Bloggers vs. journalists (Buttry on video from 2009)

This is a video from my 2009 visit to Siberia at the invitation of the Press Development Institute-Siberia. I’m not sure why it was just posted on YouTube, but it was. I still stand beside the comments. I was being interviewed about the bloggers-vs.-journalists question (yes, it’s a tired argument and yes, it’s even an issue in Siberia). On another question, do I look better with or without the beard?

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Tweeps soothe a frustrated customer

Read this post in Russian, translated by Google. Читать этот пост на русском языке, перевод Google.

I guess I was showing some travel fatigue the other day in Barnaul. As our interpreter translated for a Russian speaker, I felt a vibration from my iPhone and looked down at a text message from Mimi, sitting about four feet away on the other side of the interpreter.

“U ok?” my phone asked. My stomach was grumbling a bit. “Maybe,” I texted back.

We exchanged a look and I shrugged and resumed listening to the interpreter. Then the phone vibrated again and I looked again: “U ok?” I might have rolled my eyes. Yes, I was fine, just a bit tired. I looked over at her and nodded. She looked back at me quizzically.

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Crowdsourcing on Twitter: My tweeps help me start geotagging

Read this post in Russian, translated by Google. Читать этот пост на русском языке, перевод Google.

Twitter is an excellent crowdsourcing tool.

An email from Jim Cremer, who’s team-teaching a class with me at the University of Iowa next semester, asked if I could geotag my tweets. Our course will teach students how to develop iPhone applications and Jim wanted to show a current course something about geotagging. He thought some geotagged tweets from Siberia would be fun to show students.

I had seen that Twitter was going to be adding geotagging soon, but didn’t know whether it was available yet. I had already left Siberia and was in St. Petersburg. I would be leaving shortly for a walking tour of the city. To tweet without outrageous international data roaming rates, I would need to use the hotel’s free wifi.

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Some Siberian success at community engagement

Read this post in Russian, translated by Google. Читать этот пост на русском языке, перевод Google.

I occasionally get invited abroad to teach about journalism, innovation or both. I enjoy the learning as much as the teaching.

I spent three days last week in Barnaul, Siberia, presenting workshops on interactive databases and my Complete Community Connection business model. My final presentation on C3 was part of a conference celebrating 20 years of independent press in Siberia (80 percent of Russian newspapers are government-owned, I learned through an interpreter, but the independent press has persevered for 20 years and gathered Friday to celebrate its past and consider its future).

I wouldn’t try to report on the full conference here. Before my own presentation, my concentration was split between the speaker and some tweaks I wanted to make to my own presentation. And listening through interpreters, even the outstanding interpreters helping me here, is a challenge. The faster the speaker, the more the interpreter has to summarize, and some passionate speakers got moving pretty fast. And jet lag has probably affected my concentration. (My wife, Mimi, blogged about our interpreters in her travel blog at Rubyeyedfox and I did an earlier post on the experience of teaching through interpreters.)

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A salute to my Siberian interpreters

Read this post in Russian, translated by Google. Читать этот пост на русском языке, перевод Google.

Teaching through an interpreter is something like telling a story on Twitter. You have to learn to make each point briefly.

I like to think I develop some rhythm and momentum in my speaking style when I’m leading a workshop in English.

In the same way, I enjoyed the rhythm and momentum of long-form writing in my days as a newspaper reporter. Most of the stories I remember fondly from my reporting were long narratives, in-depth investigative stories and detailed explanatory pieces. But I have enjoyed and learned from the Twitter challenge and excitement of writing something meaningful and clear in just 140 characters.

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An enchanting walk in the Siberian winter

Read this post in Russian, translated by Google. Читать этот пост на русском языке, перевод Google.

We have experienced the Siberian winter.

When I first received an invitation to visit Siberia in December, Mimi and I had the same reaction: Siberia in December? Really? What about June?

Kate, host, guide and friend

But on reflection, I was pretty glad the invitation was for December. If you’re going to a place known for its harsh climate, you should get a taste of the climate. Not necessarily a feast, but at least a taste. And we have.

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C3 overview for Siberian journalists

Читайте C3 обзор на русском языке, перевод Google. (Link to Russian translation.)

I will be discussing my Complete Community Connection business model Friday at a conference of the Press Development Institute-Siberia. This is the one-page handout. I am publishing it online, so I can use the Russian translation linked above for the participants. Here are the slides for my presentation.

The business models that have supported news media for decades in the United States are breaking down:

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Journalism in Siberia: familiar challenges

Read this post in Russian, translated by Google. Читать этот пост на русском языке, перевод Google.

I’m a world away from American journalists, speaking through a Russian interpreter, but this still sounds somehow familiar:

When I talk about new tools, new storytelling techniques and new business models, journalists ask whether this is still journalism.

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A historic front page with the lead story missing

Read this post in Russian, translated by Google. Читать этот пост на русском языке, перевод Google.

I love an old front page, especially a historic one.

As much as I spend my time trying to lead, prod and catch up in the digital world, nothing makes me stop and read like a yellowing front page with a historic story or photograph or both. I display historic front pages in my office, two mounted in permanent frames and others rotating into a case my son Joe designed for temporary display. I came to Siberia bearing my own historic front page as a gift to my hosts, and quickly decided I should give it to Yuri Purgin, director general of Altapress, publisher of 13 regional publications, based in Barnaul. I wanted to give him a copy of the June 13, 2008 Epic Surge edition of The Gazette.

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Heading to Siberia soon to talk about C3 and learn about a distant land

Read this post in Russian, translated by Google. Читать этот пост на русском языке, перевод Google.

For much of my life, Siberia was this cold, distant land where the Soviet Union sent its dissidents to work in gulags. And I presume Russians, if they thought of Iowa at all, thought of our state as a flat place where we grow lots of corn (Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev visited the Roswell Garst farm in Coon Rapids, Iowa, in 1959.)

While both stereotypes are based in truth (Iowa isn’t really flat, but it is compared to Siberia’s mountains), I know from years living in and around Iowa that the stereotype is shallow and incomplete. I’m sure my stereotype of Siberia is similarly shallow and incomplete. I’m looking forward to learning more about Siberia on a trip that starts Sunday.

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