Monthly Archives: March 2011

Tips

3 Mac Tips for More Efficient Workflow

Many newsrooms are switching to Macs as they replace old equipment and put more focus on digital. While a Mac isn’t necessarily superior to a PC, it can simplify your computing.

Here are three quick tips that will help you get the most from your MacBook, MacBook Pro or iMac.

Spotlight

Does your desktop look like this?

If it does, then that’s just unacceptable. One of the best features on a Mac is the ability to search the entire computer, and to do so quickly and easily. Start the cleanup by familiarizing yourself with Spotlight. Press Command + Spacebar and you’ll see that the top right corner opens to a search field. (You can also just click on the magnifying glass, but the sooner you get started with keyboard shortcuts, the better.)

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@ModernJourno Tweets for Mar. 25

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Social Media, Tips

Social Media Is About Failure and Forgiveness

This post was originally published Mar. 25, 2011, for the Asian American Journalists Association.

How to do social media right: experiment, screw up and ask for forgiveness.

Repeat until you succeed.

“Be fearless,” said Kevin Sablan, head of the Orange County Register’s web efforts and new-media leader. He gave a presentation Wednesday on social media and innovation, presented by the Asian American Journalists Association of San Diego.

View of the audience at the Microsoft Store during Kevin Sablan's presentation.

The audience at AAJA-San Diego's program on social media and innovation at the Microsoft Store in San Diego, California, on March 23, 2011.

Sablan, AAJA-San Diego’s first speaker of 2011, told the journalists and public relations professionals in attendance that even successful companies like Google have made their share of mistakes. He took us through its product graveyard that houses forgettable products including Google Buzz, its answer to Twitter and Facebook, and Google Wave, which was supposed to make-over Gmail.

Both were flops, Sablan said, but showed the importance of trying something new, giving up when things don’t work and not belaboring failure.

Sablan, a respected member of the Web journalism community, also talked about tools that help people filter, group and make sense of the noise on Facebook, Twitter and other social-media channels.

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@ModernJourno Tweets for Mar. 18

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@ModernJourno Tweets for Mar. 17

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@ModernJourno Tweets for Mar. 16

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@ModernJourno Tweets for Mar. 15

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@ModernJourno Tweets for Mar. 14

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Social Media, Tools

The One Rule of Social Media: Experiment

Headshots of the panelists from Mashable's NextUp NYC

Today’s journalism landscape will change tomorrow. And that’s an exciting concept, no doubt, but it can also be frustrating.

So when I signed up to attend last month’s panel, called “The Emerging Skills of Tomorrow’s Journalist,” I thought I’d leave with answers. Would someone actually be able to point me in the right direction? Would I leave knowing which tools make it simpler for journalists to navigate this rough sea of social journalism?

Turns out, I didn’t leave with answers. The panel featured Mashable’s Vadim Lavrusik, New York University’s Jay Rosen, CNN’s Laurie Segall, the New York Times’ Jenna Wortham and All Things Digital’s Drake Martinet, but it quickly became apparent that even these leaders don’t have any magic beans in their pockets.

And in a way, this was the panel’s most powerful message: the secret is, there is no secret.

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@ModernJourno Tweets for Mar. 10

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