by aloshbennett

Ten Tips For Journalists to Fundraise Money:
[Via Spot.Us – Community Funded Reporting]

I’ll admit it, sometimes when nobody is looking I’ll watch a late night infomercial. These people are fascinating to watch. They are master salespeople.

I realize the idea of a journalist fundraising money for their work is new. Normally it’s a duty we’d hand off to the advertising/marketing people and stick to creating content. But “the times they are-a changing” and so is the job description. There is a reason why freelance journalists have to write a “pitch.” They are selling their services. Normally we sell to high-end repeat customers (editors) because they have a freelance budget. But Spot.Us believes that journalists should pitch the public and that if members of the public band together they too can have a freelance budget.

Rather than treat journalists fundraising as taboo, we should have a healthy discussion about the right and wrong approach. I don’t claim to know the answers, so your comments are valued.

This is something that will be worked out as they go along. I don’t think it is going to replace the mainstream media. But it is a novel approach and will heavily use Web 2.0 approaches for success.

What are the best practices? Are they different for text and video? How can journalists best explain the value of their services? I don’t claim to know the answers to these questions (so your comments are highly valued), but I do think these questions need to be tackled. If journalists are going to become more independent, they need to learn how to re-master the art of the pitch.

The list below is my own and I think will evolve over time.

10 Things to Keep in Mind To Get Community Funded Reporting
[More]

The list is actually a nice one for anyone working to earn a living by using Web 2.0 conversations. Creating a pitch. Finding the community.

Technorati Tags: General, Web 2.0

by annais
To Serif or Not To Serif? Regarding Online Readability:
[Via The Acrobat.com Blog]

There are myriad different opinions on what the best conditions are for reading text on a screen. Debates rage about whether or not to use serif fonts and how long a line of text should be. A surprisingly sensitive issue, and possibly without a clear resolution.ﾠ

Here we’ve tried to delineate a few of the more widely accepted tips on how to optimize readability. Although they can be forsaken in the name of personal style, they’re generally considered the most conducive to easy reading. Here are a few key points plucked from various takes on the subject:ﾠ

Regardless of medium, high contrast between type color and page color always contributes to optimal reading conditions. Not surprisingly, readers show a strong preference for black text on a white background (though it’s not strictly necessary; if you simply loathe the combination of white and black, any reasonably contrasting color duo will do). When in doubt, check your color scheme on Snook’s Color Contrast Check.
[More]

The Web is a different medium than paper or slides. While some things, such as contrast, remain the same, presenting text on the Web has different needs.

Its lower resolution, which allows pages to download faster, makes text harder to read. So size and font choice is important.

Remember that the user often has the ability to override the font choices that are made on the page, either by increasing the size or changing the font. So the choice of font is not as important as its presentation and of course its content.

Line spacing is another important aspect to understand. People read online from farther distances than they read a book. Poor text choices, in size, color or contrast, can make it very difficult for the content of the page to be assimilated.

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0

by helmet13
Action and Reaction:
[Via A Journey In Social Media]

We Want People To Have Conversations

And they are.

Lots of conversations, really. Mostly about work stuff. But not always.

A while back, there was a notable surge in “off topic” discussions — favorite movies, raising rabbits, anime, commute times, etc.

In a pure Web 2.0 idealized world, it’s all good, right?

Well, we’re not exactly in this progressive 2.0 world quite yet. And we have to be mindful of the transition.

There Is A Valid Business Need For Off-Topic Discussions

More and more of our teams are geographically and culturally dispersed. We want people to align and bond around common interests — whatever they might be.

Just like we spend boatloads of money to fly people around for group meetings — and subsequent “team building” events — this sort of idle chatter has a role in “enterprise 2.0”, and we don’t want to be shutting things down.

But, we also want broad adoption in our 1.0 employee base. And if certain 2.0 behaviors hamper that, well — that’s an issue, isn’t it?

Problem #1 — Clutter

With our current 1.x Clearspace implementation, we have a “home page” that dutifully records each and every thought someone shares (except blog comments for some reason). That off-topic clutter at a corporate level is downright annoying to many people.

Sure, the user can take action: set up filters, personalize, etc. There’s some of that in Clearspace 1.x, more in 2.x, and then there’s RSS feeds, etc. But all of these are highly dependent on users taking control of their content stream.

And that’s a new 2.0-ish skill that not too many people at our company have. Sure, we could tell them “here’s what you have to do to control the problem”, but we’re trying to drive broader engagement and adoption of the platform, and we’ve had more than a few people new to the environment simply say “I can’t handle this social content stream in addition to my email deluge”.

It’s one thing when they’re exposed to the business-related deluge. It’s another thing entirely when it looks like 40-50% of the stream appears to be purely social in nature.

Doesn’t make it look like a business platform, which is how it was sold to the company.

Problem #2 — Naysayers

In physics, every force results in an opposite force. And in driving corporate change, the same generally holds true. I’m not being negative, just practical.

And, not surprisingly, there are those that look at our internal social media platform with a cold, cynical eye. They don’t understand, they may be threatened, they’re not comfortable, or maybe they’re generally concerned.

Collectively, they have “voice”.

And now they have a bit more evidence for their case.

Problem #3 — The Proficient

We now have upwards of 1,000 people who are truly comfortable and really enjoy the deep end of the pool. They love being exposed to everything. They’re very comfortable controlling the content stream.

And they inherently resist any thought of control, policy, etc. — it just doesn’t work for them. And they’re quite vocal that the rest of the world has to adapt to this 2.0 world, and they better get on with it, now!

And — they have a point. But I’m looking at outcome, and less to make a philisophical statement.

What We’re Doing Short Term

A couple of things, really. First, I went to the more — ahem — prolific threads, and simply reminded people that everything they write is syndicated up to the corporate feed, and that their insightful comments were widely read by several thousand people.

And that while it’s OK to get off topic, please keep in mind that we’ve got a business platform, and you may want to think twice before an extended off-topic discussion for several reasons, e.g. is this what you do all day at work?

The second thing we’re doing is engaging the community. I wrote a blog post outlining the problem and the tradeoffs, and simply asked “what do you all think we should do?”.

People appreciated that we engaged them rather than arbitrarily doing something — good 2.0 behavior. And, somewhere in the dozens of comments, the discussion became pretty clear: we should take no action to limit discussions on the platform, but we should work towards having a “default” home page for newbies that’s a little less intimidating.

So, What Do You Think?

Now that we have a clear “digital divide” in our company with regards to our social productivity platform, what’s the ideal compromise position? Or should there be compromise at all?

And — any proposed solution can’t involve a bunch of custom software, nor can it involve hiring and dedicating people to the task. Nor can it involve having tens of thousands of employees learning to control their content stream as a prerequisite for success.

An interesting challenge, to be sure ….

Technorati Tags: Knowledge Creation, Web 2.0

by Shutr
Doctors Say ‘I’m Sorry’ Before ‘See You in Court’ :
[Via New York Times]

In 40 years as a highly regarded cancer surgeon, Dr. Tapas K. Das Gupta had never made a mistake like this.

As with any doctor, there had been occasional errors in diagnosis or judgment. But never, he said, had he opened up a patient and removed the wrong sliver of tissue, in this case a segment of the eighth rib instead of the ninth.

Once an X-ray provided proof in black and white, Dr. Das Gupta, the 74-year-old chairman of surgical oncology at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, did something that normally would make hospital lawyers cringe: he acknowledged his mistake to his patient’s face, and told her he was deeply sorry.

Think about what might happen if the lawyers took a lower profile and the doctors admitted their mistakes, if they were open with their patients. Turns out, something significant happens. Most people accept the apology and forgive the doctor.

This approach directly contradicts what most lawyers advise.

For decades, malpractice lawyers and insurers have counseled doctors and hospitals to “deny and defend.” Many still warn clients that any admission of fault, or even expression of regret, is likely to invite litigation and imperil careers.

But with providers choking on malpractice costs and consumers demanding action against medical errors, a handful of prominent academic medical centers, like Johns Hopkins and Stanford, are trying a disarming approach.

People get really angry when they find out the error was concealed and that it might happen again. As with political scandals, it is the coverup that causes the problems.

So what happens if the doctors and hospitals are open with their patients?

At the University of Michigan Health System, one of the first to experiment with full disclosure, existing claims and lawsuits dropped to 83 in August 2007 from 262 in August 2001, said Richard C. Boothman, the medical center’s chief risk officer.

“Improving patient safety and patient communication is more likely to cure the malpractice crisis than defensiveness and denial,” Mr. Boothman said.

Mr. Boothman emphasized that he could not know whether the decline was due to disclosure or safer medicine, or both. But the hospital’s legal defense costs and the money it must set aside to pay claims have each been cut by two-thirds, he said. The time taken to dispose of cases has been halved.

The number of malpractice filings against the University of Illinois has dropped by half since it started its program just over two years ago, said Dr. Timothy B. McDonald, the hospital’s chief safety and risk officer. In the 37 cases where the hospital acknowledged a preventable error and apologized, only one patient has filed suit. Only six settlements have exceeded the hospital’s medical and related expenses.

From 262 to 83 in 6 years. Defense costs down by two-thirds. Malpractice cut in half. These are game changing numbers, in the completely opposite direction from what lawyers said would happen.

The hospitals have also taken to following up the apology with fair compensation. This has had the effect of changing the behavior of malpractice attorneys.

There also has been an attitudinal shift among plaintiff’s lawyers who recognize that injured clients benefit when they are compensated quickly, even if for less. That is particularly true now that most states have placed limits on non-economic damages.

In Michigan, trial lawyers have come to understand that Mr. Boothman will offer prompt and fair compensation for real negligence but will give no quarter in defending doctors when the hospital believes that the care was appropriate.

“The filing of a lawsuit at the University of Michigan is now the last option, whereas with other hospitals it tends to be the first and only option,” said Norman D. Tucker, a trial lawyer in Southfield, Mich. “We might give cases a second look before filing because if it’s not going to settle quickly, tighten up your cinch. It’s probably going to be a long ride.

In all likelihood, more money ends up in the patient’s pocket and less in lawyer fees. As long as the awards are also open, so that the hospitals can not manipulate the settlements too much, and people can really see that they are not committing the same errors again and again, the beneficial cycle of this should not only drive malpractice suits lower but also help care in the hospitals.

Quality improvement committees openly examine cases that once would have vanished into sealed courthouse files. Errors become teaching opportunities rather than badges of shame.

“I think this is the key to patient safety in the country,” Dr. McDonald said. “If you do this with a transparent point of view, you’re more likely to figure out what’s wrong and put processes in place to improve it.”

For instance, he said, a sponge left inside an patient led the hospital to start X-raying patients during and after surgery. Eight objects have been found, one of them an electrode that dislodged from a baby’s scalp during a Caesarian section in 2006.

This looks like a program that could have huge effects across the country. By admitting their errors and treating the patients like rational human beings, the doctors remove themselves from antagonistic relationships, the hospitals spend less money on lawsuits and the standard of care goes up.

All by showing a little openness and transparency.

Technorati Tags: Health, Science, Sustainability

by Joi

[Update: after thinking about it overnight, the main take away I got from Shirky’s talk was examining media in a different fashion. It is too easy to just look at Web 2.0 as just normal media taken online. But the Web is not TV and will have its own way of connecting  people.  In the end, it will be the people in a community that determine the network’s utility/importance, not the media and not corporations. So listen to what the community wants, not what the hype says.]

Just got back from Shirky’s talk. He is a very engaging speaker. No slides. Just very different points of view that require you to alter your perspective. There has been some discussion of Shirky’s new book ‘Here Comes Everybody’ at Bench Marks that invites some thought.

Interestingly, he directly answered the ‘people with too much time’ meme. His point was that one of the huge aspects of the last 50 years is that almost everyone has too much time. It has been spent watching TV and consuming.

He stated that 100 million hours of human thought produced Wikipedia. We spend 100 million hours every weekend just watching ads on TV. Which one wastes the most time?

According to Shirky, those who say Web 2.0 approaches as being used by people with too much time ignore the fact that virtually everyone has too much time today. That is, there is a culture-wide cognitive surplus that, until recently, was filled by TV and consumerism. What happens if some of this is harnessed?

Shirky mentioned the inability of modern media to accurately describe what is happening. It sees anyone who is not watching mass media or consuming as a waste. But TV is really the waste.

New technologies now allow people to also produce and to share. He stated that even if a very small fraction of the total amount of time spent watching TV, say 10%, was utilized, it could result in 10,000 wikipedia sized projects a year. His point here was that even if people are playing World of Warcraft that it is a better use of their time than watching TV.

Now, according to Sturgeon’s law, 90% of the stuff produced and shared will be crud, because 90% of everything is crud. But to throw out that 10% because the rest is hype or echo chamber is a mistake. That is still about 1,000 wikipedia-sized projects a year.

Just as we had to get through My Mother the Car to finally see Battlestar Galactica, we may have to deal with some online crud. But, a social network will not gain much unless it serves the needs of the community. So echo chamber blogs will not really have much impact as they seal themselves away from anything that breaks the echo. Blogs as cults will not be very sustainable nor have much impact.

On re-reading the article by Brabazon, I think she is concentrating on something that was not at all the focus of Shirky’s book. If so, that is somewhat unfair. Or perhaps she found a blind spot in his discussions. But that may not invalidate what he has to say. What her article and Shirky’s talk have accomplished is that I may have to read the book to figure it out for myself. Score another victory for consumerism.

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0

by Jef Poskanzer

I’m traveling to the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. Over 8000 people attended the first one last year. I hope to have some interesting things to say about the meeting. I have been to several put on by O’Reilly and they are uniformly excellent.

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0