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Welcoming bloggers to The Record’s Community Media Lab
After weeks of meetings, shooting videos, interviewing both staff members and bloggers, and other extensive planning efforts, we held our first Community Media Lab event last night, welcoming a handful of community bloggers into our new space and starting the first of many discussions to help better our products.
The night kicked off shortly after 5:40 p.m. on Nov. 10 with a turn out of about seven bloggers – a small gathering, but still good considering this was the first time we had an event like this and a few others couldn’t make it down because of illness or other events that came up in their own schedules.
After welcoming everyone who showed up and offering up some snacks and refreshments, we started the night by showing a video I put together of our staff explaining how our newspaper and the industry itself has changed with the push towards digital. This covered what we’ve seen over the last few years, as well as in recent months with the Digital First initiatives being pushed by our owner, Journal Register Company.
You can watch both videos below.
After about 20 minutes of movie time, we opened the room up to a discussion on what the bloggers would like to see done differently and improvements they thought would be good for our products both in print and online.
Questions ranged from how we can help them learn to use the blogging tools (which we hope to have an informal class on in the near future utilizing the Media Lab as a central location to hold it in) to ways that we can further cross promote bloggers and more.
The entire meeting lasted for about 45 minutes and proved quite successful considering the input we received from everyone and the discussions that we started.
I’ll try and update this post with some further notes on what we discussed once I get in front of my laptop (where the notes live), later tonight.
We’re very excited to move forward with the development of this lab and lines of communications it will hopefully open with the community.
 |
| Myself chatting with our roller derby blogger Marcie Pry. |
The night kicked off shortly after 5:40 p.m. on Nov. 10 with a turn out of about seven bloggers – a small gathering, but still good considering this was the first time we had an event like this and a few others couldn’t make it down because of illness or other events that came up in their own schedules.
After welcoming everyone who showed up and offering up some snacks and refreshments, we started the night by showing a video I put together of our staff explaining how our newspaper and the industry itself has changed with the push towards digital. This covered what we’ve seen over the last few years, as well as in recent months with the Digital First initiatives being pushed by our owner, Journal Register Company.
 |
| News reporter Danielle Sanzone talking during our staff interview video. |
You can watch both videos below.
After about 20 minutes of movie time, we opened the room up to a discussion on what the bloggers would like to see done differently and improvements they thought would be good for our products both in print and online.
Questions ranged from how we can help them learn to use the blogging tools (which we hope to have an informal class on in the near future utilizing the Media Lab as a central location to hold it in) to ways that we can further cross promote bloggers and more.
The entire meeting lasted for about 45 minutes and proved quite successful considering the input we received from everyone and the discussions that we started.
 |
| Bloggers Tina Urzan (l), Rodney Aldrich (c), and Vito Ciccarelli (r) talk during our Community Media Lab meeting. |
I’ll try and update this post with some further notes on what we discussed once I get in front of my laptop (where the notes live), later tonight.
We’re very excited to move forward with the development of this lab and lines of communications it will hopefully open with the community.
Labels: citizen journalist, community media lab, ideaLab, Journal Register Company, JRC
posted by Tom Caprood at
11:58 AM
4 Comments:
Forgive me if it's more obvious than I'm seeing, but, where was the event held?
Regardless, it sound interesting. Good luck.
It was held in our new Community Media Lab on the first floor of The Record newspaper in Troy, NY, at 501 Broadway.
I am a blogger who went. I enjoyed hearing the perspective of the Record and the exciting developments which will improve the paper, both hard copy and online. Meeting some other bloggers was great. With the help of our readership, we'll help improve Troy and the Capital District. All the bloggers are thankful for the opportunity extended by The Record. Oh, the media lab is going to be a great place to stop in. Once the wireless is in, we can get stuff done. I can see it being a place to meet people and exchange ideas, live and in person.
I enjoyed the fruit platter, and the fine bottle of Italian wine I won as a door prize! Many thanks to the Record for the opportunity to post my ramblings.
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