Jalen is happy with his book!

Alkebu Lan Book Signing

Rocky Mountain Final Edition

It is SAD, it is SURREAL, but it isn't a SURPRISE! We are experiencing UNPRECEDENTED change and no person nor institution is immune. It's time to go beyond reality and get virtual with it. My heart is truly broken for the men and women who worked for the Rocky Mountain News.


Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.


It is equally as sad for the thousands of journalists who will be next. They are lamenting over the Rocky Mountain News and tragically, they may be escorted out the door on Monday. It is time to face reality. I don't like it either but it doesn't mean it's not true. Newspaper print is expensive. Craigslist proved to be a devastating disruptive technology and that was NOT Craig Newmark's intent. The younger generation prefers video over text and the older generation is literally dying. Brick and mortar establishments are going to be difficult to maintain. I've mentioned Jeremy Rifkin's book, The Age of Access in prior posts. He talks about the fact that companies can no longer afford to pay for the real estate, the utilities, the staff, etc. Therefore, a new strategy is mandatory. I know people don't want to hear this right now. But this is where we are.

Pensions aren't worth anything, people are being laid off by the thousands seemingly every minute of the day, employees are not getting raises some are even having their salaries cut, health benefits are rapidly diminishing. It is time to become pioneers whether we like it or not.

Alright, I know this is much more than you can take right now. I'll give you the weekend to grieve the loss and yes, to lose a nearly 150 year old institution is an immeasurable loss. However, come Monday, it's time to get in the virtual game wherever you can.

Anita Bugg, News Director WPLN

Anita is telling the students about the value of institutional
wisdom. Beyond that, she will talk about how her station is
converging online, using sound, pictures and hopefully some video.

Dr. Syb on 880AM Rejoice

www.rejoice880.com

Who Owns What on the Web?

Local Nashville Blogger Rex Hammock was kind enough to speak to my class last week. Thanks to one of my multimedia partners in crime and colleague Paul Chenoweth for covering the class and taping this part of the Q & A.

Before the Rush

Thanks St. John Church Family!

Sold out book signing

Book Signing Hendersonville, TN

AST

And there's more

Ameshia was also accepted to the Harvard School of Law. Ain't God
good? They've deferred her admittance so she can assist President
Obama's press secetary, Robert Gibbs.

Dr.Syb and Miss Ameshia Cross

Upon graduation, Miss Cross will work for President Obama's
administration in the Communications area. She is an amazing young
woman and I'm honored to say she's one of my students.

Ameshia is a Belmont journalism minor and political science major.

She asked me to attend her Alpha Sigma Tau Parent and Family
Celebration and I proudly did.

Mawuli Davis

Mawuli M. Davis Afternoon Keynote at NASAP

NASAP President and incoming President

NASAP 2009

Preparing to speak at the National Association of Student Affairs
Professionals. I'm still Facilitating Change.

Want to know what your friends are doing?

One of my New Century Journalism students, Abby Selden sent me a link to Spokeo.com. Their You Tube video, a story from KABC in Los Angeles explains the service.

For the record, television stations need to do a better job of branding their products for a national and international audience. The call letters aren't enough when someone is watching on the Internet anywhere in the world. The World is Flat!

By the way, I tried it and was SHOCKED at how fast so much information was returned. Add Twitters ability to pinpoint where you are and the possibilities are beyond mind boggling and this isn't the tip of the iceberg.

Amy Webb talks 2D Barcodes

Amy Webb is an EXTRAORDINARY professional. Her multimedia mind and strategies are intriguing and sound. This is raw video. Listen and learn.

How the Internet is Hurting Journalism

This is a presentation by one of Belmont's New Century Journalism Alums, Nathan Baker. He gave it over the weekend at the Southeast Journalism Conference.

You've heard of Must See TV, well if you have a Facebook account, this is Must Read Fine Print. This is Facebook's New Terms of Service. The social network will now OWN all of your photos, contents, etc. From my limited understanding, what I see is that Facebook doesn't want to be sued when a third party uses a picture or content. For example, remember when the news networks used the picture of Captain Sullenberger (the pilot who landed the plane on the Hudson River) from his Facebook page? Well, who is to say how other people will use images from Facebook? In addition, Facebook may finally have showed its revenue source hand. It can now make money off of its members. All of this is fascinating to me because Belmont just hosted the Southeast Journalism Conference where we discussed some of the copyright issues and you will be amazed at how situational the laws really are.

Sorry so wordy, I'm on the run. Hopefully, I can add to this later. But READ the agreement especially the License part.

Host Sharon Kay

You can listen at WFSK.org.

Dr. Syb on What's the 411

WFSK is housed at historic Fisk University. If you're up and in
Nashville, you can tune in at 88.1FM.

Promoting the book and upcoming book signing at Barnes and Noble in
Hendersonville on Sunday February 22 from 2:30-4:30 and on Saturday
February 28 at Alkebu-Lan On 28th and Jefferson Streets from 11am-1pm.

Local NABJ meets with Media Visionary

Harriett Vaughn, President of the Nashville chapter of the National
Association of Black Journalists and Tennessean reporter explains what
she covers and does to Amy Webb while Belmont University Women's Media
Relations coordinator, Kenisha Rhone listens.

Amy Webb

Amy is unbelievable. Her website is www.mydigimedia.com. I will be
liveblogging shortly.

Live Blogging Amy Webb Visionary Digital Media Strategist

dr syb answers your question

Christy Frink, Twestival Nashville Co-Organizer

Wireless Recording Microphone

Marc Krejci, Founder and CEO Bravato Music, LLC explains the Flash Mic.

Interview with Social Media Strategist Dave Delaney

Dave Delaney at SEJC

Dave Delaney: Social Media Strategist

Dave Delaney

Dave is a social media strategist and works for Griffin Technology.
He is at Belmont today as for the Southeast Journalism Conference.
Thom Storey and Linda Quigley have worked hard for more than a year to
make this happen. I plan to live blog shortly.

Correction

The venue is just The Big Bang. Accuracy is imperative. Also, they
wanted me to add that there are two guys on dueling pianos. Audience
members request songs and the pianists go at it.

The Big Bang Theory

This place has been open for almost two years. It's on the second
floor and it really looks cool. Music by request. The band consists
of bunch of guys who jump around on stage between instruments and play
whatever. They
are employees. The audience gets involved, high volume
participation. It's all piano driven music.

They are open Tuesday- Saturday.

Twestival Nashville

Well, Twestival Nashville will get underway in a few hours and I just hung up the phone with one of the local organizers and 2006 Belmont alum, Morgan Levy. Just by hearing her voice, you know, Levy is capable, competent and committed. She and her roommate, another Belmont alum (2008) Christy Frink have organized the event to be held here today from 5-8 at the Big Bang Theory at 411 Broadway Avenue. This fundraiser is a nationwide deal through Twitter to benefit Charity: Water, an international group that creates wells all over the world. The national goal is to raise $1M. Locally, Morgan says they hope to raise $3-4K. It costs 10 bucks and sound like it will be a lot of fun. And it only took them 10 days to make it happen. The two were embarrassed that no Tennessee cities were originally going to sponsor an event. Now Nashville is among more than 100 ciites involved in the fundraiser. They have 100 people registered and expect between 2-300 people. This just shows the power of social media once again.

Beyond that, the conversation was fascinating and inspiring. Levy says she and Frink started their blog, Nashvillest when both were laid off. Frink got the idea while spending the summer in DC and following a similar blog there. They aren't making money yet, but they enjoy doing the blog. Frink does the news updates each morning while Levy goes through 200 different national sources to gather news and information. (Who says young people don't consume information on the web, Levy is 22.) When they redo the website, they plan to have more powerful platform to support ads and other revenue generation tools. Levy says they get more than a thousand hits a day. Levy says food posts are really popular.

And, they take full advantage of the network economy and let the audience tell them what to write. Levy says,

"You want to write what people WANT to read about."

Morgan also told me about some local blogs to check out: News Coma, Tiny Cat Pants and Dave Made That.

dr. syb on Twitter

dr. syb on Talk of the Town

In case you missed this segment promoting the book. Somebody let me know if the sound is too low. I'm uploading from a noisy location.

The Color-Full Alphabet Book

dr. syb's first official book signing and sale, thanks to Alkebu-Lan
bookstores at 28th and Jefferson Streets in Nashville.

dr. syb says....failure is not an option!

Well, today I'm talking about the fear of failure. And a very special thanks to my co-worker, Bonnie for framing my shot and recording the video. She saved me time since I don't have to edit. Mind you, I NEED to learn how to edit again. Every time I learn, I don't do it enough to keep the skill. Guess I need to meet my fear of failure head on. Keep the comments coming. THANKS!

dr. syb says.....

This is the first in a series of multimedia moments by your Multimedia Maven, dr. syb. I'm tired of people giving me excuses. This is rough and raw but I'm doing it with my little 'ole flip camera. I'll read, recommend, review, refer and provide a wealth of information and resources on a regular basis so spread the word. And next time I'll remember to grab my tripod from the car so I won't have to put the camera on a stack of books.

What Would Google Do?

While reading Jeff Jarvis' new book, I am also trying some of his suggestions. He is part owner of daylife.com and offers news widgets for websites among other products. The book talks a lot about links, collaboration and allowing people to network, embed and share information. Of course, these concepts are not new. Jarvis just offers yet another way to think about and to participate in the virtual revolution.

Guest Speaker Belmont Business of News

Rob Gordon, General Manager and President, WPLN, NPR, Nashville. Mr.
Gordon is teaching my students about the public service and commercial
models of broadcasting. Originally, the purpose of the airways was to
serve the public. Back then, licenses were primarily given to
educational and religious entities. According to Gordon, it was 1967
when then President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting
Act which created PBS, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and
NPR. Revenue for NPR primarily comes from listeners. They are in
better shape than PBS because PBS has to compete with the History
Channel, A&E, etc.

Of course, NPR just cut nearly 100 jobs. The sizeable 300M donation
from Joan Kroc, McDonalds family is not yielding the returns it was
before the market crashed.

Public radio listeners are very involved and the personal value is
high. People really don't want giveaways when they donate. 70 percent
prefer to keep money in the system.

The bigger question is what can be learned from NPR in terms of
revenue generation?

Marian Wright Edelman

Children's Defense Fund

Talk of the Town

Clarksville, TN restaurant C and K Soul Food Catering. They were on
the show with me.

Talk of the Town

Hosts Meryll Rose, Dr.Syb and Lelan Statom