What are some of the emerging practices of search engine optimization and social media optimization for journalists? Should journalism schools teach SEO style in addition to AP style?

Journalists often discuss the need for evolving skill sets. On a deeper level, we sometimes talk about mindsets. What I'm interested in currently is, "How can we reshape our thinking?"

The desktop is the most valuable piece of real estate on the planet, an it isn't monetized. (folders and shortcuts only). There is a way to get there. Google is just an html index, but is the door to the internet. There is a way to step in front of it. Competitors like craigslist content can be leveraged to add value and make money. There is still time to lead and win.

Even the best journalism will languish without the ability to pay the bills. This session is taught by someone who is in the local sales trenches everyday, putting real cash on the books....and he has the scars to prove it.

This session also throws cold water on all those digital pundits, that discuss online business theory, without any real world experience of building a profitable business.

The company I work for has a key focus of creating content in the first instance regardless of what product it ends up on or how it is displayed. However, daily struggles between the two groups (product and content) turned out not to be productive or struggles related to creativity that led to a better system. More so the result ended up being flawed expectations and processes. And there are key two reasons for that. We can explore those reasons in an updated session on separating content from product.

Actors form theater companies. Can journalists form media companies?

Planning, creating and delivering useful and usable content is hard but it is becoming more of a key business component as opposed to just a commodity. But hardly anyone is doing it. Let's explore smart strategies and raise the conversation on content strategy.

Real world case studies of the four differentiating factors between media companies that are succeeding and those struggling. Actual numbers from The Guardian, Hearst, Penton Media, and The Knot's local business.

Taking cues from the "slow food" movement, a growing number of reporters and editors are calling for a similar rethinking of the news industry.
Slow Journalism:
-Gives up the fetish of beating the competition.
- Values accuracy, quality, and context, not just being fast and first.
- Avoids celebrity, sensation, and events covered by a herd of reporters.
- Takes time to find things out.
- Seeks out untold stories.
- Relies on the power of narrative.
- Sees the audience as collaborators.

What is "slow journalism?" Who is doing it? And is it financially sustainable?
For more, see http://bit.ly/aOgitD

The continuing lack of support for Flash on mobile devices and the Apple vs Adobe feud means that Flash is not going to be ubiquitous anymore. We should look for alternatives. What are they?

Print media organizations are struggling with ways to be profitable without alienating their audience. Is there a business model that will allow them to continue to provide quality journalism, and who should pay—advertisers, the reader, or someone else?

What kind of tools does the modern journalist need? Once it was writing skills, a paper and a pen. Should students now be experts in everything from developing web code to editing and starring in video and audio pieces, social media, and the like? What skills are most effective in today's industry?

People talk about how Twitter and Facebook can be used to promote content, but how about gathering content? Reporters can find leads, sources and story ideas through online social media sights. A discussion about examples, how to find them, etc.

Most J-Schools still teach media ethics. But what are the new boundaries now that bloggers rip content from other sites and re-word it as their own (sometimes they don't even re-word it!)? What are the new ethical dilemmas in online journalism, and how can a reporter avoid becoming a pirate?

Many sites are now recruiting citizen journalists by arming them with notepads, cameras and motivations speeches. Now the consumers have become the ones who are breaking stories. Are citizen journalists a reporter's ally or enemy, and how can we all get along?

Why do most newspaper websites still suck? Most are still packing too much info on the homepage and making yesterday's news too hard to find. It's often easier to Google the headline rather than search the newspaper's site. If news orgs still can't get the "web" experience right, what hope is there for user experience on mobile devices or tablets? What news orgs are doing the best at simplifying their content and presenting it to the public? How are they doing this?

How can the media do a better job of interacting with mobile devices, both through the web and apps? What can the media do to allow citizens, as well as staff, report from the field? What current mobile apps are doing the best job of this (CNN, AP, etc)?

One of the next big things for journalism and news organizations, in my opinion, is the rise of the knowledge management system. At the moment, most content management systems store content in a very generic "article" format and only systems like OpenCalais attempt to make sense of the aggregate. With a Knowledge Management System, the editorial workflow is such that the data is stored as structured by default, and the aggregate of the data becomes more useful as time goes on.

It's be sweet to have a sesh dedicated to birthing the unicorn.

Reading:
http://www.holovaty.com/writing/fundamental-change/
http://xark.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/05/the-lack-of-vision-thing-well-heres-a-vision-for-you.html

In this conversation we have about whether journalism is dying or not we often miss the definition of this journalism, and a quantifiable measure of the past amount of journalism vs. future amount of journalism.

Let's figure out how to measure this. It should be useful for something.

Public wikis, group blogs, maps, polls, user-powered visualizations, forums. What are the best methods and technologies to tap the public's collective knowledge and expertise? How can we add immediacy, depth and context to news?