On entrepreneurship – Page 6

10 Technically projects that never went anywhere

Build an organization and you’ll start projects that will need to be dropped. Focus is hard, but as creative ideas spiral, you’ll to trim. By instinct, I’m much better at starting something new, than focusing on the best of them — so I’ve made it a resolution in recent years.

In five years of building what has become Technical.ly, we’ve tried plenty that we dropped to get closer to the model we have, first starting with Technical.ly Philly. There’s a lesson there in developing your organization: try to stretch, drop what doesn’t work and refine.

Journalism DNA: Is Technical.ly a journalism outlet?

Acts of journalism are challenging and at times infrequent things for local news organizations. Pushing a community and seeking to find outcomes through difficult questions is the best of what media can do. Balancing that with the work tied to creating a sustainable news venture is a consuming one. Here’s where I am in my thinking about that process.

When we launched in 2009 what has since become Technical.ly, we always prepared for a content mixture that would include information and community journalism. We were trained in a newspaper worldview that put a type of ethical paradigm and professional standards that we embraced, even as we challenged its traditions.

Along the way, I found out that I want to build something that could have an impact. Pessimists are nothing but spectators and reporters are almost always pessimists.

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What you need to know to work at a startup

I work at a startup. Not a tech startup or, to be honest, according to some, any kind of startup at all. I help lead a growing, young, small media business that happens to cover technology companies and startup culture, so I’m around conversations about definitions a lot.

Let me be clear: in this post, I’m using the definition I use for ‘startup,’ meaning a young company testing a business model. I’m writing here about what type of person I’m finding can work best in such an environment, which is different (but neither better, nor worse) than a large corporation or even another smaller, but more stable and more clearly defined, organization.

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Design elements you should steal from our Technical.ly redesign

After four years with the same Technical.ly Philly WordPress theme and six months after our Baltimore launch, we united our brands with a complete redesign under Technical.ly in March.

The design was led by Tom Rose and we partnered on the WordPress development (WordPress multisite) with WebDev Studios. We’re still making our way through bugs and looking toward a second phase, but I’m proud enough of a few design elements that I want to share.

My colleague Brian Kirk and I put no less than a year of thought into the effort, so we offered considerable direction and then watched Tom and WebDev exceed in making those plans a reality. Read a more general assessment of the redesign on our company blog here, and find a recap of our old site here.

Below, find some small elements that I’m most proud of and think should inform your design work.

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Baltimore City Council’s first hearing on innovation economy; our role in it

The largest event we helped organize during the second annual Baltimore Innovation Week was our opening party that drew 1,000 people to Penn Station Plaza in partnership with the Gathering food trucks and Station North Arts and Entertainment Inc.

The party activated a public space, as seen in the above photo from the event’s beginning, widened the reach of a narrow technology community and brought about other partnerships. It was fun and exciting and big.

But likely the event with bigger direct impact was the small Baltimore City Council hearing we helped launch with District 7 Councilman Nick Mosby, the first ever city council hearing dedicated to the innovation economy in Baltimore.

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Best of Philly and Best of Baltimore honoree: Technical.ly

Both Technically Philly and Technically Baltimore were honored in the prestigious annual ‘Best of’ lists from their respective city magazines this year. It’s really validating and rewarding to get nods in two different cities from prestigious city magazines.

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5 Instagram photos from Philly Tech Week 2013

The third annual Philly Tech Week was the largest yet, and its impact was clear.

Rather than recite the more than 80 events and 150 partners, I thought I’d share a few Instagram photos I saw that helped me feel the week was growing and proud about my involvement. That’s mostly because the photos were taken by people I didn’t know.

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New Technically Philly office space

Back in September, my cofounder Brian James Kirk and I moved our Philadelphia operations from Temple University Center City at 1515 Market Street to the new University City headquarters of First Round Capital.

This month, Geekadelphia visited the 10,000 square foot renovated space, in which we are now based.

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Relationships are currency

Relationships are a currency.

They’re worth something — friendships, acquaintances, colleagues, sources. They enrich our lives and, yes, they are integral to any success. Things get done by people who have relationships, to help guide, support, advise and strengthen goals.

This goes for everyone, but there are surely some industries that need them more than others: construction and development, politics and government and, certainly, reporting and community building. So I think a lot about the connections and people who make up community in all of its forms.

If relationships are one of the most valuable resources we have, why do we so often ignore their impact and why do three types of people so often abuse the role of connection?

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Innovations (and shortcomings) in College Media: notes from latest ONA Philly event

ona-jawn — The early crowd at Thursday’s Future of College Media ONA event.

College newspapers are facing the same challenges of their commercial counterparts have had for decades but, despite their advantages, are struggling to fundamentally innovate.

Nearly 40 professional journalists, students and college administrators attended representing a half dozen universities and student newspapers attended Thursday the Future of College Media event I helped organize with Temple University Journalism Department Chair Andy Mendelson for our monthly local Online News Association get-together.

None of the newspapers represented had made any revenue outside of print and web advertising.

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