Posts tagged conferences

Just Ask

This isn’t strictly journalism-related, but any tips on how to get sponsored to go to academic conferences? I thought to ask here since I’m hoping to volunteer to blog and do outreach to US institutions in exchange for help with travel expenses (it’s abroad but discussing issues pertinent to the US and students especially). Any other recommendations for what to do to get there or organizations that might be helpful? Again, I know this isn’t perfectly FJP-related, but thanks for reading! — Anonymous

I’m not good at this but my brother is and his solution is simply this: ask.

As in, there’s no harm in asking for what you want. The worst that can happen is someone says no.

The idea actually works well for pretty much anything. Ask, follow up, be respectfully persistent, let it drop if you don’t get the response you’re looking for. As said, I’m not good at it, my brother get’s frustrated at my inability to do this, and I’m perpetually amazed by the things he goes off and does because he simply asked.

In your case, who knows, maybe you’ll be surprised.

So, literally just get in touch with the organization that’s putting on the event, and get in touch with any other organizations that are remotely associated with it. And then tell them what you’ll do.

How do you figure out who’s involved? Go to the Web site and look at the event sponsors. If none of them work out, think of other organizations or brands or companies that somehow fit in the general spot you’re talking about.

If you get a bite, outline your skills and tell them what you can do for them. For example, I can write, rock the social web, film, create interesting illustrations. Whatever it is, tell them. And then do it.

Who knows, beyond supplementing travel expenses, they might pay you to actually do things. And if we’re talking payment here, or a desire to be paid, see this post from earlier today. It’s important.

Note that all this will probably fall under some sort of “Content Marketing” umbrella and they’ll ask you to do X, Y or Z.

And I ask you to understand that because that’s generally the quid pro quo being played here and you have to be comfortable playing it before getting involved with it.

Some people are, some aren’t. But you need to know. — Michael

#NotONA The Online News Association begins its Fall conference in San Francisco today. For those looking for some morning humor, check the #NotONA Twitter hash tag. But it’s not just snark. If you’re in or near New York City, a group of people are putting together a NotONA meetup. You can sign up for it here.  Just like that, social media bringing people together in the analog world. Image: Via Matthew Keys.

#NotONA

The Online News Association begins its Fall conference in San Francisco today. For those looking for some morning humor, check the #NotONA Twitter hash tag.

But it’s not just snark. If you’re in or near New York City, a group of people are putting together a NotONA meetup. You can sign up for it here. 

Just like that, social media bringing people together in the analog world.

Image: Via Matthew Keys.

A man, a cocktail party, and a public twitter display GigaOM tech writer Ryan Kim waits for his tweet to appear on a live feed at the paidContent 2012 cocktail party. Self-reflection impending. On twitter displays, Narcissism directly correlates with the ratio of humor, tagging, and retweets. FJP: Conferences are such fun things.

A man, a cocktail party, and a public twitter display

GigaOM tech writer Ryan Kim waits for his tweet to appear on a live feed at the paidContent 2012 cocktail party. Self-reflection impending. On twitter displays, Narcissism directly correlates with the ratio of humor, tagging, and retweets.

FJP: Conferences are such fun things.

We proposed a panel for September’s Online News Association conference in Boston and would love your help in getting it accepted by visiting the site and voting up our proposal. We call it More Signal, Less Noise: Penetrating Information Ambience, and describe it like so: Content we create for the Web and digital devices has undergone a fundamental change. In place of holistic units such as complete articles, images or videos, we have atomized units of consumption via links, blockquotes and remixes on the one hand, and a mix of metadata on the other that aims to create a semantic Web. This session explains what that means to the publisher, and how organizations can become information beacons that penetrate the haze of ambient information environments. If you’re going to the ONA conference, or think this an interesting idea to explore, please vote us up. In return, we’ll provide hugs and thanks in your preference of the digital and analog kind. If the subject confuses, I talk about it here for a the first few minutes of a presentation I gave at an ONA New York Meetup. — Michael

We proposed a panel for September’s Online News Association conference in Boston and would love your help in getting it accepted by visiting the site and voting up our proposal.

We call it More Signal, Less Noise: Penetrating Information Ambience, and describe it like so:

Content we create for the Web and digital devices has undergone a fundamental change. In place of holistic units such as complete articles, images or videos, we have atomized units of consumption via links, blockquotes and remixes on the one hand, and a mix of metadata on the other that aims to create a semantic Web. This session explains what that means to the publisher, and how organizations can become information beacons that penetrate the haze of ambient information environments.

If you’re going to the ONA conference, or think this an interesting idea to explore, please vote us up. In return, we’ll provide hugs and thanks in your preference of the digital and analog kind.

If the subject confuses, I talk about it here for a the first few minutes of a presentation I gave at an ONA New York Meetup. — Michael