Do you know who is talking about you?

Newspaper reporters are used to readers writing letters to the editor complaining about or complementing their work. They know that their names can be raised at governmental meetings and even in other publications. But are they equally aware that their names may appear in online forums, chat rooms or elsewhere online?

Thanks to the growth of the Internet, it is not uncommon for people to discuss online what they’ve recently read. In addition to stumbling and digging stories, readers can post them to their Facebook or Myspace profiles as well as to dozens of other social bookmarking and sharing sites. So many place for a reporters name or writing to appear, that they might just lose track.

There are a couple of approaches to dealing with this issue:

Google Alerts

This is a topic that I’ve previously written. “Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.” So what you can do is create an individual alerts for all the permeations of your name. Additionally, you should create an alert for any username that you publicly use, such as your Facebook Myspace usernames.

Subscribe

Frequently when you leave a comment in an online forum or blog (you are reading forums and blogs and commenting when appropriate, right?), you can subscribe to receive further updates. Now while this won’t tell you if the conversation that you are having leaps to another forum or blog, but it will let you know how people are responding.

While those are both methods that will notify you by email of updates, there are other sites that you can check on your own, they include:

• BlogPulse
• Technorati
• Yahoo, MSN, Ask
  

Or you can subscribe to a service like Naymz, which has its own Reputation Monitor product.

This list is far from comprehensive, but it is enough to get you started. If you want to go deeper or learn more about this issue, try Googling phrases such as “Online reputation management” or “Online Reputation.” But at the very least, set-up the Google Alerts, it’ll only take you a few minutes, and then you can just sit back and reap the benefits.

Have another approach to monitoring your online reputation? Share it here.

I’m a big fan of data. My first newspaper job involved working with Paradox and Q&A for a project that analyzed municipal services in New York City. And a I applaud newspapers for attempting to empower their readers by providing them with a variety of government data. But I really wish that before they waded into the deep end of the pool that they master the basics and provide the types of information readers may need in their daily lives.

As a reader, it is great that I can go online and learn that the mayor of my town had an estimated 2006 salary of $7,000 or that an elementary school music teacher can evidently make $100,183. But the same newspaper site that can tell me all that, can’t tell me where the mayor’s office is, how to contact him or how to join the local Parent-Teacher Association (in case I wanted to find out more about that teacher’s salary).

Newspapers want people to use their sites and to keep returning to them. They discuss ways to make them “sticky,” more attractive and more fun. But I think in failing to provide readers and site visitors with this basic level of information they’re missing out on an obvious opportunity. And even worse, this forces readers to leave these sites, when more then likely they’d be content to stay.

OK, so what is this basic level of data that I am talking about? Well, I think it’s as simple as providing the who, what, where and when. And then you can layer on the additional pieces. For example tell me:

• the name of my mayor
• how long his/her term is?
• their biography and/or resume
• where is their office
• their phone/fax number
• their email address
• their web address
• How to schedule an appointment with them? For example, are they available before council meetings?

From that basic information, you can then provide links to the mayor’s salary/pension information, council meeting agendas and resolutions, meeting minutes, speeches as well as stories, photo galleries and videos that they have appeared in on your site. And you don’t have to stop with politicians and politics, this approach can be applied to every aspect of your communities, including how to libraries and even building departments — think of all the ways people interact in your coverage area. It is almost local search for civic life or Yellow Pages on steroids.

The benefits of this type of approach are multi-fold – you can bring some of that data you have already organized out of its data ghetto; you make your site the single, definitive source for local news AND information; and you can aggregate all the information that your reporters should already have and is likely scattered throughout your newsroom.

I think you’ll find that this approach will score more points with readers and help increase traffic to your site. You don’t have to do it all at once, start small, pick a few communities and/or organizations and go from there. And if you have another way of approach this, I’d love to hear about it.

I know that many people believe that a website is only worth what you get out of it. Well today, many of you received a personal email from me encouraging you to join Wired Journalists, a new online community. To give you a sense of how valuable I think it is, here’s what I got out of it, just today.

In a forum devoted to Tools You Can Use, I was introduced (or reintroduced) to the following great sites (in no particular order):

Vuvox – An easy to use production and instant sharing service that allows you to mix, create and blend your personal media.
Dabble DB – Dabble DB helps you build an online database on the web.
EditGrid - More than spreadsheets.
pbwiki – Create your own wiki.
Zoho – Collaborate on a variety of online projects.
Many Eyes – Create a visualization in three easy steps.
Office 2.0 Database – Database of online tools.
Kwout – A way you quote a part of a web page as an image with an image map.
Zamzar – Convert files without downloading software.
ChatMaker – Easy chat rooms. Read more here.
Pingie – RSS to SMS.

And there were still other suggestions. So to me, this is a site worthy of my time. What about you? What better option do you have then Wired Journalists?

So I’m guessing that your newsroom, like many, is populated with reporters who are comfortable working, eating and even sleeping at their desks. So it’s no surprise that, when you try to hold a brown bag lunch meeting or a brain-storming session, only the usual suspects attend. Increasing participation is a challenge we have all struggled with.

Now might be a moment to drag out that maxim “if the mountain will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain.”

My suggestion is that you still host those discussions, those meetings and many more gatherings and sessions, but do it in a venue that takes advantage of the habits or your reporters. How can you do this, you ask? Two words — Chat Rooms.

Just six-months-old, ChatMaker.Net allows you to create “very own exclusive, invitation-only chat room.” Simply select a name for your room and the site generates a web address that you can share with only those you want to invite. Once inside, participants can click on the generic name that site assigns them and enter their own name. From there, you’ve got your own online discussion.

While ChatMaker does not allow you to share files or pictures, it does recognize links, which I think justs ads to it’s strengths. And unlike many Instant Messaging applications that allow for group chats, you don’t need to be a member of any particular service or sign-up for anything; and, it is completely free.

I believe that this approach can work in your newsroom because, as I previously said, it plays to the habits of your staff. Think about it, they are already IMing with their friends and/or colleagues. They’re sending their own emails on, say Gmail, at the same time that they’re working on their stories. This is the multitasking generation; don’t ask them to do something different, just have them add another task.

Part of the motivation behind my previous post was that I find, in many newsrooms, training has taken a real hit in recent years and when money is made available, more often then not, it’s used on the reporting, photo or design staffs. Assistant editors, all too often, are expected to just get it and/or figure it out for themselves.

I think the concept of using technology to strengthen the team approach can have real value, but today I want to focus on something that can have just as much, if not more, impact without any tech. In the run and gun life of a newsroom, time for reflection is a rapidly disappearing commodity, even finding time to read one’s own newspaper can be challenging. So it’s really no surprise that postmortems are left for either the morning meeting or the front-page meeting (if at all).

Now it could be that editors are distracted by the word’s etymology (Latin, post mortem, after death), but more then likely it’s that in the crush of ever-increasing added responsibilities, postmortems have become another one of those things editors (at all levels) would like to do, “if they could only find the time”. But I would suggest, I would urge, I would even go as far as to implore you, to find the time.

So what am I really talking about? What do I think a postmortem entails? Who should be included? And, given that time is truly limited, does every story deserve a postmortem?

Well starting in reverse, I agree that this can’t be done with every story, but it should be done with at least all 1A stories and from there, all section front stories. These are your heavy hitters, these are the stories that day in and day out represent your newspaper both online and in-print. And, at many newspapers, these stories are frequently written by the same reporters. As a result, you have a real opportunity to make a lasting impact in how these stories are reported, written and presented.

The idea is not to get a group in a room and select a scapegoat to blame for story or package’s weaknesses; this is supposed to be a learning experience. My suggestion is to limit it to the key players, yourself, the reporter(s), the photographer(s) and, if necessary, the photo editor. I’ve left out designers and copy editors because, in many cases, they come in later in the process. I would not open it up to the newsroom in general and I would not encourage attendance from anyone higher up (although I recognized that at times, that is beyond any of our control). Make sure those who will be attending know about it the day before; I’m not a big fan of rude surprises.

OK, so we’ve identified which stories deserve this treatment and who should be in attendance, now what?

First off, I would suggest that you have the reporter take notes. The reason for this is that a single-page write-up should come out of this experience and it make sense for it to be from the story’s author. This will become a reference document for future stories as well as something to reference during evaluation season.

Secondly, I would start the discussion with what the initial vision was for the story. With that context, talk about what worked, what we would do again in the future and any lessons we can draw (call it the “Supernanny” approach. Show fans, you know what I’m talking about). From there I would move on to those aspects we would want to do differently. What didn’t work and how could we approach those aspects differently.

Before wrapping up the meeting, get the reporter (or if relevant, the photographer) to review what’s worth repeating and what’s worth changing. Thank everyone for coming and giving of their time and remind the reporter to type of the notes distribute them to the participants.

I make it sounds simple, don’t I? Well it’s not, but it is a straightforward approach and, believe it or not, you can do it within 20 minutes. Actually, set a clock and stick to it. You will find the tighter the review, the more focused it will be, the more people will enjoy it and the more they will get out of it.

Not convinced? Try it and then let me know what you think.

Last week, I offered tips that reporters could use to keep and advance their careers. They included: publishing your own newsletter, using double-sided business cards, how social networking sites can help you expand your beat, promote your own work online, and the value of forming your own reader feedback panel. My hope was that these would be easy to follow approaches that would be attractive to reporters of all experience levels. If you missed any, I urge you to check them out. And if you tried any, I’d be interested to hear how they’ve gone for you.

I want to spend this week offering tips for the editors who read this blog — not for the senior or executive editors and really not even for City, Metro, Sports, Features or Business editors, but the assistant editors, the newsroom’s oft-under-appreciated middle managers.

In many newsrooms the team approach is still alive and well. This is when an assistant editor is given a group of reporters to guide, mold, monitor, edit and evaluate. I have seen teams with as few as two reporters to as many as seven. But given the workload of the typical assistant editor, what usually winds up happening in many newsrooms is that the focus shifts from coaching and developing to process — filing weekbooks on time, submitting expense forms, and editing daily copy, with the occasional therapy session possibly in the form of a monthly team meeting. While each of those are indeed relevant and have a place in the overall team approach, so much else gets overlooked.

I believe that there is a way to use technology to improve and strengthen the team approach. My thoughts are that it would great to have a structure whereby you could (at least):

• have discussions as a group
• share documents (source lists, tip sheets, etc.)
• highlight online resources
• maintain a group calendar

There are two possibilities that come immediately to mind: Google Groups and Ning.

Google Groups “is a free service which helps groups of people communicate effectively using email and the Web.” It’s a rather flat, low-tech approach to what I’ve described. It allows for easy discussions, sharing of documents, highlighting of resources and keeping a word-based calendar. It does offer an RSS feed, which is a nice feature. A Google Group is relatively easy to set-up and maintain. You answer about half-a-dozen questions and you’re up and running. The group can be restricted to members you approve, so privacy is not an issue.

Ning “is a platform for creating your own social networks.” From the sites own explanation:

You start by choosing a combination of features (videos, blogs, photos, forums, etc.) from an ever-growing list of options. Then customize how it looks, decide if it’s public or private, and add your brand logo if you have one. People who join your network will automatically have a customizable profile page and will be able to message and friend each other.

Definitely the high-tech brother of Google Groups, Ning does handle some thing differently (such as documents), but if you’re comfortable online and are looking for an approach that tech-savvy reporters will find appealing Ning is the way to go.

Neither of these options is a replacement for you and by “you” I mean interacting personally with your reporters. What I think they do bring to the table is a layer of organization and depth that will make the rest of your team structure stronger. Have another approach that works for you, let me know?

Are there any newspaper reporters using Twitter to cover council meetings? I know that we’ve seen examples of sporting events being covered via Twitter, but I don’t recall anyone saying that they are using it to report on municipal types of events.

I’m sure there are those of you who are already shaking your heads and saying “it won’t work” or “messages can only be 140 characters long.” Actually, I think, not only can it work, but also that the 140 character limit makes it ideal for this type of event.

Reporters are infamous for over-reporting and especially for taking pages upon pages of notes, many of which will never be used. Covering a meeting via Twitter might just be the remedy to this malady. If “notes” or in this case Tweets need to be limited to 140 characters per entry, it might just force them to focus their efforts and be more judicious with what they note. And when the meeting is complete, they’ll have a chronological record of their coverage.

And, there’s a bonus, a Twittered meeting can be pulled (via the RSS feed) into a newspaper’s webpage and readers can be invited to follow along either at your site or through Twitter. Seems like a win-win for me.

What do you think?

1/21, 9:23 p.m. (EST) The New York Times has a great piece today about Twitter and Presidential campaign reporting. If this approach at all interests you, check it out: “Campaign Reporting in Under 140 Taps“

How often do you bring your readers together? I know that probably sounds like a strange question and I can already imagine some of you sitting there shaking your heads as you read this, but seriously, how often do you get a group of readers (and even potential readers) together to talk?

This isn’t such a far-fetched idea, companies of all types and sizes use Consumer Panels to provide insight and feedback. Your newspaper might even have Reader Panels that they use to provide reaction to design or marketing ideas or on specific types of coverage. For example, typically before launching a Young Reader publication, many newspapers will gather a group of readers and potential readers to gauge their reaction to the proposed product and solicit their thoughts on the look and feel.

So why shouldn’t you, as an individual reporter, benefit from this approach. Thanks to a number of online websites, you too can assemble your own reader panel and use it to provide you with feedback on your work, suggestions for new stories or even insight on local current events.

One option is to use Meetup.com. This popular website helps bring together people who share a variety of interest. You could use the site to create, for example, an education group for your area. Once you have registered and created your group, Meetup will then reach out to registered members located in or near your community to announce the event. You can also point people to it via your own newsletter or your social network profiles.

Two things to keep in mind about Meetup: 1) You can keep your group private, which means that you get approve members and only those you’ve approved can see details about the gathering. 2) Meetup costs money, there are currently 3 price plans:

• $12 a month for 6 months (a single $72 charge)
• $15 a month for 3 months (a single $45 charge)
• $19 a month

The other way to approach forming your own reader panel is to use evite.com. Now evite won’t help you identify potential panel members, but will help with the organization of the event. If you have a sizeable source list and/or mailing list for your newsletter, then this might be the better way to go. This online service is free and easy. Basically you select a design for your invite, complete the required fields pertaining to the where and when and enter the contact information for your invitees and hit send. From there, evite takes over.

No matter if you decide to Meetup or evite, you need some place to host the gathering. I would not, definitely not, recommend your home. Chances are your local library or municipal building has meeting rooms that you can sign-up to use. Your newspaper might also allow you to use a conference room, so check with your editor. For a smaller group, there is nothing saying that you can’t hold your gathering at a local coffee shop, McDonalds or on a nice day, at a local park.

Before you get together draft an agenda, think about a theme or a question that you can use to frame the group’s conversation. Since part of the goal is to get feedback on your recent work, I would suggest emailing a couple of relevant and recent piece to the participants and bring some hardcopies. Make sure to thank everyone for coming and giving you some of their limited time. If you can have some food (heck a box of cookies and a gallon of milk would suffice) consider it, although it’s far from a deal-breaker. And don’t forget your business cards!

I think you’ll find these gatherings fun and valuable. I think your participants will get something out of them as well. And I think your editors will even take notice; you might even start a trend in your newsroom.

So before telling you to go out and do this, I need to give some credit to a colleague from Ottaway, Sean Polay, for suggesting that there might be ways for newspapers to use Meetup groups.

With that said, go get your group together and make sure to let me know how it goes.