On entrepreneurship – Page 14

Transparencity: Leading a Technically Philly open data grant project

On behalf of Technically Philly, I have started work on a six-month, William Penn Foundation-funded journalism project called Transparencity, covering the open data movement in Philadelphia, as was announced this morning.

Conducted in partnership with the Institute for Public Affairs at Temple University (which is chaired by my college honors thesis adviser), the project’s focus is “toward collaborative projects using technology and journalism to increase the availability and use of actionable government data.”

The support helps bolster existing coverage and allows me to strengthen relationships with new and previously only tenuous sources. Read all about our goals and expectations on the Technically Philly post here.

Those outputs show our work will extend beyond traditional coverage, but, to start, that has been a large part. I’ll update more here on the reporting that I am doing.

The William Penn Foundation is technically funding the nonprofit Institute, which, in serving as our fiduciary agent, is contracting out for-profit Technically Media Inc.’s Technically Philly news site. …Did ya get all that?

Philly Tech Week: introducing event series growing innovation impact

PHILADELPHIA — Regional technology news site Technically Philly has announced today that it is organizing the first ever Philly Tech Week to be held across the Philadelphia area April 25-30, 2011.

Philly Tech Week will be a week-long celebration of technology and innovation in Philadelphia. The annual week of events is intended to grow the impact of this innovative region through programming focused on technology, collaboration and improving Philadelphia

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How do I choose a payroll services company for my business

When I am unsure about something, I tend to over-indulge in the research.

So, when my two colleagues and I decided that, despite our size, we thought it was worth the cost of hiring a payroll services company to withhold taxes for Technically Media from the very start, I knew I’d be indulging.

In the end, we went with a Center City Philadelphia representative from payroll services giant Paychex.

Let me tell you a bit about the process, in case you have a small business that might want to outsource that work as we have.

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Why Journalism should be like the catering business

I was inside Di Bruno Bros., Philadelphia’s beloved, 70-year-old artisan cheese shop and gourmet delicatessen, when something very apparent sunk in for me.

They’ll sell me a block of Manchego sheep’s milk cheese for $5, or bratwurst or beef from the region for a few dollars a pound. It’s profitable and prominent.

But I’d bet Di Bruno Bros. makes a lot more money per minute of staff effort on its catering business than any retail experience it could create. Rather than having one person buying one block of cheese, any successful retail operation wants to use its economies of scale to up production and get more revenue for its effort by servicing tens or hundreds of people at the same time.

If you have a news site, then what is the back-end service that is really going to make the money needed to fund journalism?

That is a long-held foundation of retail service that journalism should take a lesson from. (And it’s just one more lesson we should be learning from other low-yield businesses).

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Constitution Daily: the best of the National Constitution Center blog

This month, in announcing my new full-time role with Technically Media Inc., I briefly noted that we had launched Constitution Daily, a new blog platform for the National Constitution Center.

A move of that magnitude, I think, deserves a bit more detail.

Last January at the prestigious Union League after speaking on a panel about the future of journalism, I met and started a dialogue with David Eisner, the new CEO of the National Constitution Center, an innovative museum and event space devoted to the U.S. Constitution that is based in Philadelphia.

By May, we agreed that NCC needed to toe into the waters of content to grow its own audience who could become supporters, donors and visitors. In June, we started that work with an asset analysis and creating work flow and a platform direction.

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Technically Media Inc.: introducing a media services consultancy

Simply put, we build audiences.

At the beginning of December, I left another role and promised greater details on what I would doing. Here’s a start.

In the past few weeks, I’ve chosen a payroll services company, applied for tax status, requested a business operating license, closed an existing account and otherwise finalized the incorporation of a new business, of which I am now a full-time employee, answering early a resolution of mine.

Technically Media Inc. is a media services consultancy with three founders: Sean Blanda, Brian James Kirk and myself.

And, while I could get you lost in the details, all you really need to know that at its simplest form, we build audiences online.

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William Penn Foundation three-year $2.4 million investment in Philly journalism

The William Penn Foundation board of directors has pledged a three-year $2.4 million grant to Temple University to incubate “a new organization designed to strengthen our region’s capacity for professionally-produced public interest journalism,” as described by strategic consultant Michael Greenle.

“This will fund journalism, support other outlets and find and cover gaps in coverage,” said Greenle in a small meeting of stakeholders yesterday. It may likely take at least a year for real momentum to happen here. Various matching grant efforts are expected to boost that overall total, in addition to future revenue plans, Greenle said.

In 2011, the grant would create a collaborative Center for Public Interest Journalism housed at Temple, which would serve three main functions:

‘One Stop Shopping’ — Centralized resources from Temple that could benefit public affairs journalism in the region (like MPIP, the computer science program, the journalism program) to be offered to partners in some way.
Incubate Collaboration — This center will incubate a collaborative effort that will take a more active role in public affairs journalism that could very well look like this or portions of this. Or not. That’s to be left up to senior staff, as explained below.
Host Events — Create a broader dialogue among journalists by housing the existing Phiji series and, as I thought, perhaps involving the BarCamp NewsInnovation event we and Technically Philly have put hosted at Temple.

The foundation’s interest in this space was first addressed publicly here after a stakeholders meeting last January. Greenle’s recommendations and work with the foundation follows previous research from the JLab institute announced in April. This project is influenced by proposals set forth by my colleagues and me at Technically Philly.

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Business Insider mention of Technically Philly

Early last month, a contributor to the Business Insider dropped the Technically Phillly name and some other references to the Philadelphia online indie media scene:

Hyper-local advertising and content. Speaking of my home base of Philadelphia, the hyper-local eco-system here features sites of every make and model. Examples: PhillySportsDaily.com leaves local sports radio 610WIP.com & 950TheFan in the dust with its 24/7 online sports coverage & analysis. Gawker-influenced; Philebrity.com, probably assisted in the decline of our once great alt-weekly: City Paper. Smart and dominant technology coverage of ‘Philacon Valley’ by the young team at TechnicallyPhilly.com certainly must embarrass the top brass at the legendary Philadelphia Business Journal. And if you taste-test the foodie editorial of JerseyBites.com, it’s easy to imagine this content eventually being licensed or sold to The Food Network or Fodors. MORE

Thanks Mel.

If I had unlimited money to invest in growing Philadelphia journalism

Smart people are making calculated investments in Philadelphia’s journalism community.

The local NPR affiliate here is getting attention for its NewsWorks online news campaign.
The William Penn Foundation is moving ahead with its mission-orientated drive toward increasing public affairs journalism in the region.
New ownership for the Inquirer crew can mean some fresh ideas.
Independent publishers are always trying to find new ways to come together.

It’s clearly something about which I am passionate and devoted. It’s also something I put a lot of thought into. This weekend, I found myself returning to a thought process of the past, just free associating everything I would invest in if money was no object toward growing Philadelphia journalism.

Of course, money is a big object, but the brainstorm can help. I share my thoughts below and would love to hear what I am missing or what I seem to be paying too much attention to.

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