Thinking of a journalism start-up
Adam Peruta, an associate professor in Ithaca College's Strategic Communications Program, made a visit to the Independent Media class on Thursday, to discuss the concept of start-ups, the Start-Up Bus, SXSW, Yank and other applications he and a team are developing. What I mainly took away from his presentation was that tens of thousands of start-up applications, websites, etc are designed everyday, which makes its quite challenging for an idea to not be a duplicate of another idea. That said, instead of focusing on trying to have the most unique idea, a better approach to developing a product is to think about it in terms of the perspective of the consumer, whereby you consider what jobs they want done. Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business professor, came up with this concept of jobs-to-be-done, whereas you think less about specific demographics and more about what jobs consumers want done. The example he describes is a person is waiting in line for coffee and they have five to ten minutes to spare, keep them entertained for that block of time. When I think about my blog idea, which would be a music blog that organizes content by genres that are up-to-date, I realize that there aren't that many people that would want to look at this blog, while waiting for coffee. If I were waiting on line, I might consider checking this blog, but it would be preceded by Facebook, Twitter, The New York Times, etc. Now that I'm aware of this somewhat upsetting reality, I'm curious to know if this means that I should tweak my idea so that it'll be more desirable for someone trying to stay preoccupied, while waiting or if there is another 'job' that I'm not thinking of that my music blog would be more suitable for. I guess a potential 'job,' which might be a tad specific, is a person is struggling to navigate through all the new music that a certain blog they subscribe to posts daily and they want a blog that is better organized. While that is definitely more niche than the first 'job' I described, my blog idea would be the solution in a nut-shell, so it could be helpful to conduct some marketing research to determine if this is something music enthusiasts find irritating.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Friday, April 12, 2013
A "failed writer?"
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-fowler7-2008jun07,0,7613904,full.story
Mayhill Fowler is a 66-year-old, Huffington Post reporter, who refers to herself as a 'failed writer.' Be that as it may, this failed writer helped expose two of the most surprising stories of the 2008 election. That said, her writing capabilities may not be held to the same standard as The New York Times' Gail Collins, but something that she has over Collins is the risks she is willing to take to expose a story. "Of course he had no idea I was a journalist," Fowler explained when speaking of her interview with President Bill Clinton, "He just thought we were all average, ordinary Americans who had come out to see him." (The Huffington Post, James Rainey) With that in mind, there is something to be said about Fowler's willingness to suffer severe repercussions and opposition, in order to expose a story for the public. And a woman, who was 61 years of age at the time, who still goes 'undercover' to find stories is pretty impressive. What followed after her serendipitous success was Fowler being labeled as "the face of the new-media revolution that is remaking presidential campaigns." The Fowler coverage actually began when she surreptitiously attended a "closed press fundraiser," where Obama was speaking about 'bitter small-town Americans' that "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them." The reason she should be recognized for her exposure of this story is not only because of what she went through to record that quote, but also for putting her political views aside and revealing the story not for her, but for people that could be influenced by those words. As such, Fowler deserved any recognition for the investigative journalism she conducted in 2008 and does not deserve the 'failed writer' label anymore.
Mayhill Fowler is a 66-year-old, Huffington Post reporter, who refers to herself as a 'failed writer.' Be that as it may, this failed writer helped expose two of the most surprising stories of the 2008 election. That said, her writing capabilities may not be held to the same standard as The New York Times' Gail Collins, but something that she has over Collins is the risks she is willing to take to expose a story. "Of course he had no idea I was a journalist," Fowler explained when speaking of her interview with President Bill Clinton, "He just thought we were all average, ordinary Americans who had come out to see him." (The Huffington Post, James Rainey) With that in mind, there is something to be said about Fowler's willingness to suffer severe repercussions and opposition, in order to expose a story for the public. And a woman, who was 61 years of age at the time, who still goes 'undercover' to find stories is pretty impressive. What followed after her serendipitous success was Fowler being labeled as "the face of the new-media revolution that is remaking presidential campaigns." The Fowler coverage actually began when she surreptitiously attended a "closed press fundraiser," where Obama was speaking about 'bitter small-town Americans' that "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them." The reason she should be recognized for her exposure of this story is not only because of what she went through to record that quote, but also for putting her political views aside and revealing the story not for her, but for people that could be influenced by those words. As such, Fowler deserved any recognition for the investigative journalism she conducted in 2008 and does not deserve the 'failed writer' label anymore.
Monday, April 1, 2013
What is the American Dream?
http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/04/2012s-college-grads-land-in-minimum-wage-jobs/
Some troubling statistics from a job report focused on the college graduates was released by The Wall Street Journal and just a heads up, it is pretty grim. "According to the Labor Department, there were 284,000 graduates—those with at least a bachelor’s degree—working minimum-wage jobs in 2012, including 37,000 holders of advanced degrees. That’s down from a peak of 327,000 in 2010, but double the number in 2007 and up 70% from a decade earlier," said Ben Casselman of The Journal. I've always accepted the reality that since I'm studying to work in career thats been struggling for the past 15 years, a barista job is almost inevitable once I graduate. However, there's something about actually seeing concrete statistics on paper that just gives me chills. And for those (myself included), who were hoping that this was just a function of the economy, Casselman assures us this "may endure even after the economy improves." To avoid any further impression that this is turning into one of those stereotypical existential crisis blog posts, I'm going to change gears and talk about Bill Jacobson's visit to Ithaca College last week. Something that stood out to me while he was talking about blogging is how one of his contributors uses a pseudonym, "Fuzzy Slippers" because she doesn't want students knowing she leans to the right. Although I would understand why a conservative professor would be more secretive if the taught at Ithaca College because the majority of the student body seems to be liberal, at Cornell University I would have thought that students would be less critical of their professor's politics. That is not meant to be a criticism of Ithaca College, but based on how some students in the Independent Media conducted themselves, when Jacobson spoke about some occurrence in Massachusetts, it is in indication of sorts that IC students are more willing to object to conflicting political views. What I liked the most about Bill Jacobson was his humility. He wasn't boasting about his success as a blogger, but more giving more of an retrospective of how his blog reached acclaim and in doing so, gave advice to myself and my colleagues.
Some troubling statistics from a job report focused on the college graduates was released by The Wall Street Journal and just a heads up, it is pretty grim. "According to the Labor Department, there were 284,000 graduates—those with at least a bachelor’s degree—working minimum-wage jobs in 2012, including 37,000 holders of advanced degrees. That’s down from a peak of 327,000 in 2010, but double the number in 2007 and up 70% from a decade earlier," said Ben Casselman of The Journal. I've always accepted the reality that since I'm studying to work in career thats been struggling for the past 15 years, a barista job is almost inevitable once I graduate. However, there's something about actually seeing concrete statistics on paper that just gives me chills. And for those (myself included), who were hoping that this was just a function of the economy, Casselman assures us this "may endure even after the economy improves." To avoid any further impression that this is turning into one of those stereotypical existential crisis blog posts, I'm going to change gears and talk about Bill Jacobson's visit to Ithaca College last week. Something that stood out to me while he was talking about blogging is how one of his contributors uses a pseudonym, "Fuzzy Slippers" because she doesn't want students knowing she leans to the right. Although I would understand why a conservative professor would be more secretive if the taught at Ithaca College because the majority of the student body seems to be liberal, at Cornell University I would have thought that students would be less critical of their professor's politics. That is not meant to be a criticism of Ithaca College, but based on how some students in the Independent Media conducted themselves, when Jacobson spoke about some occurrence in Massachusetts, it is in indication of sorts that IC students are more willing to object to conflicting political views. What I liked the most about Bill Jacobson was his humility. He wasn't boasting about his success as a blogger, but more giving more of an retrospective of how his blog reached acclaim and in doing so, gave advice to myself and my colleagues.
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