Jeff Cutler™ – columns, essays and opinions

During what I like to call my professional networking journey, I’ve been focused on finding events that will add to my arsenal of tools and my rolodex of skilled and fascinating people.

These events have been as distant and varied as SXSW, the #140Conf, CES and scooter rallies. The people have come from all professions, income strata and backgrounds. And I’m richer for the experience.

Today – using the word ‘richer’ as serious irony – I’m sitting at the keynote address at The Non-Profit Toolbox inaugural conference in Rockland, MA. Established by Reiko and Tom Beach, the NPTB is focused on delivering training and other resources for non-profit professionals in the metro-Boston area.

The event was publicized using social media and the organizers are seriously aware of how these tools can give a boost to traditional conference promotion and execution.

It’s not the first time social media was used in this way? Hardly.

You can’t watch Twitter for more than five minutes without seeing an appeal from a charity. And billboards, direct mail and other media are filled with messages asking us to empty our pockets.

There are groups like Social Media for Social Good and Social Media for Social Change already in this space. But connecting the traditional and new communities has been an ongoing challenge. NPTB seems – based on turnout – to have met this challenge with an interesting program and an unwritten promise to teach people how to raise money and communicate more clearly and effectively.

Seems like it might work. I’m not saying this by looking at results, but by perusing the ballroom and looking at today’s agenda.

From what I’ve learned so far, there are at least 50 people in this room who were willing to get up in the inky blackness to attend a conference at a Holiday Inn. Most faces are smiling and the chatter around me is spiked with anticipation and optimism.

The agenda is similarly spiked with forward-looking sessions and what look to be useful content for this audience. Here’s a brief overview…

Keynote – The Psychology of Fundraising

Business/Finance Track – Practical Accounting & Reporting Prep; Creating Powerful Organizations; Unraveling the Mystery of Grant Writing

Marketing/Promotional Track – Planning your way to Fundraising Success; Successful Design Tips; The Web: Your Greatest Resource & Tool

What else am I seeing? Some bumps in the presentation.

Sound wasn’t perfect – but we’re not born knowing how to use wireless microphones. No Wifi – but it’s not a tweetup, it’s a business conference and I’m pretty sure I’m the only one anxious to check my mail, read blogs, and search my RSS news feeds while spending time in conference sessions.

Otherwise, there is great food, plenty of table room and enthusiastic staff. According to Reiko, upcoming NPTB conferences will remain intimate, pay attention to important non-profit topics, and provide tools that attendees can use to find success in the non-profit world.

Is the Non-Profit Toolbox the end-all when it comes to the educational options non-profit-minded people? Hardly. But it’s a start.

What events have you been to lately that bring people together to learn and actually deliver? Is social media the best way Reiko and her team can alert the world to NPTB’s mission and conferences? What would be a better way? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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Sitting at Logan Airport right now thinking about the next four days. You see, I’m going west to participate in the Society of Professional Journalists annual conference in Indiana.

There, I’ll be speaking on how social media is changing the landscape and what tools journalists can use to remain informed. My session covers about 156 sites where writers can find info, share reports, connect with sources, and also have a little fun.

I’m also looking forward to connecting with other professionals in an industry that’s severely misunderstood and currently under economic fire.

The poker party, Tweetup and auction should all be fun too.

Finally, I’ll be updating my experiences right here if you want to follow along this weekend.

What’s the best part of a conference for you?

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Today I’m at Radcliffe listening to various educators and technology specialists. This group of learned professionals has gathered for the Social Technology and Education Conference in an effort to impart tech knowledge to an audience of teachers, administrators and related education professionals.

There are some great things about this conference and there are some failures. Let’s start with the pluses…

*Registration was a dream. Simple and fast. All badges were ready and there was never a line
*Sessions cover a lot of ground so there’s a topic for everyone
*The facility was perfect – the Gym at Radcliffe is roomy and sound travels well

*Wifi was provided! (I still wonder about tech conferences that fail to provide reliable and strong wifi for attendees)
*Slides and presentations are already online – in part

If I were to stop there, you’d go away thinking you’d rush forward and sign up now for next year. Not so fast. Here’s how the event failed…

*It was publicized ONLY using social media and new media tools. So the people who NEED training with these tools are expected to find out about the conference via those same tools. Further, the traditional media outlets wrote nothing about the conference in advance because they are poorly trained to listen to social media noise.
*No lunch. That’s a personal pet peeve, but if you’re bringing us all together for the day, why not foster some casual networking by keeping us onsite during our meals instead of sending us out into the world during the conference?
*By the middle of the day, the conference was running 10-15 minutes behind. C’mon. How can you lose 15 minutes during a 45-minute session? Poor preparation is the only reason.
*No listening! Because the organizers want to remain on track (see previous note), they have disallowed Q&A for the entire conference? These are teachers! Don’t they know that Q&A is how people learn? If I want to try and learn something in a one-way manner I’ll go to the YouTube Learning Channel.

Don’t you think that listening is where everyone should start? How else can you figure out how to respond, how to act and what to take away?

Let me know what you think. I’ll listen.

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This weekend marked the fourth time in four years that I gathered together with geeks and marketing professionals (more marketing professionals this year than ever before) in a conference setting to aimlessly float through the madness that is Podcamp.

Well, aimless isn’t really correct. When I arrive at Podcamp – be it at Bunker Hill Community College (2006) or UMASS Boston (2009) – I am looking to meet new people, learn at least one thing that changes my life, and laugh a little.

Podcast Boston 4 (tagged #pcb4 in Twitter and elsewhere) went far beyond my expectations.

As I sit at Barnes & Noble bogarting the Wifi and ogling the books, I’m staring at a stack of business cards taller than a croissant wondering how I missed connecting with so many great people before.

I mean, seriously – or SRSLY! – I’ve been hanging around the digital and social media space for the better part of half a decade and people like Kara Brickman, Tim Stansky, Ron Ploof, Michelle Riggen-Ransom, Leah Busque and about thirteen gazillion other folks have never brightened my doorway.

Well, now they have and I’m smiling. Even as I struggle through getting my NeatReceipts scanner to figure out how to read the massive pile of creatively designed and colored business cards that have arrived in my life.

Were you at Podcamp? Please share your thoughts about conference take-aways and what you get out of being nose-to-nose, elbow-to-elbow and smile-to-smile with 300 other people for 10 hours a day.

Oh, even the people who weren’t there affected the conversations we enjoyed.

Finally, the two-feet thing in the title…that refers to the greatest invention before or since the Apple iPhone. It’s a photo of Christopher S. Penn’s feet during the opening-day welcome message. The significance is that learning is up to you and if you don’t use your own two feet to propel you toward education, you are the only person to blame.

Use your two feet. Go to events where you get smarter and more connected. Do it. Do it now!

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Here are my session notes from the #spj08 conference in Atlanta. These notes are unfinished, but they will give you a feel for what the session speakers are telling us right now – 11:47AM on Saturday.

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Freelance Magazine Writing – session notes

Laura Helmuth – Senior Science Editor, Smithsonian Magazine

The most important thing is the end of the story.

Look for the richer story. It’s a different way of looking at events that are happening in the world.

Think about sources as characters in your article/story.

Profiles are great sellers.

Identify someone who’s charismatic and profile them.

If you live near a vacation destination, think about stories that would be of interest to people who have been there and who are going there.

Think of a magazine as an object.

People think of magazines as things.

Magazines are a projection of your personality. Coffee table display.

Get an idea of what the story you want to pitch looks like.

Aim for the actual paper magazine. It pays better. That’s what editors care about. Online pays less and is less a focus.

Contact the right editor. Aim for the senior editor. Get a feel for who dows what beat.

Make it clear if the piece you’re pitching is an urgent one.

Long-awaited. Portray the impact. How the story or event or person is giving answers to bigger questions.

Don’t be subtle about any of this.

When it doubt, hype your story. Be a cheerleader for it.

Spell out the story and what it’s all about.

Why YOU are the person to do the story as the final paragraph of the pitch.

Show mastery of the story and all of its nuances.

Make the story fun and entertaining along with the entertainment.

First-person impressions are valuable.

Kathy Ehrich Dowd – Freelancer for People and many other national publications.

Range of stories is a benefit.

Be very disciplined.

Treat it as a very serious career.

Networking is key. 85% of her work has come from editors she knows personally.

Do your homework – research the publication and research your topic very well.

Figure out what types of stories they like, what they have for voice, and try to reflect that.

MediaBistro has a How to Pitch section.

Think of yourself like a lawyer and have rebuttals for every question and concern.

Make it easy for the editor to say yes.

Pitch stories that you’re passionate about.

Find the most relevant hook you can to get the pitch accepted.

Just because you have a really amazing story, you still need to craft the best pitch you can to get an editor’s attention.

Do exactly what editors ask of you.

Hope Winsborough

Topics that come up in the news are great fodder for articles.

Revising Prose
The Economics of Attention
Books to get and read

People are more focused on engagement instead of eyeballs.

Narrative is the way to tell your stories

Really quick three bullets….she will…

Tell about her route
Tell a little about magazines specifically – it’s a formula for EACH mag
Tell about outside the box alternatives

Talk to editors, network and give serendipitous events a chance to happen. Make relationships and make the most of those contacts.

Your editors will let you know what’s going on. Editors will jump from magazine to magazine and they like to rely on people they’ve worked with. Make them happy and keep getting gigs.
Get stories from contemporary literature and events.

There are some basic kinds of magazines most people read.

There are SERVICE and ASPIRATION.

Mags to help you do things.
Mags to help you learn about different lifestyles

In England, The Week is like Newsweek and Readers Digest combined. Go read it.

The Economist. Very few ads. Still powerful and well-read.

These are hybrid titles.

The environment is changing.

amybgreen.com

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There you go. Enjoy.

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I didn’t mean to make the title of this post sound like so many of the movie URLs coming out of Hollywood these days, but it’s accurate. I’m going to give you a bit of the flavor that I’ve tasted while at this professional journalism conference in Atlanta.

New Media is NEW to the traditional journalism hierarchy. Don’t freak out if you’re a Twitter lover or someone who sees blogging as the next vehicle to connect the public with the stories of the day, your methods are coming. But, when it comes to the Internet the news media is only online to connect with colleagues, run down facts, ferret out sources and maybe have a little fun.

In the last session I attended today, Pulitzer Prize winner and newspaperman Hank Klibanoff told us that everyone should be worried about the demise of the newspaper and the value it brings to society. He agreed that in some cases a blogger can deliver the news as effectively as a reporter, but journalists are trained to respect ethics, to report facts and not to infuse articles with opinion.

His main point was that when talk-show hosts and other “liberal media” haters drum the papers out of town, there won’t be anyone left to keep things in check in government and society. And government is one entity that the talk-show hosts hate more than the media.

Contrary to popular belief, newspapers and news outlets are hiring. But mostly for low-paying and no-paying positions as interns and Co-ops. I sat next to Ms. Parker at a session (find her at @wparker on Twitter) and found out that she’s one of the many people who recently took a buy-out package from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She’s reinventing herself as a freelancer but has the same concerns as any new grad – that there won’t be enough jobs or money to go around. Follow her journey at InkDrainedKvetch site.

PR and expert pushers are alive and well. At the sparse exhibition hall I saw no fewer than four (and maybe there were many more) firms touting either the delivery of press materials to writers or the ability to provide experts on any topic to these same journalists. It’s actually a great service, but any reporter knows that you can’t rely on just one expert from one company and sometimes the agenda of a person providing a source might have to be called into question.

Random sights. I talked with NPR and CNN about freelancing for them. I talked with Sree Sreenivasan about blogs and his evaluation of my work. I raised my hand about a billion times in the 60 Sites in 60 Minutes session. And I realized one of the most important things I’ve got to do is find a proper breakfast place in the Peachtree area of Atlanta.

Follow me on Twitter @jeffcutler for ongoing updates during the conference. Sessions run all weekend. Find out more here.

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