw seems to be saying is that a fundamental optimism and freshness must stir the imagination as a first step toward finding new creative solutions. Being creative as a photographer means continually trying to transcend the limits of literalness in one’s vision and response to the world. It is not enough to repeat known visual solutions to known visual problems. One has to be continually looking and trying to find new possibilities in order to be of value in transforming how others see the world. Succumbing to the blinkers imposed by familiarity can keep one from seeing anew. And such visual stagnation weakens one’s value as a photographer.

Beyond “seeing in the moment,” another kind of “seeing” is crucial to the creative process, and this may be also implied in Shaw’s quote. It is important to see what is not present in the environment, and to connect that missing element to situations in need of examination. That is truly challenging creative work. As a photo editor working with photographers, I am always pleased to see someone trying to address an important topic through a new vision to create more awareness of the problem to be solved. Such efforts bear fruit, because the audience reacts to the work through the stimulation of eye, emotion, and intellect simultaneously. If the work is fresh, the stimulation of senses can be stronger and sharper. Seeing anew enables the audience to grasp the problem, and also obtain the kind of enlightenment that can generate a more active response.

Seeing what is present in the environment is essential to photography, but equally valuable to creativity is also to continually strive to see what's not there. It is a good way of balancing influences to drive one’s creative process forward.

Making the Case for Empathy as a Core Management Value

Last week, I happened to encounter a very interesting blog post on the Harvard Business Review Blog Network by Rita McGrath, a professor at the Columbia Business School, and author of “The End of Competitive Advantage.”

In the blog post, Professor McGrath discusses the idea that we are moving into a new era where the organizational culture of business enterprises needs to be rethought and reformulated. Throughout most of my career, media enterprises were being run through a system of “command and control.” The methods were designed to support mass production, standardized quality, and to prevent certain defects from emerging in the production that would be harmful to brand reputation. These concepts have historically been seen as making sense for mass media organizations needing to “feed the beast,” on a daily basis. While ensuring optimization and consistency, they also seemed at times to thwart the kind of meaningful culture building that would make people feel less like cogs in a machine and more like valued individual creative contributors. Old school organizational norms warred with full utilization of a variety of individual skills, undergirded by strong “emotional intelligence.”

In her blog post, Professor McGrath puts forward the idea that today’s organizations need to rethink their core management principles in order to create “complete and meaningful experiences,” to meet the expectations of likely customers.

As she puts it in at one point in the post:

“If organizations existed in the execution era to create scale and in the expertise era to provide advanced services, today many are looking to organizations to create complete and meaningful experiences. I would argue that management has entered a new era of empathy.

This quest for empathy extends to customers, certainly, but also changes the nature of the employment contract, and the value proposition for new employees. We are also grappling with widespread dissatisfaction with the institutions that have been built to date, many of which were designed for the business-as-machine era. They are seen as promoting inequality, pursuing profit at the expense of employees and customers, and being run for the benefit of owners of capital, rather than for a broader set of stakeholders. At this level, too, the challenge to management is to act with greater empathy.”

On an individual level, I agree with her thesis that the changing business landscape requires managers to rethink their relationship to fellow employees, particularly for those whose performance they are tasked with leading. As the media landscape began to change dramatically in the first decade of the 21st century, I was often struck by how little conversation seemed to go on about what would enable employees to fully develop their potential and release energy productively in support of the media company’s core mission. Conversations about developing and honing creativity as a central management task were put on the back burner as focus remained primarily on shaping production processes for stability of output and maximum efficiency. As the media landscape continues to change, companies would be wise to ponder a final question in Professor McGrath’s piece, “What new roles and organizational structures make sense and how should performance management be approached?” Great questions, needing a full search for answers as mass media companies push to remain relevant to their audiences.

#summer #basil #garden #twilght

#basil #summer #garden #twilght

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Multimedia Maverick