Five Ways To Keep Your Online Presence Tight – After You Take the “Google Yourself” Challenge

By Benét J. Wilson, DJTF chair & freelance aviation/travel journalist and blogger

Students and young folks who are NABJ members know that I do resume reviews for free.  of course, the word got out and I do them when I can.  A young journalist recently asked me to review her resume.  At first glance it looks great.  She went to a good school, had great internships, graduated with the right degree and was doing well in her current job.

When I do these reviews, I always Google the name of the reviewee just to check how they look to the outside world. Needless to say, her profile — mostly Twitter — was a mess.  She was very active and there were tweets on there that made me blush.  She also had some questionable photos on her Facebook account.

When we did the resume review, I asked her when was the last time she Googled herself; she replied she hadn’t done it in at least a year.  When she did, she was horrified.

And she had every right to be.  This post on BackgroundCheck.org has a great infographic on exactly how much of your information is public and that information can affect your job prospects and even your safety. Below I offer my tips to keep your profile clean and professional.

1. Create separate Twitter handles. I have accounts for my aviation and journalism professional worlds, plus I have a personal account.
2. Think before you post on social media.  It seems obvious, but I still see folks posting crazy things that don’t enhance their reputations.
3. Go through your Facebook timeline. Remove questionable items and photos.  And create separate lists to divide who sees what.  This article (ignore all the annoying ads) shows you how to do it.
4. Complete your LinkedIn profile to 100 percent. More and more employers are using this site to look for potential employees, so you want to put your best foot forward.
5. Be tough with friends, family and acquaintances. I have a cousin who I love dearly, but I had to cut him off my Facebook account because of his excessive cursing and obsession with Farmville.  You can’t regulate the behavior of others, but you can cut them out of your profile.

If you have bigger issues, you may need to hire a company to clean up your online reputation.  Some out there include Reputation.com or Veribo.  And even if things are pretty clean, you still need to Google your name regularly to ensure that nothing bad shows up.

Finding Your Entrepreneurial Inspiration

By Benét J. Wilson, DJTF co-chair, Online Managing Editor-Business Aviation, Aviation Week Group

I am a journalist who has never been interested in following the entrepreneur path.  I just don’t have the desire or the mindset to do it.  But I know plenty of journalists who are thinking of or actually following their entrepreneurial dreams as a way to stay in the game as newsrooms continue with job cuts.  And I feel the Digital Journalism Task Force has a responsibility to help those follow those dreams.

Last week’s layoffs by Gannett and Media General brought up the entrepreneurial discussion once again.  My good friend — and partner in crime — Doug Mitchell is about to start year two of the New U: News Entrepreneurs Working Through UNITY competitive program.  Thanks to a grant from the Ford Foundation, New U helps journalists of color who want to become entrepreneurs by having them    participate in a national “boot camp”.  It offers training and one-on-one mentoring and a competition for start-up funding to assist news entrepreneurs in realizing their ideas.

This year’s National Association of Black Journalists’ annual convention and career fair includes four workshops — including year two of Sheila Brooks’ day long “Creating Wealth in an Innovation Economy” session — on entrepreneurship at this year’s convention.  And NABJ has the first Ray Taliaferro NABJ Entrepreneurial Spirit Award winner.

But beyond the convention, what is our organization’s commitment to helping members fulfill their entrepreneurial dreams?  I’m inspired by the efforts of members including NABJ Secretary Roland Martin, Mike Green, co-founder of the Black Innovation and Competitiveness Initiative, Meta Mereday, Editor in Chief of Savoy Magazine, Retha Hill, Executive Director of the Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab at Arizona State University, Dr. Sybril Bennett, Associate Professor of the New Century Journalism Program at Belmont University, and Doug Mitchell, co-chair of NABJ’s Media Institute, co-director of the New U program and an adjunct professor instructor at the City College of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism. among others.

I thank Dr. Syb for sending me a great example of bible scripture Isaiah 11:6: The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.

NABJ historian Wayne Sutton writes at Black Web 2.0 about the entrepreneurial dreams of two 11-year-olds — Marci Lawson and Ben Brown — who pitched their ideas at the recent Triangle Startup Weekend in Durham, N.C.  Clips of their presentations are below.  They can be an inspiration to us all!

Who Are Your Digital Gurus?

By Benét J. Wilson, DJTF co-chair, Online Managing Editor-Business Aviation, Aviation Week Group

On Jan. 26, the Digital Journalism Task Force held a joint webinar with Knowledgewebb entitled “10 Steps to a Tech-Savvy You.” Owner Amy Webb went through 10 terrific steps that anyone could take right now to enhance their work.  The notes to that session are here, and you can also take a look at the Twitter chat here.

Step #8 is Find Your Digital Guru, and this one really struck me.  I thought about how much I’ve developed as a digital journalist, and how much further I need to go to continuously improve my craft.  And I think about all the gurus in my life who have gotten me to this point.  I started my digital journey at NABJ’s 2006 convention (my first one) in Indianapolis.  That’s where I sat in on sessions with the Washington Post’s Mark Luckie (former owner of the 10000 Words blog) and Arizona State University’s Retha Hill.  It was the wisdom they imparted there that got me on the road to blogging.

But I didn’t really get into the whole package until almost a year later, in June 2007.  I was covering an airport marketing/communications conference at a beautiful resort in Tucson, Ariz.  It was the last session of the conference’s second day.  Most people had left for happy hour, pool time or a visit to the spa.  But those of us who stayed and listened to Josh Hallett of the Hyku blog and Voce Communications were given a real treat.  Hallett spent his time showing the possibilities of social media in our work and the tools available to help.  I was transformed.

And it also helped that Hallett is an aviation geek (check out his aviation-related photos at his Flickr account) like me.  We spoke the whole time after the conference.  A month later, we met up at the BlogPhiladephia conference, where he introduced me to many social media/new media folks.  After that, I spoke at his BlogOrlando conference for the next two years on how journalists could use social media for their work.  Thanks to Hallett, I was linked into a community of really cool people doing cutting edge stuff that has greatly helped me in my career.

But there are some great gurus within NABJ that are always willing to help fellow members.  You can check out some of them and other journalists of color doing cool things in the multimedia play pen here.  But some of my current NABJ gurus include:

• Dr. Sybril Bennett, Associate Professor of the New Century Journalism Program at Belmont University and chair, NABJ convention Programming Chair
• Doug Mitchell, NABJ Media Institute co-chair; Entrepreneurship/Career Coaching/Project Management/Media Consulting/Classroom Teaching
• Gina Gayle, photojournalist and professor of practice, Univ of Southern Mississippi
• Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Associate Professor at Elon University and founder, LocallyGrownNews.com
• Mario Armstrong, Tech show Host, Commentator, Digital Lifestyle Expert, Small Biz Tech Advocate
• Natalie McNeal, Southeastern Regional Editor AOL City’s Best; owner, Frugalista website

I have even more outside of NABJ, including Amy Webb.  But by following and befriending gurus, you only improve your own work.  And here’s a gentle reminder: you have until Wednesday to take 30% off the normal $129 year-long subscription to Amy’s Knowledgewebb site.  Use the code NABJDIGI. You won’t be sorry!!

New Media/Socia Media/Multimedia: Where Is The Diversity?

By Benét J. Wilson, DJTF co-chair, Online Managing Editor-Business Aviation, Aviation Week Group

I was scrolling through my Google Reader earlier this month when I read this Dec. 8 post on Steve Buttry’s informative blog on multimedia.  He was writing about News Foo, an invitation-only event that was (as Steve wrote) a “stimulating and thoughtful interaction with creative and innovative journalists, entrepreneurs, digital thinkers and technology pioneers.”  The event was held at the Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University.  When I read Buttry’s post, my first question was “I wonder how many journalists of color were in attendance?”  You can see the list of attendees here.

I sent out some Tweets to people I would guess should have been invited.  A handful were, but chose not to attend for whatever reason.  But then this post from Retha Hill, director of the new media innovation lab at ASU – who did attend News Foo – offered more information.  And Hill asked the bigger question – why are new media conferences lacking in minorities?  That, in turn, led to a spirited live Twitter chat yesterday hosted by PBS Media Shift, which featured Doug Mitchell, chairman of NABJ’s Media Institute, among other things.  You can follow the chat at the #mediadiversity hash tag.  My big takeaway was one side saying “we don’t know where you new media journalists of color are” on one side and “here we are, but you ignore us” on the other.

Here at NABJDigital, we have worked hard to spotlight and champion journalists of color who we think are doing some interesting things on the new/social/multimedia side of the business.  Below are the ones we’ve done since starting this blog in October 2009.  If you know of others, PLEASE – let us know.!

• Interview with Brazil’s Juliana Bozan on Women in Tech Entrepreneurship
• NABJDigital Interviews Multimedia Journalist Mark Luckie – Part 1
• NABJ Digital Interviews Multimedia Journalist Mark Luckie, Part 2
• NABJDigital Interviews Black Girl With Long Hair Web Site Founder
• NABJDigital BlogTalkRadio: Journalist/Professor/Evangelist/Skeptic Sree Sreenivasan
• Part 1: NABJDigital Profiles Maurice Cherry, Creator of the Black Weblog Awards
• Part 2: NABJDigital Profiles Maurice Cherry, Owner of 3eighteen Media
• NABJDigital Profiles Marian Anderson of Haute Travels Blog
• Brandon Gillespie – Going After His OWN
• NABJDigital Profiles the Professor Diva Diaries
• NABJ Member Retha Hill Among Winners of Knight News Challenge Grant
• NABJDigital Profiles The FlavorDiva.com Blog
• NABJDigital Profiles Elaine “The Etiquette Lady” Swann
• South By Southwest 2011 Interactive Seeks Diverse Panels
• NABJDigital Profiles Dr. Michelle Ferrier of LocallyGrownNews.com
• What Do Investors Want When Funding Entrepreneurial Projects? Terry Hicks Tells Us
• NABJDigital Profiles shades Magazine’s Michelle Fitzhugh-Craig
• NABJDigital Interviews Renée Horne, FedEx Director of Digital Social Media Engagement

NABJ Media Institute, Digital Journalism Task Force Hold Webinars

By Benét J. Wilson, DJTF co-chair, Online Managing Editor-Business Aviation, Aviation Week Group

The National Association of Black Journalists’ Media Institute is offering a free webinar — Deciphering the Numbers: The Untold Stories of Redistricting — on Wednesday, Dec. 15 from 11:00 am to noon EST.

“Enterprise” reporting is highly desirable in many media companies and local entities around the country as news managers look for exclusive stories their competitors are missing.

There is a wealth of information that has gone underreported or just unreported in the recently completed U.S. Census.

Among the unreported subjects that are expected to emerge as a hot button issue after the mid-term election is redistricting and how our main political parties will be affected by the results of the recently completed U. S. Census.

To learn more about this subject and develop enterprise ideas, please join the NABJ Media Institute webinar, “Deciphering the Numbers: The Untold Stories of Redistricting.” This free webinar will be held on Wednesday, December 15th at 11:00 a.m. (EST) and will feature Anita S. Earls, Executive Director, Southern Coalition for Social Justice and Charles Robinson, Correspondent/Associate Producer, Maryland Public Television, NABJ Region II Director.

The webinar will explain the impact of redistricting on voting patterns and ultimately our system of government. In addition, the discussion will also explain the numbers behind re-districting and how to disseminate accurate and insightful information..

This webinar is for journalists serious about improving their ability to capture unique content for their organizations and the eventual dissemination of information that could help journalists develop new stories and hence a more explanatory way of news reporting. News managers, producers and especially local reporters are highly encouraged to attend.  Click here to register.

And the very next day, NABJ’s Digital Journalism Task Force (DJTF) will hold its own webinar — Video Games: The New Frontier for Storytelling — Dec. 16 from 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm EST.  Video Games, virtually unheard of in the 1970s, have risen to become a major source of entertainment today, particularly for the youth. However, as video games have evolved, their potential for use in storytelling has been largely untapped. This webinar will discuss storytelling in a digital age, and introduce participants to the principles of story and design that can be applied in a news setting.

Friday Fast Five + Five

By Benét J. Wilson, DJTF co-chair, Online Managing Editor-Business Aviation, Aviation Week Group

Editor’s note: the next NABJ Digital Journalism Task Force event will be a BlogTalkRadio show entitled “Making The Transition From Journalism To PR.” Our panelists will share their experiences on making the move and answer questions on how to transfer your skills to the other side.  I hope you can join us on Tuesday, Dec. 7 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time.

1. 10000 Words – The top 7 technologies that changed modern journalism forever
2. Mashable – HOW TO: Customize Your Background for the New Twitter
3. Social Media Biz – Sliderocket: Making presentations more engaging
4. Gizmodo – The Best File Sharing Apps
5. Web Worker Daily/GigaOm – 15 Easy-to-Use Apps for Adding Multimedia to Twitter
6. Social Media Examiner – 10 Steps to Successful Video Blogging
7. Teaching Online Journalism – Best advice for Soundslides
8. Lost Remote – Revenue Streams for Journalists
9. Zombie Journalism – 10 ways journalists can use Storify
10. 41 Latitude – Styled Maps Using Google Maps API Version 3

Next DJTF Event: NABJ Members Review The 2010 Online News Association Conference

By Benét J. Wilson, DJTF co-chair, Online Managing Editor-Business Aviation, Aviation Week Group

EDITOR’S NOTE: The NABJ Digital Journalism Task Force and the NABJ Media Institute recorded our Oct. 29 webinar  “Video Storytelling for Journalists.” You can listen here for free. You need to register to hear  the full webinar.

Right on the heels of our successful Video Storytelling webinar, the Digital Journalism Task Force and the NABJ Media Institute are moving ahead with another program.  The Online News Association held its annual conference here in Washington, D.C., Oct. 28-31.  Several NABJ members were there, so DJTF is doing a BlogTalkRadio show on the event Wednesday, Nov. 17 from 8-9 p.m. Eastern time.

Now in its 11th year, the ONA conference has become one of the must-attend shows on the journalism circuit because it brings together a virtual who’s who of digital/multimedia journalism.  There are also representatives from  community/content editorial, programming, design, education and traditional and new media outlets.  To quote the Journalism.co.uk website:   “Also this year hundreds of participants converged from all around the world to meet and learn about the latest software and hardware tools for content management, search and distribution platforms, to discuss advancements and challenges in the industry and to network face-to-face in order to share best practices.”

Panelists for this show are:

• Dr. Sybril Bennett, associate professor of journalism at Belmont University;
• Sarah Glover, staff photographer at the Philadelphia Daily News and PABJ President; and
• Doug Mitchell, chair of NABJ’s Media Institute, co-director of the Ford Foundation’s New U entrepreneurship
  program and an adjunct professor instructor at the City College of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism.

The panelists will discuss the workshops they attended at ONA, what they learned and how that knowledge needs to be used to help NABJ members stay relevant in the newsroom. We’ll definitely leave plenty of time for your questions.  I hope you can join us!!

DJTF Offers Free Webinar On Video For Print Journalists

By Benét J. Wilson, DJTF co-chair, Online Managing Editor-Business Aviation, Aviation Week Group

The NABJ Digital Journalism Task Force  and the NABJ Media Institute are pleased to hold its first-ever webinar, “Video Storytelling for Journalists,” on Friday, Oct. 29 starting at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time.

This is the first in what we plan to be a series of free webinars designed to help NABJ members and others in the journalism community get the skills needed to write and report the news across multiple platforms.  These webinars were made possible through the efforts of DJTF Treasurer Melanie Eversley, a rewrite editor at USA Today.  Through her efforts, DJTF was able to win a grant from the Gannett Foundation that helped pay for a year of webinar services.

And ironically enough, Eversley is the creator and leader of this first webinar.  This webinar is designed to help journalists who are new to or curious about video learn how to approach their stories when visuals are introduced into the mix. This 90-minute session will focus on everything from how to sequence your shots to how to approach your reporting when introducing a video layer into your work.

Webinar panelists include:

• Andria Carter, online editor, The Trentonian
• Marisol Bello, general assignment reporter, USA Today
• Leslie Smith, video editor, USA Today
• Isaiah Poole, executive editor, Institute for America’s Future

Click here for more details or to register.  And please feel free to offer up future topics you’d like to see.

NABJ Members-Take Advantage of Scholarships for Poynter Institute Training!

By Benét J. Wilson, DJTF co-chair, Online Managing Editor-Business Aviation, Aviation Week Group

Back on Aug. 4, National Association of Black Journalists Treasurer Greg Lee sent out a note to our Yahoo listserve groups urging members to apply for scholarships to pay for training at the St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Poynter Institute.  Poynter is well-known for the quality journalism training it provides, along with its strong ties to NABJ.

And I quote: “If you’ve wanted to attend a Poynter seminar or take advantage of its many online learning opportunities, but haven’t had the funds, now is the time.  Poynter is offering scholarship monies for our association’s members.
You can pick from one of the institute’s many in-person seminars, an online group seminar or other offerings—and add Poynter training to your credentials.  Made possible through a grant from The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the scholarships provide professional development opportunities to journalists and media leaders from  underrepresented demographic groups in an effort to increase their effectiveness and presence in newsrooms. Must be a current, dues-paying member of one of the following associations: National Association of Black Journalists; National Association of Hispanic Journalists; Native American Journalists Association; Asian American Journalists Association; Journalism and Women Symposium; and National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.”

I went to Poynter’s training page and found several things of interest, but the course “Multimedia Storytelling With Video” really interested me.  I’ve taken NABJ and other one-day video courses, but I’ve always felt I needed more intensive training.  So I filled out the application, attached a letter requesting an NABJ scholarship and sent it off.  But it works for the other journalism groups listed above.  On Wednesday, I received my letter informing me I won a scholarship!

I can now learn a skill with professionals that will help keep me relevant in my current job and I can pass my knowledge on not only at my job, but through NABJ and as a member of the Online News Association.  Upcoming courses that would be of interest for DJTF and NABJ members include “Critical Tools for the Non-Traditional Journalist” and “Essential Skills for the Digital Journalist,” with application deadlines of Sept. 20 and Sept. 27, respectively.

If you can’t make it to St. Petersburg, the scholarship can also be used for Poynter webinars, including: “Becoming a More Effective Reporter: Telling Untold Stories” and “Telling Memorable Video Stories: A Poynter Tutorial Series.”  I urge you to take full advantage of this valuable — and free — opportunity.  Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions at regaviationqueen AT Yahoo DOT com.

And speaking of training, please join DJTF and the NABJ Media Institute on Tuesday, Aug. 24 for a free BlogTalkRadio show: “Internet Etiquette: Being `Socially’ Responsible.” Did you miss this popular panel at last month’s NABJ annual conference? We’re re-creating it in this one-hour show! Journalists can post information on their social networks that may be harmful to their reputation. Lifestyle & Etiquette Expert Elaine Swann and Howard University graduate student
and Google Fellow Kiara Pesante will give you the do’s and don’t's on navigating proper Internet etiquette, and we’ll leave plenty of time for your questions.  Hope you can join us!

Twitter 101 for Journalists-More than Just What I Ate For Breakfast

The National Association of Black Journalists’ Digital Journalism Task Force, in conjunction with the NABJ Media Institute, will hold its very first media training — Twitter 101 – on Tuesday, Feb. 23 from noon to 1L00 p.m. Using CoverItLive, this hour-long session with DJTF co-chair Benet Wilson will show why you should use Twitter as a tool in your everyday reporting.

Join DJTF co-chair Benet Wilson as she offers up tips, tricks and techniques that will help you become a Twitter pro. Learn how to:

• Ways to use Twitter;
• How to set up an account;
• Attract and add quality followers; and
• Download tools to manage your account

Click the link below to join us on Tuesday!

The Digital Journalism Task Force DJTF’s mission is to serve NABJ and its membership by: keeping NABJ members on the cutting edge when it comes to knowledge of the latest devices and communication systems; staying ahead of the educational curve with Webinars, forums with experts and product reviews to analyze the newest inventions and to predict their future impact on journalism; and assisting NABJ members to adapt and to become efficient, effective workers or entrepreneurs.

The NABJ Media Institute offers professional development opportunities, technical training, historical documentation, educational programming, conferences, workshops, entrepreneurial guidance as well as Web seminars which consist of quality content and provide resources for journalists of color.

Twitter 101 for Journalists-More than Just What I Ate For Breakfast