It's a Good Thing You're Not Mean, I Was Late for Week 15

Jen, I am terribly sorry this blog post is late. I went home for my sister's college graduation this weekend and totally forgot about blogging. I couldn't even believe it myself, I have never missed blogging, and then finals week comes up, I head out of town for the weekend and all of the sudden I forget my assignments. I guess I should always stay in the school-work-and-KOMU-shift-then-sleep-if-there's-time mode.

Shift Work
This week like most of the past few weeks went very smoothly. The stories got posted with most of the reporters having some type of web extra. This was great as not only did it add to their stories, it gave Adrienne and I something else to do. The first few hours of the shift were very slow. Not too many Missouri headlines and all of the reporters came back very late.

As it seems to go, when it is very slow for the first few hours, it becomes crazy rigth around 6. We did fine as Kat and Cate were teaching some new students KOMU.com. The helped with some of the images and edited some text. Looks like you got a good group of people working this summer.

ePortfolio
I am currently in the process of updating mine. I know as of now it lacks some stories, but I want to wait until I have some great stories from next fall to put on my site. You mentioned that with me going into sports, I really need to have an extra project I completed showing my versitility as a video reporter and a web journalist. I was wondering if you have any ideas for this fall. Obviously there is Hometown Highlights.

Done With Week One-Four, Just One More

Shift Work
This week I had my second-to-last Smart Decision 08 shift. I did the normal stuff, you know updating the blogs, checking stories and adding videos to the Splashcast player. I also tried to add content to the candidates pages. I found photos for Andrew Finkenstadt and Christina Anderson. I was having trouble finding photos for the other candidates. I even called several of the local papers from where the candidate is from hoping they could send us a mug shot or something as most newspapers keep important local people on file. No luck there as no one could help. The paper in Jackson had just found out that Jennie Lee (Jen) Schwartze Sievers is running for governor. I guess maybe those local papers should focus more on actual news rather than the Heritage Club visiting the Ponderosa in Farmington! Because not too much content needed updated, I also gave an extra pair of eyes to KOMU.com.

I do have one concern for Smart Decision. I am not sure the candidates for the 9th Congressional District for example are easily assessible. Maybe this is where we need to focus as many sites may have governor information, not too many will have the 9th or 25th information. I guess I had a few problems at first finding some of these candidates to try to add content to and I know the site. I guess I could see why people may get on the page for a few minutes and find it a little tough navigating.

Group Project
I think we did the the best we could. We really tried to reach the various groups. We introduced them to the site and tried to get them to blog. The total stroy will be told tomorrow at the brown bag presentations. I originally was going to help present, but as something came up for me I won't be able to be there. I think our group did a good job as we identified groups we can/have talked to and mentioned some of the hurdles we ran into. I think if someone takes on the project after us, they will find success. I mentioned it in my News from the Net, but here is a very interesting read. MySpace has teamed up with NBC to create a SmartDecision-like site. Check out this site: http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/news/sections/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsLang=en&newsId=20080421006566

I don't have too much more to say I guess. Thats' my blog for the week. See you in class.

Still Fresh, Still Clean after Week 13

Before I continue my blogging for the week, I have to give major props to Joe Murano. He filled in for Adrienne Peterson on her dot com shift and did a great job. He got the email sent out, the FirstView text message sent out and the few other dot com duties all on time. What a way to learn on the fly.

Shift Work
As I already have hinted at, Joe really made the dot com shift run super smoothly. I noticed I am still having problems getting the Broadcast III students getting in their freeze frames. The B2ers just need me to show them and then they do it with no complaining. I understand that capturing video takes a little longer than normal, but it takes just a few seconds to freeze frame an image. On the bright side, the B2ers have learned that they have to freeze frame an image for the web.

Other than that it was the same stuff I normally do on a KOMU.com shift – Missouri headlines, lead images, transferring stories, etc.

Smart Decision Blogging
Like I told you the other day, the blogging, or lack there of, has me pretty bummed. I feel we need to approach the situation a different way but don’t know how. We have visited group after group. We’ve talked to young and old, Democrats and Republicans and still no blogging. We sent out over 100 letters encouraging people to blog and still not one. I guess I just feel like we are spinning our wheels as nobody has blogged yet.

I have a theory behind this. No offense to mid-Missourians, I claim myself to be one. I just am not sure if they are that tech savvy yet to blog. Another hurdle I see is that most have opinions and issues they discuss daily, but don’t want to make them public and attach their name it them.

On the bright side, Mike Zwiefel of the Missouri Young Republicans has put our blogging information in his weekly newsletter to members. Hopefully this will help.

That’s my blog for the week. I hope you have a super week and those mid-Missourians start blogging.

After Twelve Weeks in a Row, Only Three to Go

Shift Work
I came in a few hours early for my shift and took care of what needed to be done during my shift. I don’t know if it was because people were at RTNDA and missed their shifts or whatever, but I had to update many of the videos for the Splashcast player. My shift is on Wednesday and some of the videos I had to update were from Friday. I also made sure all of the blog categories were correct with Linked Bloggers.

One problem I noticed is that many people in the dot com area need to actually read some of the stories and realize whether they need to be applied to the Smart Decision site. Some stories I read on KOMU.com had election/political messages that should also be shared on Smart Decision. On the flip side, there were also some stories that had not election/political reason to be on Smart Decision. It looked as if whoever added the $election category to all the stories from the night.

I also gave a look at KOMU.com and helped them out as much as possible.

Group Project
I don’t know how the rest of my group feels, but I am beginning to feel a bit worried about our project. First, nobody has started posting after we have made only a few visits, but visits. That to me is very discouraging. I really think once we get people to start, they will, but it seems so tough getting the discussion going.

I am also worried about some of the members in our group. They have not really added to the group at all and our work has suffered. I know we are all busy with the end of the semester quickly approaching, but we all need to really get going.

Hopefully with a few more presentations this week, we can finally get people to start blogging. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

ePortfolio
I plan on updating my site right before the end of school and getting it ready to possibly show people during summer. I plan to add a few more stories. I still have not received critiques about my site and welcome them, as I want a great portfolio.

The Workload Weighs a Ton in Week One-One

Shift Work
This week’s KOMU.com shift seemed awfully busy this week. I think the note cards that explain the web extras and the freeze-frames have already started working. I also think once the new B2 reporters get the hang of it, the process will run smoothly. I spent part of my shift updating the Missouri wires. I’m not sure anybody had updated them since the night before. I did and I must tell you their were some pretty strange stories including a man accidentally killing his wife while installing a television and a respond to a self-inflicted gunshot wound and a six-foot alligator in the basement. Pretty crazy huh?

I must give major props to Rebekah Heil for being such a trooper this week during her dot com shift. I had to leave for a time to visit with the Mizzou College Republicans to introduce them to smardecision08.com. I will tell of the visit a little later in my post, but Rebekah did a fantastic job. I had to leave right as all of the stories were ready to go online and she took care of most of it. I later returned to make up for the time I lost.

Group Project
We have really hit the ground running on our group project. I met with the Mizzou College Republicans on Wednesday and it went pretty well. There were probably 30 people at the meeting and most seemed pretty interested. The group president Marcus Bowen said Democrats often speak out louder than Republicans, and he too wished the College Republicans would participate.

On Thursday, I was supposed to meet with the Mizzou Model United nations, but for some reason they must have canceled their meeting as nobody showed up. I guess I’ll have better luck next week. Brittany Stalker also visited with a group on Thursday and she said they seemed pretty excited about possibly blogging.

I guess that is all I have to say for this week. I’m just kind of worried we can make all of these visits, but people may still not blog. We’ll still try anyway.

ePortfolio
I have not yet recieved your critique of my web page. I know there are certain things that need correcting as the banner is not consistent throughout the site.

Week 10 Done, Still Havin' Fun

Shift Work
This week I was back at Smart Decision. We didn’t seem to have too many stories to update. In fact, I think there was just one. The blogs are nice now that they automatically format to full html and it saves tons of time. I checked the political stories to see if any videos needed to be updated to the Splashcast video player.

Because I did not have too many updates this week, I gave another pair of eyes to KOMU.com. Adrienne needed some extra help right as I got there so I helped her out as much as I could. I think the day all-in-all went smoothly as reporters got their freeze frames in, got their scripts in early and everything was great.

ePortfolio
I know I need to make a few minor adjustments to my website. The banner is not consistent throughout the entire site. I also plan on continually updating my site. As I have just started sports, I plan on making a new tab to put my sports stories on when I get it. Also I must add that my friends all think my website is pretty cool. Thanks for requiring us to make them.

Group Project
I have sent out a few basic Facebook messages to several university/college groups asking if we could talk to them at an upcoming meeting. I also plan this week to talk with some of the county Republican and Democrat offices. I found this guy named Mike Zweifel who is a major player in Republican support. I really want to talk with him and see if he is interested. I know he is involved with the Central Missouri Young Republicans and think he could put us in contact with other major players.

Still Feelin' Fine After Week Nine

Shift Work
I wasn't sure whether we were to blog or not this week, so I decided to anyway. It was another KOMU.com shift this week and I thought for the most part it went pretty smoothly. I do however have one major concern. I don't want to be the guy who gripes, but I think there is a misunderstanding or lack of communication between the paid dot commers on what they should post. Here's the story.

The girl I worked with from 2 until 5 started to post VO/SOTs from the 5 and didn't bother posting the packages. When I mentioned this to her, she said she just wanted to get something online for now. The problems is, the person who came in at 5 saw that a version of the story was posted, and didn't put up the package. When I said something, she acted as almost she didn't care and that at least something was posted, even if it weren't the package. I don't mean to be critical or tell people what they have to do, but in my mind that sets a lazy and dangerous precedent. This might be something that needs addressing,

ACM also went down for a time and reporters still need reminding three or four times on getting freze frames in, but other than that all went smooth.

ePortfolio
My ePortfolio is finally up and you can use either the link I sent you or mattlothrop.com. There are a few glitches I need to fix. If you look, the banner is not the same on all of the pages.

Group Project
Like I said in our meeting, we are ready and will begin when we return from Spring Break.

Have a great break yourself.

Feeling Great After Week Eight

Shift Work
This week was another week for smartdecision08.com. This was the first week that I thought Smart Decision took up the time I spent out there. I was glad to be busy as usually I try to help out at KOMU.com, but think I add one too many chefs to the kitchen. I spent some of the time updating the most recent stories, and then changing the blog posts to full html. One thing I noticed is posts from the Columbia Missourian use sentence case, while the rest of the stories appear in title case. I changed them, but think we should keep them standard one way or another.

While updating the blogs, I noticed that there were quite a few and that they dated back to March 7. I don’t want to be the person who complains about peers, but worry that others didn’t update the blogs as I worked on March 12.

I also updated the Spashcast, and then began my project for the night. I began adding more categories to file stories under. During my time I complete the cities, counties, city races, county races and district categories.

ePortfolio
I felt I got off to a great start this week with my ePortfolio. Working with Dreamweaver is a little tougher than I thought and I still need to do quite a bit of work, but I am very optimistic. I plan on mixing some of my cut-ins tomorrow night for my anchoring page and then completing my resume and cover letter. I should be just about completed after that.

Project
Like I told you on Thursday, we are ready to go and recruit bloggers. I have found plenty of groups to talk to, many of which are both politically savvy and technology savvy.

Additional Information
Like I told you Wednesday, I attended a lecture called Persistence, Importance and Effect of Narrowcasting. It was very interesting as through two studies, the best indicator of who will win and election is the money they spend on radio ads, not television ads. This is because radio is cheap enough to make many ads voiced by and aimed to many demographics. There are only about four television stations, but dozens of radio stations geared to specific demographics. Also while television is a passive media, radio is very aggressive as people listen to it in their car and rarely change the station.

I think this can apply to the Net as sites like YouTube can narrowcast and it costs little to advertise. Again, you can target audiences such as with ESPN.com, the New York Times online and Fox’s website. Obviously we will have to wait for more elections to pass, but I think the Net could take over the radio’s power. As more people switch to satellite radio or iPods, commercials might prove to be less effective. We have already started to see this trend as political candidates make YouTube ads and I heard that political entries on Wikipedia change every thirty seconds. I truly believe in the coming years with more and more becoming educated on the Internet and those who “fail to update to the technology revolution” die off, the Internet could serve as a major player in the election.

Shift Work
This week my shift was with the dot com work. I felt we as a whole on Wednesday’s shift did a pretty good job. I thought all in all, the night went real smooth. I began my shift approving the Missouri headlines, and then creating the large leads for the stories. I think the reporters are beginning to submit freeze frames that tell the story very well.

There are a few things we need to continue to check and double check. First is AP Style formatting that we normally don’t see. This includes things such as when to use money sing, or when to spell out dollar. I think we also need to read and re-read parts to make the stories clearer. I found that in a few stories, one or two words meant all the difference.

I did learn something new this week as Tyne Morgan had a web extra in a Word document. Instead of saving it as a PDF file, I created a new story and copied and formatted what the Word document contained into a new story. I then linked the story together and thought it looked great.

ePortfolio
I spent a little time this week converting all of my video files to flv files and am ready to start working on my ePortfolio. I also emailed Jonathan Coffman and plan on purchasing some of this server space this week. I look forward to working and finalizing my ePortfolio these coming weeks. I wanted to start, but have a few questions as I have never used Dreamweaver before and you mentioned something during Flash training about creating the background, etc.

Smart Decision Project
We are ready to start meeting with and recruiting mid-Missourians to blog, we just need the green flag.

Done With the Mix of Week Number Six

Shift Work
This week marked another in the Smart Decision category. I spent some time doing the basics, updating the spashcaster, changing the blogs to full html and promoting the stories to the front page. All of the other news sites and blogs appeared to update as a new story, but not KOMU.com’s stories.

I also spent some time researching who was going to be in what race. I then handed it off to Mark. As you probably know, politics is really his thing. I think the categories will really add to the site, as navigation will become much easier.

I also spent more time applying another set of eyes to KOMU.com. I kind of disagreed with one of the lead images, so I went to fix it. In order to do that, Jim Matheny helped me out a ton. He showed me many new things that can be done with Photoshop that I did not know how to do. Jim also made me think of something else I usually overlook. That is making sure the lead image and the abstract fit the story. Many times we just take the freeze frame the reporters submit, and use the first line as an abstract. We need to make sure neither misleads.

Project
As I said my post last weekend, our group is ready to roll we just need the OK.

ePortfolio
In the past week, I have become almost excited about the talk of ePortfolios. The flash training only added to it. By looking at others over the past week, I am starting to see the great possibilities an ePortfolio can offer. Like I have said, I really like what Jason Lamb’s looked like and would love to have my ePortfolio provide the same information that his did.

I would also like to add that I think the flash training was great. I know the basics, but now can think in terms of what flash can do. I might even try to take advantage of some of the classes you can take for free on campus.

Still Alive After Week Five

Shift Work
This week’s shift at KOMU.com seemed to be the first that everything went rather smooth. I spent the shift correcting minor mistakes on the website such as lead image size, AP Style and other little mistakes. One thing that I have noticed that needs to be corrected is last names. I know that Megan Murphy and Sarah Hill often refer to the people in their stories by their first name, but we need to change them for our medium.

I ran into a few problems as for a time the computer keyboard was not working. I had to move to the blue room to do work, but I thought that Adrienne, the two convergence editors (Steven and Sarah), and I all worked well in coordinating everything. The few things I could see improved include better communication with the convergence reporters and getting those lead images in. One reporter I was working with just wasn’t getting that image in. I think the checklist we talked about in class might help out the dot commers.

Project
Our group is very eager to begin working and we understand we simply need to wait until smartdecision08.com us up and running. We have a great start as lists have been compiled of over 60 potential bloggers. To give a brief update on where we sit, we plan to visit the bloggers and persuade them face-to-face. People have a tough time turning offers in person so that should help us out. The personable touch could also help persuade the bloggers.

ePortfolio talk
Like I said in the email, I am going to use Dreamweaver. I originally like what it could create. I like how the video can be watched on the page. I think Jason Lamb’s ePortfolio is excellent and would like to have mine look a lot like his. The price put me off a little, but the fact that I can work on this on campus or in the blue room makes me really like the possibilities of Dreamweaver. The fact that I can also buy server space for 20 dollars is also very attractive.

I guess the only other thing I have to say this week is I am excited about learning flash.

Closing the Door on Week Four

The interactive website I chose to discuss this week also happens to be one of my favorites and most visited, ESPN.com. First and foremost, it has practically all of the sporting news one could possibly need. The site not only gives information about the meat and potato sports (football, basketball, baseball and hockey), but also about tennis, boxing, golf and NASCAR. I say almost, because my favorite sport and the one I read about the most is college baseball. As this sport is not quite mainstream, I must find additional sites to discover the news in the sport. ESPN.com however provides a link to sites when they know they have not covered it completely. College baseball was such the case.

I think the site holds attention because of the presentation number one, and the ease of finding the information the viewer wants. Right when the page opens, a large photograph of today’s most recent news appears. To the right is all the AP stories and breaking news. Commentary on the breaking news is listed as well. The final third of the screen has video after video. Almost 50 different videos can be accessed through the front page. The videos are broken down into the different sports or categories. The scoreboard at the top, along with the different sport tabs also make gaining the up-to-date information literally a click away. This site not only holds attention, it keeps people returning.

To say the site offers good information would be an understatement. The site almost gives too much information. The site provides a minimum of five links per story. First things first, the site posts current, accurate, well-written sporting news stories. Second, the site wrote the book on web extras. They have video, charts, graphs, blogs, forums, links and sidebar story after sidebar story. Wow what a site!

Shift Work
This week I updated smartdecision08.com, but ran into problems as “your people” constantly worked on the site. While I could have called it a day, I spent some time giving an extra pair of eyes to KOMU.com. I corrected mistakes and brushed up on some additional AP Style rules I did not know.

Group Project.
I thought I might just write a line or two about this. I feel real confident in finding mid-Missourians to blog on smartdecision08.com. I found several possible candidates who seem real involved in pushing a candidate or party. Next, we plan on working up a letter to possibly send to them discussing the idea and what we are looking for.

And we're done with week three

Shift Work
This week my shift was to update KOMU.com. Like I said last week, I enjoy KOMU.com more than smartdecision08.com (for now at least) as it seems to be faster paced. I spent quite a bit of time reading through stories that had already been posted and making corrections. AP style needs to continue to be stressed, as does some misleading headlines. The one improvement that needs changing is the communication among the dot com staff. During my shift, the paid staff started to post reporter’s VO/SOTs as the online stories (rather than the 6 p.m. package stories). Then as the 5 o’clock paid “dot commer” told me, we aren’t supposed to do that and we had to take all those stories down and lost time. I am just not sure the communication between the paid reporters and the Advanced Internet Application students (at least me) is where it needs to be. I don’t want this blog to serve as a rant or a complaint box and I hope you don’t see it that way, but if this is to be a true reflection, I must include it. I know that I myself can facilitate this communication and will work to make the transition from shift to shift better.

I did however continue to learn more about the site and how to make it look better and improve the credibility by putting out the best product. One thing I know I will work on more is finding web extras when I am reporting on Monday nights. After seeing some of the reporter’s extras, I really see how that adds to the story. Not only that, they are kind of fun in a way to see the neat things people can do with technology. The biggest lesson I learned however dealt with my roommate Mark Welsh. As we commonly talk about our shifts at our apartment, he told me how a reporter had a story wrong and HE needed to fact check. Too many times I take the reporter’s story and simply correct a few grammar errors and spelling. I need to read the stories part by part and make sure they are 100% correct.

Project
I don’t have any new information, as our group still needs to meet.

E-portfolio
I have spent some time this week thinking about what I would like to do with my e-portfolio. As for now, I am really considering the Foliotek. While money usually is not an issue when I am working on school, I think I would like to use Foliotek to begin my portfolio. It might be a deal when later down the road I would like to change to Dreamweaver, or iWeb. I guess I need to look into the options more and I would really like to see more examples of what I can do with each. This might even be a deal where I need to sit down with someone and discuss the options. I am not set in stone with anything yet, but as of now am leaning toward Foliotek.

Shift Work
During my second week working at the station, I spent about an hour browsing through KOMU.com’s site. I found several mistakes, many dealing with AP style. I found and corrected mistakes on articles Empty Seat for Congress, Wintry Weather is Back, Opening Eyes and Glancing Back at Governors. Your email definitely affirmed what I have thought for the past two weeks. With a focus on broadcasting news style, many of us have forgot AP style.

After that time, I began learning the basics for updating smartdecision08.com. I really like the shift I pulled for updating that site. As I pass it off to the later shift, it is easy to communicate what I have done and what needs to be done as I have a good working relationship with Mark Welsh. He is my roommate after all.

Through the first two weeks, I enjoy working with KOMU.com more than smartdecision08.com, as there is more to do. I think once the election picks up speed and more blogs, stories and other items need updated, the site will require as much work if not more than KOMU.com. I think once my project begins with mid-Missouri bloggers, I will like smartdecision08.com more as I will have a more personal stake it it’s success.

One improvement could be bettering communication between the paid web editors and the students in Advanced Internet Applications. That might just be a first couple of weeks thing. The AP style also needs improvement.

Project
My group will need to meet this week sometime to start deciding what goals we would like to accomplish and how we plan to carry out these goals. I spent the weekend at home so I haven’t put too much thought into the project, but I have brainstormed a few ideas. I think we could target mid-Missouri residents who campaign for presidential candidates to blog as they have “insider” information and could give great stories inside the election stories. (For example, a thing like “Life on the campaign trail,” etc.) Like I said, the project is still in the infancy stage as we have yet to meet, but I think if something could be formalized by Tuesday, we might be able to visit some mid-Missouri communities at the polls during Super Tuesday.

Website Focus
It is a little tough to blog about this section as my group and I have not met. Once we begin to formalize plans, this will become clearer.