Frost

We had frost overnight on May 3-4. I had just planted some larkspur seeds and had put the duds from the indoor germanium in the ground.
I have also transplanted the rhodendron from the back yard to the front garden.

Canada tops when it comes to e-government: Survey

Informationt technology consultancy Accenture says Canada came out on top for
the fourth year in a row in the firm's annual survey of how governments are
adopting new information and communication technologies to deliver services.

Accenture says Canada was the best among the governments of 22 countries
surveyed when it came to service breadth, service depth, and customer
relationship management.

From Accenture's press release:

Singapore and the United States shared the second-place ranking,
followed by Australia, Denmark, Finland and Sweden, which were tied for the
fourth place. France ranked eighth, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom
tied for ninth, and Belgium, Ireland and Japan jointly held the eleventh
position.

The study, “eGovernment Leadership: High Performance, Maximum Value,” is
Accenture's fifth annual global study of electronic government, or
eGovernment, which is defined as governments providing information about
services, as well as the ability to conduct government transactions, via the
Internet. This year Accenture conducted both quantitative and qualitative
research to learn about attitudes and practices regarding eGovernment. The
study is based on results of a survey of 5,000 regular Internet users in 12
countries in North America, Europe and Asia, as well as a quantitative
assessment of the maturity of eGovernment services in 22 countries.

WORKSHOP: How news organizations are using blogs

Jeff Jarvis is president and creative director of Advance.net, which oversees the Internet operations for Advance Publications, including CondéNet and Advance Internet. He is a former television critic for TV Guide and People, creator of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday editor of the New York Daily News and columnist with the San Francisco Examiner. He also runs a popular blog called BuzzMachine. Can't say I agree with everything he's written, but he's an influencer, if you know what I mean. He was interviewed in March 2003 by Patrick Phillips for the (terrific, if you're in the craft) Web site I Want Media. Some excerpts:

[IWM]: How does adding a blog benefit the Web site of a traditional media company, such as a daily newspaper?
[Jarvis]: Anything that serves the reader with more information is good for us. Period. We must be the place to start to find out what's happening in your world, and Weblogs are an inexpensive, efficient and very useful means of doing that.
[IWM]: Could the blogs carried on your newspapers' sites potentially weaken your papers' brands as authoritative original news sources?
[Jarvis]: No. These Weblogs are separate from the newspaper content and even the newspaper brand, just as our forums and chats are. It's just more content. Readers are very clear, I think, that Weblogs are not the product of a large news-gathering operation with vast editing capabilities; Webloggers are individuals having a content-conversation with readers.
[IWM]: A recent Reuters story on blogs quotes a blogger who says that Weblogs “restore power to individuals with something to say.” Isn't that the antithesis of traditional media?
[Jarvis]: It's not the antithesis. It's the future. My own rallying cry is that the Internet is the first medium owned by the audience and, yes, that means that this medium gives them a voice. The wise media entity — newspaper, magazine, radio or TV station — will use it to listen to that audience, to find out what they care about and what matters to them and what they have to say. This creates a new and powerful relationship with the audience.

Here's a piece which examines how some magazines are using blogs.

And Now, For A Little Bloggery
There are lonely teenagers cyber-begging for attention. There are passionate and articulate experts sharing their insights. There are outright lunatics. These are the residents of the blogosphere, an online realm ruled by the egalitarian ideal of an individual communicating without the filter of established media.
Lately, however, established media have glommed on to blogging. Magazines as diverse as Variety, Christianity Today, Business 2.0, The New Republic and The American Prospect are sponsoring their own blogs, committing editing time, money, prominent space on their Websites and their journalistic reputations to a format that was supposed to be all about amateurs controlling the microphone. . ..

Many media critics are calling for news organizations to get behind blogging. Blogger Leonard Witt writes about this in a piece called Citizens Can Improve Your Media Company:

Don’t throw it away, recycle all information:

  • Today an editor or a reporter gets a press release, he or she reads it quickly and either uses it as a source, culls some information from it or most often tosses it. But guess what, there actually might be readers who find it interesting. Find a category for it and post the release as is.
  • o Check all information that passes through the newsroom, ask if it could be repackaged or just simply indexed or categorized and displayed for anyone who wants to tap into it. With bloggers and other amplification vehicles it might receive wide notice.
  • o Community newspapers have established yes editors whose job it is to see yes to anyone who wants to get something in the newspaper. That makes people happy. That’s what we are doing here. More yeses, less no’s mean a lot of happy people and more information for your readers.

Where would you eat in Vancouver?

I'll be in Vancouver later this week for the national conference of the Canadian Association of Journalists.
Regular readers of this blog will remember I'd solicited suggestions for restaurants and pubs to have a nosh in. (I'm staying downtown at the conference hotel — the Hyatt Regency.)
Here's the suggestions sent along so far (I take no credit for the spellings or other comments here):

  • Cin Cin on Robson St. for pasta, wine, and celebrity-sightings (and a downtown location).
  • Maurya on West Broadway for elegant Indian food in a great setting (over the bridge in Kitsilano).
  • Opus Hotel in Yaletown for drinks, and all the B-list celebs you want (if they appeared in the Breakfast Club or Heathers, they'll probably show up here). Great lychee nut martinis.
  • The BINs – BIN 941 and BIN 942.
  • Vij's on Granville and 11th
  • Glowbal in Yaletown
  • Lumiere (pricey but worth it)
  • blue water for seafood.
  • Tojo's, best for sushi, on Broadway.

    • Happy to hear about more suggestions.

WORKSHOP: What tools do I need to read a blog?

Blogs are Web documents. And that means you likely already have all the software you need to read blogs because they can be read by any Web browser on any platform.
If you need a Web browser, here are the links:

Many blog fanatics, though, use a new software tool called an aggregator. Aggregators read and interpret something called an RSS feed or an XML file. Don't worry about what these things mean. All you need to know is that, if you find a blog, look for an indication that the blog is published in an RSS, XML or ATOM format. If it is, there is an aggregator that lets you subscribe to that blog. You can then subscribe to lots of blogs and quickly skim through their content to find stuff you're interested in.
If you're interested in publishing your blog, you should also consider selecting a blog publishing tool that lets you publish in XML or RSS format.
Here are my favourite aggregators:

  • On the Mac: NetNewsWire. A freeware version is available as is a paid version with some more features.
  • On Windows: NewsGator: You have to pay for this software but its great benefit is that it delivers RSS feeds into Outlook so you can read your RSS feeds just as you would read e-mail.
  • Check out some other aggregators from this collection compiled by some bloggers at Harvard University.

What are Webfeeds (and Why You Should Care)
Amy Gahran's primer on RSS feeds for both publisher and reader
Note: Blogs are not the only kind of content you'll find in an RSS format. An increasing amount of information is published in this format including news from Yahoo and press releases from the Canadian government.

Workshop: Questions and further reading

Some articles about blogging and journalism:
Earlier this year, the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University asked journalists-bloggers for essays on journalism and blogging. You can download a PDF of the result. Here are the table of contents (courtesy of Sheila Lennon's blog). The numbers refer to the page numbers these essays are found on in the magazine.:

  • 61 Weblogs and Journalism: Do They Connect? BY REBECCA BLOOD
  • 63 Is Blogging Journalism? BY PAUL ANDREWS
  • 65 Weblogs: A Road Back to Basics BY BILL MITCHELL
  • 68 Weblogs Threaten and Inform Traditional Journalism BY TOM REGAN
  • 70 Blogs and Journalism Need Each Other BY J.D. LASICA
  • 74 Weblogs Bring Journalists Into a Larger Community BY PAUL GRABOWICZ
  • 76 Blogging Journalists Invite Outsiders’ Reporting In BY SHEILA LENNON
  • 79 Moving Toward Participatory Journalism BY DAN GILLMOR
  • 81 Weblogs and Journalism: Back to the Future? BY GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS
  • 82 Blogging From Iraq BY CHRISTOPHER ALLBRITTON
  • 85 Determining the Value of Blogs BY ERIC ALTERMAN
  • 86 The Infectious Desire to Be Linked in the Blogosphere BY MARK GLASER
  • 88 Readers Glimpse an Editorial Board’s Thinking BY KEVEN ANN WILLEY
  • 91 A Reporter Is Fired for Writing a Weblog BY STEVE OLAFSON
  • 92 An Editor Acts to Limit a Staffer’s Weblog BY BRIAN TOOLAN (Editor, Hartford Courant, no blog)
  • 94 Blogging Connects a Columnist to New Story Ideas BY MIKE WENDLAND
  • 95 Bloggers and Their First Amendment Protection BY JANE E. KIRTLEY
  • 97 A Weblog Sharpens Journalism Students’ Skills BY LARRY PRYOR

Citizen Reporters Make the News (Wired News Online, MAY 17, 2003)
In the West, people with a journalistic bent turn to weblogs to exercise the urge to publish news or comment on events of the day.
But in South Korea, the publishing instinct is directed toward a big, collaborative online newspaper that has emerged as one of the country's most influential media
outlets.
OhmyNews is a unique experiment in “citizen journalism”: Anyone who registers with the site can become a paid reporter . . .

Blogs: Here to Stay — with Changes (Christian Science Monitor April 15, 2004)
They're hip. Influential. Out there. By one estimate, there are 2 million of them posted on the Internet around the world talking about everything from knitting patterns to the war in Iraq. But as blogs – or personal weblogs – move into the limelight, they're also coming under closer scrutiny. And the conclusions are in some ways sobering.
Except for a tiny number of blogs that have gained prominence, all this techno-chattiness remains just that: an immature form of communication that has yet to gain traction with the general public, experts say. Most are moldering in cyberspace, updated only sporadically or abandoned completely. But out of this fervid experimentation are coming some new forms of communication that are already influencing public discourse . ..

A panel discussion on blogging and journalism at the Symposium on Converged Journalism at the Univeristy of Florida. Some video content is here so you can watch the panel, if you'd like.

Watchblogs' Put the Political Press Under the Microscope (Online Journalism Review, Feb. 11, 2004)
You write the story. Your editor checks it. Your copy editor checks it. The story runs. Then your “watcher” reads it and writes a scathing critique on her Weblog. Welcome to the new workflow for prominent political reporters, as citizen bloggers and the Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk Weblog have created another layer of oversight for the Fourth Estate.
The so-called “watchblogs” are generally anonymous bloggers who have taken it upon themselves to read each report from a particular presidential campaign reporter and then critique it for factual errors or bias. If they gain traction, watchblogs represent another step in the evolution of reader feedback and media criticism, and they have the potential to improve the work of journalists . . .

Me again. With a blog entry. Blogs and Journalism — will this discussion never end? October 17, 2003

…people want to argue that blogs will upend or revolutionize journalism and mainstream journalists argue that blogging isn't Real Journalism. They do this, I think, because the output of the blog form and the journalism process are similar — that is: A reader or viewer learns something new about the world as a result of exposure to both. And so bloggers and journalists believe they are all working on the same thing. They are not. Or not always.

And a related musing:
The False Promise of the Blogosphere

…many confuse journalism and blogging, either equating the two or comparing them against the other, because, to the news consumer, they may look similar. A blogger is giving me first-hand reports as Baghdad is being shelled and so is a reporter for CNN. The reporter from CNN is a journalist, ergo, the blogger in Baghdad must be a journalist. Er, not quite.

Sullivan: Blogs to replace formal op-ed style Nov. 15, 2003
Weblogs can offer journalists an alternative means of reaching global audiences while promoting reader interaction and debate, according to writer Andrew Sullivan, who keynoted the Online News Association conference on Saturday …
Blog-Tracking May Gain Ground Among U.S. Intelligence Officials (Investors Business Daily, Apr 27, 2004)
…. some analysts say U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials might be starting to track blogs for important bits of information. This interest is a sign of how far Web media such as blogs have come in reshaping the data-collection habits of intelligence professionals and others, even with the knowledge that the accuracy of what's reported in some blogs is questionable …
What are Webfeeds (and Why You Should Care)
Amy Gahran's primer on RSS feeds for both publisher and reader
Once you've immersed yourself sufficiently in the blogosphere, you will see the clever wit in this:
Simple Guide to the A-List Bloggers

Workshop: Using Blogs for newsgathering

Journalists will find that blogs are excellent feedback tools for their own work and for the work of other journalists who write about the same things you do.
Example:

How blogs can circumvent Big Media 
Backstory: The French daily Libération publishes a story about The Pixies getting back together last Friday.
Comments: Frank Black [Black is the lead singer/co-founder of The Pixies – Akin] disagrees with a couple of things in the story and finds the journalist's website and photoblog and, on Monday, uses the comments section to post his own.
Conclusion: The journalist explains that the very heavy-handed editing changed a number of things in her article and that she was just as frustrated as he was. Her husband even chimes in!
How's that for personalized communication?

Tech journalist Jon Udell has an extended essay at his blog on how he uses a blog to research, develop and enhance the articles he does, most of which, he concedes are for information technology trade magazines. But we both agree that some of his principles extend to other subject matters.
Udell will sometimes publish a first draft of his article on his blog before submitting it to his editors. Seems odd, doesn't it? But he says that by publishing on his blog ahead of time, he can break out of what he calls the “editorial ivory tower”, which he uses to describe that phenomenon when your editor or assignment desk gets a hold of one kind of story or one angle or one approach to a story and won't let go of it. That top-down direction on a story also grabs you, the writer, and you can't think outside the box. Pre-publishing the story brings in fresh ideas and fresh approaches and, even, completely new story ideas.
When folks in a journalists' ecosystem get wind that a reporter is working on a story, they get involved. So, Udell gets feedback from PR types, vendors, and others.
He finds, in some cases, he can help build some 'buzz' about a story.
After publication, his blog serves as one place where readers can discuss the story, provide more feedback and enhanced the story. Udell also uses his blog to publish extended interviews that formed part of the story and basically empty his notebook.
As an aside, San Jose Mercury News technology columnist is actually publishing his book as he writes it on his blog. His book is called Making the News and in it, Gillmor describes how journalism is changing, “from its 20th Century mass-media style to something profoundly more grassroots and democratic.”
As he publishes each draft of this book, he's asking readers for their thoughts, anecdotes, and feedback — a kind of grassroots approach to writing a book. Blogs and their effect on journalism are a big part of this book.
Even for those journalists not blogging themselves, you need to find your way around the blogosphere to find new sources and new story ideas.
Find stuff on blogs:

  • Technorati is where I usually start. Type in a search phrase, a get a pile of blogs that contain that term.
  • A blogger named Ari Paparo has compiled a list of blog search sites.

    • Public relations people and corporate types are also — slowly, to be sure — getting used to the idea that blogs can be an excellent tool to foster the communication goals of a particular organization.
    Public relations professional Tom Murphy says this:

    Blogging is an opportunity for Public Relations, not a threat.
    Blogging provides a unique means of providing your audience with the human face of your organization. Your customers can read the actual thoughts and opinions of your staff. On the flip side, consumers increasingly want to see the human side of your organization, beyond the corporate speak.

    Tim Bray — Vancouverite, high-tech executive, and one of those responsible for creating XML — recently went to work for Sun Microsystems. He's encouraging Sun employees to blog about what they do. If you're a reporter covering an organization that is encouraging its employees to blog, it makes sense to know what the framework for those blogs are. What can they not say? Who approves what they say?
    If you cover Microsoft, as I do, you must cover the blogs written by Microsofties. (Warning: There are more than 550 blogs written by Microsoft employees at this site and here's another list of Microsoft blogs.)

Workshop: Blogging 101

This category and blog entry was built to accompany some presentations I'm involved with for the 2004 annual conference of the Canadian Association of Journalists. This entry accompanies a workshop I'm leading dubbed Blogging 101. The workshop is scheduled for Friday, May 7 at 3:30 pm Pacific / 6:30 pm EDT. So far as I know, the workshop will not be Webcast although we might be lucky to have a live network connection in the room at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Here's the workshop's mission, the agenda and links to workshop topics. I hope to blog feedback and questions from the workshop. This blog is now open for comments and feedback from all.
Workshop Mission:

BLOGGING 101– They've played key roles in the combative U.S. presidential campaign. Academics say they'll revolutionize mainstream journalism. But what do blogs have to do with the daily lives of journalists in Canada? What do journalists need to know about this new source of views and information?  David Akin, who is National Business and Technology Correspondent for CTV News, a contributing writer for The Globe and Mail, and a blogger himself, leads a workshop for journalists who may one day want to start their own blog and for all those who wish to learn how blogs fit into daily news gathering. Blogs – short for Web logs – are a new kind of online publication that are quickly becoming as important to journalists as e-mail and the World Wide Web. Akin will run through some of the popular blog publishing tools; take participants on a brief tour of the blogosphere; and lead a discussion of the relationship of blogs to mainstream working journalists.  Designed for those with little or no knowledge of blogs or blogging, this workshop will focus primarily on giving working journalists real-world skills they can put to use right away in their newsroom.

Today's agenda:

Workshop: Blogs by Journalists

Here's a list:

  • Me. David Akin
  • A list of mostly American journalists and American organizations with a blog. Some links here are dead or outdated.
  • The Campaign Desk: Critique and analysis of the 2004 Presidential Campaign by the Columbia Journalism Review
  • Dan Gillmor: Technology columnist for the San Jose Mercury News
  • Getting There: This is the blog of the transportation reporter for Amy Cannata, the transportation reporter for the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash. In fact, the Spokesman-Review has a staff full of bloggers. The paper also maintains a list for bloggers who live in its readership area.
  • The Girlfriends' Locker Room: A blog run under the banner of the Philadelphia Daily News. This is a blog whose authors are newsroom employees at the Daily News — a feature editor, a news editor, a food editor, writers — who are interested in fitness. They've taken their collective interest to the Web with their blog and talk about getting fit and staying healthy.
  • Mariners Log: Here's a blog, run by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for fans of the Seattle Mariners major league baseball club. Contains links for other non-PI sites but, as beat reporters for the PI are contributors, this seems to be a must-read if you're a fan of the team.
  • Online Blog: The blog for the technology reporters and writers at the British newspaper The Guardian
  • Aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln: Back again to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. PI reporter M.L. Lyke spent most of March on board a U.S. aircraft carrier operating near Iraq and blogged about it in addition to filing her regular reports. A good example of the kind of one-off blogs that pop up for a particular time and a particular place. Beat reporters should be constantly on the lookout for these kind of blogs as they can be a great source of eyewitness accounts to events you may be covering.
  • Iraq Hack: The blog of Tom Popyk, a Canadian freelance reporter in Iraq.
  • Andrew Coyne – National Post columnist has a very busy site.
  • National Post editorial board — Not just Coyne, but the brain trust in Don Mills has its own blog.
  • Press Gallery: Elaine O'Connor is a reporter at the Vancouver Sun. This is her own site, not the Sun's.