As promised, here are some more of the great tips that I picked up while at the New York Press Association's annual convention last weekend.

When most people think of the social media networks making the most noise these days, their minds instantly go to Facebook and Twitter. Those are the ones you tend to hear about most often in day-to-day life for keeping up with your friends, family, and colleagues, as well as the world.

Growing somewhat in the background for the last few years, but regularly on the mind of business professionals and job seekers versed in the digital would, was LinkedIn, a networking site which now has 70 million members worldwide.

I attended this session, led by Shannon Kinney, with fellow Record editor/community engagement guru Rebecca Eppelmann. As she has already done a great blog post on the information we took from the session, I'd recommend her post on the subject for Read more »

Thursday was an unusually busy day for the news media in the Capital District, considering it was the day before Christmas Eve and most people were either already off work or checking out early for the three-day holiday.

Around 8 a.m. we got word of a hostage situation happening about 15 minutes away in downtown Albany. We sent a photographer and reporter down to cover what was happening from the scene and waited for news updates.

Unfortunately, the reporter forgot his netbook at home when he raced out to cover the story, but did manage to call in regular updates as police remained in a standoff with an armed man holding a woman hostage.

While we waited for further updates and photos from the scene, the magic of Twitter helped us keep up with what was going on down there as it happened.
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Many have that question today, across the news industry as well as at Journal Register Company.

I don't have the exact answer myself, but as I've watched our progress in recent weeks, I can safely say that I am witnessing its creation.

Thanks to the addition of high tech tools in the newsroom, we at The Record have made the digital side of news more a part of our everyday routines, as opposed to the former thinking that it was just extra work on top of print preparation.

Take this morning for example. We had an editorial board meeting scheduled with Steve McLaughlin, a Republican candidate for state Assembly, at 10 a.m. In addition to the usual group of bodies (editors, a reporter, photographer, and myself to handle social media/web updates), we were recording video from two different setups.

We had our traditional Sony HD camera on a tripod with a microphone on the table close to the candidate to record the meeting so that we could edit down and upload a video later in the day. But, for the first time locally, we also gave live-streaming a try using my ideaLab iPhone.

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