I’ve made clear I don’t really publish here for the biggest audience. My first priority is to think through or track ideas for myself, with the added benefit of being able to share with those who follow along or who are interested in individual topics.
Year: 2017
Consider a tax credit for employed journalists
Typically journalists are reporting on tax credits for other industries. Should news organizations make a case for one of their own?
Yes, this might sound like it comes at a strange time, as trust in the media is waning. But I think that’s a good reason why: we need to incentivize and instill trust.
In the U.S. tax code (and others), there are straightforward deductions for anyone’s business expenses, including reporters, but I’m imagining something more. This could be a payroll tax credit, rather than any direct distribution, so this is an indirect subsidy of a public good, rather than a direct government intervention. A payroll tax credit would essentially subsidize a news organization’s investment in information gatherers, making them cheaper than other roles in the organization.
Continue reading Consider a tax credit for employed journalists
![What is your passive jobseeker hiring strategy? [DisruptHR]](https://blog.christopherwink.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/wink-disrupt-hr-825x510.jpg)
What is your passive jobseeker hiring strategy? [DisruptHR]
Typically, hiring managers use the phrase “passive jobseekers” to mean people happily employed elsewhere whom they chase down because they have the right credentials.
Since these people don’t quite want the job, most of the research about these kinds of candidates shows they’re crummy: when approached by recruiters, they ask for don’t stay long and ask for too much money and, after all, they’re so hard to find they’re costly. Plus, most of this is happening on an ever more crowded LinkedIn.
But as we at Technical.ly have done more reporting and, actually, more work for clients on talent sourcing, I’ve found the established talent acquisition industry has a pretty rotten definition. It’s way too limited and that leads to limited strategies. That was the focus of a five-minute lightning talk I gave in October to more than 300 HR professionals at a DisruptHR event.
Continue reading What is your passive jobseeker hiring strategy? [DisruptHR]
Wow, I’ve been writing here for 10 years. Here’s what I’ve learned
This month marks the 10th anniversary of my first publishing on this personal site of mine. That’s a decade of publishing at least once every single month for 120 consecutive months. That sounds batty to me.
I first bought my name as a domain in 2005 and built a little site using Dreamweaver, when it was still Macromedia, sitting in my university computer lab, but I let it lapse. I had no body of work, and even the compressed versions of short videos I was creating then were too big for my early hosting package — this was before both YouTube was at scale and Amazon Web Services had even launched, you’ll remember.
By December 2007, I felt like I had a greater purpose. I was an undergraduate active in my college newspaper, frequently writing fiction and learning as much as I possibly could. So on December 4 of that year, I bought a domain and redirected it to a WordPress.com blog template, starting with this post. I was an active and early Google Reader user, following and reading a growing array of bloggers I admired and wanted to join the conversation. I was super excited by RSS feeds.
During the next 10 years, this blog has been a major part of my personal and professional development. To look back, I wanted to share a few things I’ve learned along the way.
Continue reading Wow, I’ve been writing here for 10 years. Here’s what I’ve learned
3 questions you should ask when you’re looking at new data for the first time
You get a data set, or a report with facts and figures or some other collection of information structured in some way. How do you make sense of it?
Continue reading 3 questions you should ask when you’re looking at new data for the first time
Here are a few things I told a Young Professionals Council
Last month, I was the featured speaker in a regular CEO series hosted by the Young Professionals Council of the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia.
More than 40 people kindly came out to hear me be interviewed. We talked about Technically Media, tech and impact trends and journalism. (Yes, there was an Amazon HQ2 question: I said I was betting on the D.C. market but thought Philadelphia had a strong enough offering that I refuse to be surprised if chosen).
Below I share a few other thoughts I shared, mostly prompted by audience Q&A.
Continue reading Here are a few things I told a Young Professionals Council
Journalism is a set of values, not an industry of competitors
Journalism is the process of helping a community near its truth, as I defined it at a conference last year.
Though it’s common among media innovators to talk about newsrooms not being in competition with each other, the central reasons why aren’t as readily addressed. Legacy business models are running on fumes. Those leading them just might close enough to retirement that they don’t feel the need to adapt. The rest of us must.
Earlier this fall at a small gathering of newsrooms from across the country and then again last month at Klein News Innovation Camp, I gave presentations that again hit upon this theme. I took a new approach to the theme.
Journalism is a set of values, not an industry of competitors.
The business model that developed over a couple centuries was so successful that we ended up with a monoculture but that was no inevitability. We must understand that what journalism practitioners share is a belief in how the world should operate. We believe journalistic standards and its related approaches are effective at building a kind of community that has power. That’s a worldview; it’s a philosophy that could be brought into many different circumstances, organizations and campaigns.
My slides can be found here
I helped organize Code for America’s inaugural national Brigade Congress
Long a believer in the importance of the nascent civic technology community, I’ve been a fan of national nonprofit Code for America. So I was thrilled for the chance to support the group in producing its first ever Brigade Congress, a national unconference focused on civic tech, last month.
Continue reading I helped organize Code for America’s inaugural national Brigade Congress
Read this interview with me for Delaware Innovation Week
Earlier this month, we at Technical.ly hosted the third annual Delaware Innovation Week. (Find Technical.ly coverage of DIW17 here)
Ahead of it, the Delaware Business Times did a Q&A with me here and in print.
In defense of friction (Or, yes, I think business cards still make sense)
I’ve met a lot of startups trying to get rid of business cards. Because they seem old and create obstacles.
I often gather several business cards from events and days later will go through them, pulling out the people who are the most relevant for something we talked about, someone whom we have a next step. That friction makes sense. It causes an opportunity cost: by making me take several steps, I am more selective.
There’s this concept of an efficiency tax, that sometimes we want friction. It helps the experience. Business cards are one of them.
Continue reading In defense of friction (Or, yes, I think business cards still make sense)