Item No. 12 in my proposal for a Knight grant asks:
Who else is working in this area? How does your work fit into the larger context of work in this area? (Limit of 2,075 characters, about 325 words — This needs to be trimmed.)
Related efforts are either narrowly focused or much broader than community news projects.
Sprints are a type of short collaboration in software engineering. They are part of a method of agile development, designed to respond quickly to needs and requests of the market.
Here’s a draft for question No. 5 of my application in the Knight News Challenge. The question asks: “What potentially bigger thing might happen if everything went perfectly and the stars all aligned?”
Ideally, my project would lead to a continuing stream of more and better news products.
Small communities would especially benefit. A news presence would become more cost-effective for small communities that don’t now have their own paper. Community newspaper sites would advance further than they would on their own.
The news industry would cease needless duplication of effort in developing technology. The money saved would be re-invested, especially in newsrooms, of which many have had dramatic cuts in the past several years.
The news industry would also learn to listen better. Mass tech collaboration would spur continuing collaboration – by and for the news industry, civic media, and individual geographic communities.
Success of the initial collaboration would be followed by a structure (new or expansion of something already existing) that would garner broad support and use.
The structure would be a productive home for those both inside and outside the traditional news industry who want to combine the best values and practices of journalism and open sourcing. Welcome would be extended to a broad variety of stakeholders – members of the traditional news industry, the ad side of the house, the technology community and the public in general.
Here is a version of my entry for the Knight News Challenge. This advanced to the second round. I am asking for $15,000 for planning and marketing.
Describe your project
The mass tech collaboration would bring together and focus the efforts of a relatively large number of mainly technical people for a defined and relatively short period of time. They would develop one or more news or information projects that are either local or are intended to be made localized.
My first entry for the Knight News Challenge has passed into the next round. I’ve been asked to write a full proposal.
The entry is for a Mass Tech Collaboration.
Essentially, this would be to work out a plan for a bunch of techie types to come together for a short time and make something, or some things. The “something” hasn’t been figured out yet.
Update, Oct. 19: Several of my entries have also been rejected, including four so far today. But some are still pending.
News Atoms 