Quick update from the The Washington Post newsroom: starting July 1, I will join the foreign desk as the world and national security producer. Anup Kaphle (who has been the world/national security web editor on the Universal News Desk) and I will be moving from the UND to work directly with the world and national security teams.
I’ve had a great experience working with the health, science, environment and wellness reporters and editors since I joined the Post in December and am very excited at this new opportunity be a full member of the foreign editing team — truly integrated with the section.
Stay tuned!
On the evening of Nov. 18, I attended An Army of One or a Nation of Millions? Web Design Process and Practice with Happy Cog, presented by the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington and hosted at the building of my soon-to-be employer, The Washington Post.
"Collaborative design process can be..."
(Disclosure: I attended as a guest of the Post; I am not — yet? — an ADCMW member.)
I’ve included my chronological livetweets from the #adcmwhappycog event (P.S. not my idea for a hashtag), plus some tweets with photos by @AnneLikesRed. Chris Cashdollar (@ccashdollar) and Kevin Hoffman (@kevinmhoffman) gave the presentation, which I will embed or link here after it’s posted online.
Read their great insights and comment below with your thoughts:
greglinch: #happycog is different from other shops bc everyone works on a project. Also, everyone works in more than just their speciality.
greglinch: The official hashtag for the @happycog event is #adcmwhappycog. They’ll be discussing their processes and more.
greglinch: .@happycog processes generally include: project definition, IA, viz design (design systems for ease in future), programming #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: Process values at @happycog: collaborative, iterative and flexible. #adcmwhappycog
AnneLikesRed: http://twitpic.com/380xjq #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: All of the things I’ve mentioned in the past few tweets is more of a framework then part of a rigid process. #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: For each project, @happycog asks: What is the design challenge at hand & what is the culture of the org they’re working with? #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: What the @happycog process could be like. RT @AnneLikesRed: http://twitpic.com/380xjq #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: .@happycog will sometimes disconnect and completely focus on the work — sometimes working on paper to start. #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: Sample sketches from Build-a-Bear project, which never launched but, bc of that, they learned a lot #adcmwhappycog http://yfrog.com/28jgmfj
greglinch: At wireframe stage, they focused on the upsell and the call to action — the two fundamental reqs. #adcmwhappycog http://yfrog.com/mn3wqj
greglinch: Another view of #adcmwhappycog event. RT @robleto: Happy Cog speaking at ADCMW @ Washington Post http://instagr.am/p/Srh1/
greglinch: “Fast results have a cost.” Also, they have no-meeting zones to focus on work — and those are disconnected from email, etc. #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: Where are all the #ONADC tweets, peeps? Share the love! Read about @happycog event with: #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: Project definition/IA when working with clients: Early, open discussion with focused meetings #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: Wireframes at @happycog focus on hierarchy + persistence, *not* visual design #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: When you’ve worked with a wireframe for weeks and need to scrap it, it can be hard to get out the thinking of that wireframe. #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: “Rules need to be understood to be broken” #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: At @happycog, they’re great at generating ideas — they need to improve at removing ideas. #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: Photo of @HappyCog commenting system that’s character-limited and can be tweeted. #adcmwhappycog http://yfrog.com/0le4ifj
greglinch: They put ideas on the @HappyCog blog that are incomplete so people can weigh in and build on them. #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: .@HappyCog is mostly waterfall, with only a bit of agile, for their process. #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: “Use deliverables for discussion” — @HappyCog. #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: Mental Models is a book about “aligning design with human behavior” they recommend http://j.mp/bPBZIK #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: Use “existing research and design team as guinea pigs” for project. For Philly tourism site, asked what they’d do on weekend. #adcmwhappycog
AnneLikesRed: http://twitpic.com/381br2 #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: “Balance classification with context” — make sure info is where it needs be, not just like indexes in a library card catalog #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: Roughy 80 people attending #adcmwhappycog event.
AnneLikesRed: So true! http://twitpic.com/381fal #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: “The actual dynamic of group decision making” — You need convergent and divergent thinking #adcmwhappycog http://yfrog.com/jau2rzj
greglinch: Book recs: Rework http://j.mp/c1PlYh and Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making http://j.mp/af7oqi #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: Core Values: full participation, mutual understanding, inclusive solutions, shared responsibility #adcmwhappycog http://yfrog.com/9fvddnj
greglinch: “Pathways to Action Model” — process design, vision space, problem space, solution space, make it real #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: Collaborative Design Process: creative concepts, client review, single concept iteration #adcmwhappycog http://yfrog.com/17izxqj
greglinch: Techniques they use w/ clients to learn more include a scale for balancing site’s feeling & MadLibs #adcmwhappycog http://yfrog.com/c95s9bj
greglinch: “Being dogmatic is for the birds” — find the unique process needs for each project. #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: During Q&A: “People who tell you CMSes are separate from design is lying to you” — it does impact design decisions #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: Quite a coincidence that an attendee mentioned Edward de Bono + his book — I just discovered him on Tues http://j.mp/bCF2Pe #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: .@happycog looks for models — such as from other industries — that can solve specific interaction problems. #adcmwhappycog
greglinch: And that’s a wrap! Hope you all enjoyed the #adcmwhappycog tweets. My fingers (and iPhone) get the rest of the night off.
I’m excited to announce that, beginning Dec. 6, I will be joining The Washington Post as a web producer on the Universal News Desk.
I’m thrilled at the opportunity to work with Cory Haik (I’ll be reporting directly to her), the UND team and other awesome journalists throughout the newsroom. My focus will be on breaking news and working with the national desk to produce their health and environmental coverage, with engagement tied at the heart of everything.
My perspective as a journalist has evolved immensely since I graduated from the University of Miami in May 2009 (read my reflections on those four years) and last worked in a newsroom (Dallas Morning News internship in the summer of 2009). I’ve rethought my thinking and how we can better inform our work with computational thinking and programming concepts, began exploring innovation and ideas through different lenses, and — overall — continued expanding my mind (get a taste with my commonplace book). I look forward to bringing all that to the Post, along with the additional coding and technical skills I’ve taught myself in the past 18 months — and continue to learn (Python and Django next!).
Overall, I can’t wait to get back into the newsroom, collaborate with other areas I have experience or interest in (such as the programming, design, video, engagement and other teams) and do awesome work. I’ll be sure to let you all know more about the job after I start and see how the role evolves.
Why the job change?
Publish2 is moving to Los Angeles and, after a serious decision-making process, I decided for personal reasons that I wanted to stay in the D.C. area. Thus, we have amicably parted ways. The move is good news for Publish2 (stay tuned for more details on that soon), but L.A. is not for me at this time.
I want to emphasize that this was a personal decision to stay. Publish2 has been a unique and invaluable experience for me since I began in September 2009. My first full-time job out of college (see Publish2′s announcement), I learned many things about technology and business first-hand while working at a small start-up. My co-workers have been great and I’ve enjoyed working on tools that help journalists and news organizations.
Northern Virginia has been my physical home for the past year and the D.C. journalism-technology community has become my family here. From friends and acquaintances to meetups and conferences, deep down I know this is right place for me at this point in my life.
With that in mind, I’m also moving from Ashburn, Va. to Arlington, Va. (orange line on the metro, w00t!). No longer will I need to drive to the metro to get into D.C. I’ll leave it to you to imagine how many more meetups it will be possible for me to attend…
I can’t believe my Dallas Morning News internship is more than half over. It’s been great so far, specifically because of the freedom and opportunities I’ve been afforded. Here’s are some highlights so far (Update: now with links!):
I'm standing outside the Dallas Morning News building.
- Working on a newsroom social media strategy, best practices and how-to guide with Travis Hudson (more on this in a future post)
- Reporting, including a front page story on the DTV transition and following the story of an abandoned newborn
- Managing the Facebook page
- Occasionally managing the Twitter account
- Occasional online producing
- Worked with more than a dozen journalists, individually or in pairs, to better use social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, etc.
- Helped produce live coverage of American Idol audition coverage, working with another Web producer, reporters at the scene and managing community collaboration and contributions
- Contributing ideas to the interactive team, Problem Solver column and overall organization
And today I filmed a video for a feature, reporting alongside a another Web intern working on the article.
One of my backburner projects that’s now moving to the frontburner is re-imagining and rebuilding the DMN’s John F. Kennedy page.
I’ve been brainstorming and researching since before I arrived and, now that things are kicking into gear, I’d like your help and feedback.
For the first post in this series I’d like your thoughts about the following before hearing mine or anyone else’s ideas:
Current JFK page from 2004
- Who is the audience/community?
- What is the purpose of this page/section?
- What story are is it telling?
- What’s the best way to tell the story?
- What content should be included? (More than 45 years later, we have loads of stories, obits, journalists’ accounts, photos, TV broadcasts, front pages, documents, etc.)
- What do you want to see when you first arrive?
- How do you want to navigate through this?
- With all of this, how can we engage people and foster quality conversations?
- How can we best integrate community content and comments?
- How can we best keep it dynamic and alive?
The first multimedia committee meeting for the project is Thursday Wednesday (July 29).
Know anyone who may have good insights? Pass it along! Many thanks in advance.
