After Nikolai started the group, he added Steve Yelvington and I as moderators, so we get to see all the applications.
As Kevin noted below two Drupal-based projects received Knight foundation grants. One of those recipients, Lisa Williams just joined our little group. Lisa does great things with http://www.placeblogger.com/. Welcome to her and all the new members.
We haven't been terribly active recently, though I know we've spawned a lot of discussions between people in this group and people in the industry -- perhaps Nikolai can write up what he learned when visiting SavannahNow.
I'm wondering if we could pull off a small conference or gathering at a larger conference. We tried at OSCMS (thanks Randy and Tim), but not enough people could attend. I'm planning to go to DrupalCon Barcelona in September, so that is an option.
For those in North America, would it be worth trying to find a good meeting place or common conference? I'm thinking it would be great to throw some of us in a room for two days with whiteboards and laptops.
Comments
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Great idea
It's a great idea with mini conference. I'm also planning to go to Barcelona, but would be happy to come to the states as well.
I'm down
I'd really like to see this happen, and would be happy to contribute.
Reno would be preferable for me.
Jonathan
I have a building with white boards, wifi, and projectors
I mentioned to Ken that I'd be interested in hosting a mini-OSCMS for News(papers) at OSCMS and the Four Kitchens/thatotherpaper.com guys at SXSW, but I'd be game for hosting a Drupal specific event as well. We have nice facilities here at University of Nevada's Reynolds School of Journalism and Advanced Media Research. One big advantage of hosting conferences in Reno is cheap flights and hotels (if you don't gamble away the savings :) as well as free bus service (with WiFi) every 10 minutes from downtown to UNR.
I can make our building available at no cost just about any weekend during classes or any time during the summer, fall, or winter breaks if there are enough people willing to help organize an event like this.
Kevin Reynen
Integrated Media Coordinator
Reynolds School of Journalism and
Advanced Media Research
University of Nevada, Reno
Reno!
Going to Reno would give me the opportunity to meet the legendary Myrna the Minx, the wry and pseudonymous hostess of Reno and its Discontents, a site I put on my list of the top 10 placeblogs in the US.
One more option is Boston -- I'm already talking to the Berkman Center for the Internet and Society about hosting a meeting for people interested in location based media, blogs, and journalism in the fall. Dan Gillmor of the Center for Citizen Media is a fellow at the Berkman Center, as is David Ardia or the Citizen Media Law Project; the new Center for Future Civic Media is down the street at the MIT Media Lab. I'm going to ask the New England News Forum and the newly-launched Alliance for Community Journalism, which is setting up smaller family owned papers with Drupal based sites, to participate whatever gets cooked up, too. Plus whoever I can drag in from The Herald, the Globe, Gatehouse, BostonNOW, (a reverse published/blog based free daily), Metacarta, Povo, Spotstory, and people from the j-schools of the horde of local colleges and universities...huh, now that I write it down I suddenly realize there's more going on in Boston than I thought. (And that's before we even get to Moshe Weitzman!)
Even if a meetup of newspapers-on-drupal and what I'm working on above doesn't coincide I'll be sure to forward any news on this meeting to this group.
Hey Lisa
Hey Lisa!
Nice to see you in this group - welcome!
I know you're insanely interestingly well connected in Boston (because I read h20town, as you know) - if you get something set up in Boston, I would be willing to make the trip out there.
Jonathan
i'm interested
heh, thanks.
i'd love to participate in boston, or wherever this may happen. i'd love to speak about Observer.com (see this writeup), and work on solutions to our mutual challenges.
Going to the Boston Drupal Meetup on Wednesday July 11?
Moshe, I'm hoping to go to the Boston area Drupal meetup at Toscanini's Ice Cream on Wednesday. You too? Anyone else from the Newspapers on Drupal group in the metro-Boston area coming?
Both sound good
Boston or Reno. Either works for me (favors Boston, since I grew up here). My only requirement is that it should be free or very low cost < US$100, and that cost would be to cover space rental and/or food.
I have previously spoken with DevelopmentSeed, and they also might be able to host something in Washington DC.
--
http://ken.therickards.com/
http://savannahnow.com/user/2
http://blufftontoday.com/user/3
--
http://ken.therickards.com/
And the other Knight errant was already here ;-)
My only goal is to finally launch a local-focused community web site and blog (in Natick, 18 miles West of Boston) so I can get on PlaceBlogger.com.
And use it to put my little Knight project related content and Summer of Code project community managed taxonomy into reality.
Have to code them first ;-)
ben
member, Agaric Design Collective
http://AgaricDesign.com - "Open Source Web Development"
~ In living, loving memory: http://melanconent.com/john-melancon-life ~
benjamin, agaric
Yeah
Sorry, Benjamin, I totally glossed over that.
--
http://ken.therickards.com/
http://savannahnow.com/user/2
http://blufftontoday.com/user/3
--
http://ken.therickards.com/
Latching onto existing conferences
As Ken and I were chatting about this at work Friday, I mentioned that there are some other obvious opportunities to tack a Drupal mini-conference onto an existing conference. One good one would be the Online News Association's annual conference Oct. 17-19 at the Sheraton Centre in Toronto, Canada. ONA membership includes representatives of both nontraditional and traditional media, academics and others interested in the practice of journalism on the net. The focus is on the journalism, not the business or technical sides, but those topics do come up in context.
I'm an ONA member and attended the last three conferences, in New York, Hollywood, and Washington. The organization has more than 1,000 members, mostly American but including European and South American representation as well.
Virtual meetup in the Drupal Dojo
Think any sort of case study, site recipe, mini-lesson, or project (i.e. let's put together a great newspaper site) would be a tremendous learning experience in the Drupal Dojo. Would love to have some of the masters in the field share their wisdom. More info on how to get involved can be found here - http://drupaldojo.com/we_want_you
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
Gus Austin
Legendary? Who Me?
I don't know nothing about no Drupal (yet), or newspapers for that matter, but Kevin alerted me to the shameless flattery above. I love being called "wry." Its so literary. Anyway, you can always count on Lisa Williams, Mistress of Placeblogging, to say something nice, or at least provocative. Of course, I might consider locking Bjorn the Houseboy in the closet long enough to secretly attend some conference events.
My advice to the group? (Not that you asked for it.) When you find someone like Kevin volunteering to host anything, take them up on it. MTM
"Someday the authorities of our society will no doubt apprehend her for simply being herself."
Boston
I just received an invitation to address the New York Press Association in Boston, Sept. 28-29. Two factors affecting my decision: can I cover the cost? And can I recover from DrupalCon Barcelona fast enough?
--
http://ken.therickards.com/
http://savannahnow.com/user/2
http://blufftontoday.com/user/3
--
http://ken.therickards.com/