I took a walk tonight. That’s not unusual. I’ve been taking walks a couple of times a day for the past 12 years. Tonight, though, I didn’t have my companion of those 12 years, my little dog Sadie. It felt different. It was different. My own walking gait depended on Sadie’s short legs, her investigation of grass and bushes and poles and fire hydrants. Her gait had slowed in the past year, but she still loved the walks we took. I did too. It was just Sadie and me. No music or podcasts or phone calls. I liked listening to the rhythm of the neighborhood in the seasons, paying attention to flowers and grass and houses and people walking their dogs. During the pandemic, it seemed like freedom to be outside walking, carefully crossing the street when another person approached. I said goodbye to Sadie just a few days ago. I miss her presence and the punctuation she added to my life — time to take her out, to feed her, to take her for a walk. I took a path tonight that Sadie loved, a little bit longer walk. My gait was unsteady, unused to no stops except at street corners. My hand felt empty without the leash. I’m glad I went for that walk. But I don’t think I’ll ever walk around the neighborhood and not wish I could be with Sadie for one more stroll.
I will be attending my first SRCCON this week and I’m looking forward to the experience. My colleague and friend Julia Smith recommended the experience as I start on my data journalism journey. This smallish conference of about 300 people seems a great fit. Here’s the description from SRRCON’s About page:
SRCCON (a contraction of “Source con”) is a highly participatory and extraordinarily inclusive conference where participants come first so they can focus on collaborating on the work at hand: transforming the way journalism works for them, their colleagues, and their communities. About 1/3 of attendees are also session facilitators, leading conversations and collaborative workshops focused on the practical challenges that news technology and data teams encounter every day.
Even better, the team at SRCCON sent out some tips to prepare for the conference and what comes next in an AfterParty ToolKit. Where has this been during my conference-going life? It’s full of good ideas to really plan and get the most out of the conference experience and how to share what you’ve learned with colleagues, whether in a classroom or on the job.
While my somewhat introverted self is a bit apprehensive about new conference, new people, I’m also excited about the people I can meet and the things I will be able to learn. Time to go do my pre-conference homework. And think about packing.
I never got to meet Joella Cohen, but this dynamo of a woman has changed my life. The journalist-public relations professional- producer-antiques dealer (and probably many more titles) established the Joella Cohen Endowed Chair in Journalism at Creighton University. I am the inaugural chair holder, an honor and challenge that takes my breath away. Journalism needs this kind of boost as we struggle to find business models that work and with regaining trust. We need to connect with our audiences and build new ones. While I can’t tackle every challenge with this endowed chair, I appreciate the time and freedom to do what I can, where I am to make journalism better.
Ms. Cohen graduated from Creighton in 1948. We share the honor of each of us having held the job as editor of the Creightonian newspaper while we were students here. Her career spanned news and public relations and about everything in between. According to Creighton Magazine, she also worked with nonprofits. She produced commercials and other promotions for a Green Bay, Wisconsin, television station. She worked for Columbia Pictures in New York promoting a movie called “The New Interns.” She came back to Omaha to open her own business and became an antique dealer and curator of the Omaha Auction Center.
My own goals over the next few years are to explore new ways of telling stories such as solutions journalism focuses on responses to problems. Still a rigorous exploration of what works and what doesn’t, but solutions journalism comes at stories with a different frame. I’m also exploring data journalism and how to integrate that into our curriculum. This first year is exploring best data journalism practices, meeting attending conferences and learning how to do data journalism and data visualization.
Navigating the tricky etiquette of using cellphones in public can be full of minefields What is polite? What is just the way it is? Pew Research Center explored those concepts in a survey, and what the survey found was we have conflicting views.
“Mobile devices play a complex role in modern social interactions — many Americans view them as harmful and distracting to group dynamics, even as they can’t resist the temptation themselves.”
I posed the questions from the survey to my Information Concepts class. Their responses echoed the idea of tricky navigation — the cellphone can be very helpful in finding your way, meeting up with friends, keeping in touch with friends and family. (Most text or receive texts from parents daily.) Some of the places where phone use is not OK on the survey included family dinners, though students said their parents are so connected to their own phones that that stricture depends.
One of the survey responses asked whether people used the phone to avoid interactions. The percentage number was low and that felt wrong to me. I know I have used my phone to avoid talking to people in elevators or to avoid initiating contact. The students agreed with that, but they took it a bit farther. Your phone can help distract you when you are waiting in line or have nothing to do, but it also can make you look and feel connected when you are somewhere by yourself. You’re saying: See, I’m not really alone.
My take on their discussion was that being on the phone, whether talking, pretend talking, texting or just scrolling Instagram kept them from what was perceived as looking lonely. It’s a subtle and interesting shift from the Pew Research Center’s category of “Avoid interactions.” How do we nurture the idea that being alone can be OK? It doesn’t always translate to lonely. I understand how hard that can be when social anxiety hits me on occasion. Years of being a reporter have helped make me a wizard at small talk, at being able to strike up a conversation almost anywhere with almost anyone. Those same years of constantly having to answer the phone, knowing that every call meant someone wanted something have made me more appreciative of the beauty of the moments of just being alone, of the freedom of not being connected.
You’ve probably all experienced it. That frantic feeling when you’ve misplaced your phone. For many, it’s a tether to organizing life with the calendar, maps, alarm clock, clock, music, messages and connections. Is it a tether or is it an anchor, weighing us down and leaving us without a moment of peace?
A class discussion triggered this post for me. I don’t think I am as anchored to my phone as some. Messages come mostly from family and sometimes students. I do check, somewhat incessantly, Twitter and my email.
This summer I spent some time in West Virginia on a farm that had spotty service as well as a one-week phone ban during part of our three-week stay. Live in the present. In the moment. With those right here and now. I also was in Africa, where WiFi service was hit or miss. I found I didn’t really miss it all that much. Those weeks of travel helped to curb my social media addiction.
When I got back to my Omaha life, I realized that my incessant checking is more of a way to fill time, a distraction. I don’t have to be distracted every minute. I find social media interesting and useful for following the news, finding out new developments in social media, journalism or entrepreneurship. And sometimes, it just makes me laugh. But there is such a thing as too much distraction. I need to focus more. I’m not getting rid of the phone or the Twitter account. I can set it aside. I can turn off the tweets. I would like the phone and what it represents to be less of an anchor dragging me into distraction and more of a tether keeping me connected.
We usually think of an earworm as one of those 1980s one-hit wonder songs or any-generation pop song that you can’t get out of your head. Let me pause for a minute here while you try to get something unstuck. Sorry.
But I’ve learned of a different kind of earworm: the academic/mentoring kind. That voice in your head that sounds like one of your professors — perhaps a mentor or a relative — that goes off when you are about to commit a grammatical sin. Or when you are about to tweet something that common sense would tell you is a bad idea.
Chuck Zuegner at work
My father, Chuck Zuegner or Mr. Z as he was known, also was a journalism professor. He taught hundreds of Creighton students and I always love when I run into someone who had him as a professor. One recent exchange with one of Mr. Z’s students — Glenn Reedus, a talented Chicago journalist — made me think of the earworm. Glenn told me he was about to write “which” and a little voice that sounded a lot like Mr. Z made him stop, think and use “that” instead. Mr. Z’s editing advice is one thing Glenn remembers, but he also remembers the encouragement and tough love when it was needed that Mr. Z doled out.
I am lucky enough to have Mr. Z’s voice in my head and my heart all the time, doling out encouragement and tough love in my teaching, my journalism and my life.
My own version of the earworm came when awesome Creighton senior Lauren Dries tweeted that she was going to use “comprised of” but a little voice that sounded suspiciously like me warned her off that “of.” (Not needed with comprise.)
I want my students to remember grammar/punctuation and syntax rules. I want them to write cleanly and accurately and always keep the reader in mind. I want them to bear witness, to always think of the people they write about and film as people, not just sources. I can only hope to be that little earworm that offers encouragement and tough love. (And that says don’t use “of” with comprise.)
Students in my Entrepreneurial Media class started out the semester on a creative note as we used an improv exercise I had learned at the terrific MediaShift-sponsored Collab Space Atlanta in 2013. Watching my students come up with media-based products developed from nouns I generated on a random noun generator was really fun. The noun “Cent” became a random advice generator app (2 cents worth) while the noun “pull” led students to come up with an idea for an app that quickly listed hours for restaurants and bars. All of the ideas were terrific, perhaps not ready for prime-time development, but ideas that I think let them begin to see the process of finding a pain point or solving a problem.
Students Madeline Zukowski, Mikayla Savell-Flott, Rachel Cain and Maggie McCormick turn randomly generated nouns into apps.
The real work is to come, of course. But one of the main things I want them to get out of this course (and all of my courses) is that you never stop learning, never stop thinking: Hey, that’s an interesting idea. Whether sitting at a conference, following a link on Twitter or even sitting in a class, there’s always more to learn.
I’m assigning myself the same assignment I give to my students in most of my classes at the end of the semester: Write a reflection on what you’ve learned, what you liked, what you didn’t like. What could be better in this class? Students also fill out confidential evaluations, but I ask them to be candid in these blog posts.
I really enjoyed this semester. It was a little rocky at times because I was on sabbatical in the fall. Getting into the academic rhythm again was tough. At times, I felt a step or two behind. Now I can hardly believe the semester is over. My classes range from one that focuses on international mass communication, including freedom of the press and human rights to social media and entrepreneurial media.
Julianna Zieno and the rest of the social media class like pie.
What I learned:
My students are doing some pretty amazing things. For the social media class, students develop an analysis and strategic social media plan for a client. I ask them to choose a student organization or a small business that they know something about. I have students who ride horses, ice skate, skateboard down mountains. They developed plans for a tanning salon, insurance agency, nail salon, wedding gown store, dogwalker, art and sip shop, Grants Farm, contractor, fitness studio, community garden,a restaurant, Creighton’s rowing team and for the off-season of Creighton men’s basketball. There were plans for the Creightonian, New Student Orientation, DoIt for Students, Skutt, a boutique, Creighton Students Union, a group promoting designated driving and a dentist. And while some may scoff at a class requiring students to be on Twitter and Pinterest, the social media plans were strategic and included metrics and creative ideas.
Requiring an elevator pitch strikes terror into the hearts of my students, but they generally rate the experience as one of the best learning moments of the semester.
Local entrepreneurs are incredibly generous with their time. Thanks again to Creighton Otter of White and Blue Review, Andrew Norman of Hear Nebraska, Steve Gordon of RDQLUS, Josh and Nick of MTRL Design. JMCAwesome alums Brittany Mascio, Bridget McQuillan and Peter Freeze talked to us about life at startups. And Danny Schreiber of Zapier talked to my Social Media class about content marketing. In these fast-evolving worlds, it’s great to have people on the frontlines offering advice and encouragement. I heard so many great pieces of advice but two stick with me. Steve Gordon told them to live big. And Andrew Norman: “Don’t be afraid to be afraid.”
Focusing on genocide at the end of the semester can be depressing, but students see the arc of the international class and reflect on why we have to value human life everywhere on the planet.
I love having my students write blogs because I think it’s good for their professional portfolio and because I can learn so much from them. I just finished grading a group of freestyle blogs — no prompt from me for the assignment. Write about what you want, preferably something to do with the course topic of social media.
The social media class that teaches me many things.
One of my favorites came from Morgan Ryan, who wrote that she wants to hire herself as her own intern this summer to really work on her design portfolio and website. A heavy class load, extracurricular commitments and three jobs have gotten in the way of spending the time needed to develop her work. I think that’s a great idea.
I just had a sabbatical, where I had a semester to devote to research and writing. Though I didn’t get everything done I wanted to, that time was invaluable to advance a research agenda and project that have been difficult to navigate with the demands of teaching, committee work and life.
It takes time and effort to do creative work. Time can be the most elusive commodity. I applaud Morgan for realizing her professional portfolio needs that time and attention. I’d still want to hire her as an intern though.
I’d call it one of the best ideas ever for Animal Planet. A Puppy Bowl. Two hours of puppies playing. And all of the puppies are from shelters. But Animal Planet didn’t stop there.
Now there are tail-gating dogs. A waterbowl cam. The National Anthem with police dogs. A sideline re-parrot-er tweeting during the game. Keyboard kitty and cat half-time show. Too cute cam. Penguin cheerleaders. Hamsters piloting a blimp. Background stories called “Pup close and personal.” The Kiss-Cam. Sure, there’s a ton of product placement. But it’s puppies. From shelters.
It all reminds me of my high school days as one of the planners for my all-girls school’s annual Field Day. It’s a huge event at Marian High School where classes each choose a theme, makes costumes, a float-like thing, a demonstration (think band half-time show) with songs.
My niece Carolyn Zuegner during her Marian Field Day.
My sister really was the genius behind our Field Day ideas, able to keep coming up with funny and creative twists to the theme. The similarity to the Puppy Bowl comes with the What-else-can-we-come-up-with vibe. When our Field Day theme was bees, our cheerleaders were flowers. When we were firefighters, the cheerleaders were Dalmatians and we turned a nun who was our class sponsor into a firebug.
The Puppy Bowl in its 10th year reminds me of that what-else-can-we-come-up with? I’d love to be on that team. I’ve got some great ideas for next year.
