ItsDevelopmental - content + technology + people

Kevin May on building a reputation as a journalist

Kevin May, editor of Travolution, helped me out with the content for today's digital journalism workshop at Reed Business Information. Here he talks about how to build reputation as a journalist and what online tools to use.

Digital journalism workshop

Ran my first digital journalism workshop this morning and it went really well. 11 delegates, good discussion and a good panel debate at the end of the session. Big thanks to RBI's head of content Adam Tinworth for live blogging at the Digital Journalism blog (an internal one at RBI). He has also posted on it at One Man and his blog.

It was very interesting to hear the perspective of the delegates on the way the media is changing. Quite a lot of resistanc. STRANGE. This is such an exciting time to be a journo.

From a training perspective, I really enjoyed the session. Will post the feedback soon. Live blogging from the session is the way to go (if you can). Great content and a good way of spreading and continuing the conversation.

McDonalds degree

There has been a lot of interest in employers acting as examination authorities for their own qualifications.  Indeed, the Hamburger degree offered by Ronald McDonald has caused quite a stir. Away from the inevitable fretting about who should regulate qualifications is the fact that employers are looking to develop high quality training courses (which provide great PR). I'd rather work for an organisation that developed such training rather than one that paid lip service to the whole concept of training.

And if the training is good it will become obvious by looking at the calibre of those who have completed it.   

Editorial career development workshop

Had a good day. I have my first workshop scheduled - which is on editorial career development in business to business publishing - and am finalising the content. I met our blogging supremo Adam Tinworth and head of user generated content Andrew Rogers to discuss the workshop and they came up with some good ideas and people from the business who could be part of a panel discussion.

Adam said he would sit on the panel and live blog from the workshop - YES! I am delighted - now all I have to do is get the content sorted.

Thanks Andrew and Adam for inspiring me - there is a long way to go in changing our organisation from a traditional media company to a digital media company but hopefully this workshop will inspire delegates to take the opportunities that are slap bang in front of them right now.

The hopeful what?

Ok, so my first post wasn't great so here's a bit of clarification. I am an online editor in a big media organisation. I have been a manager for quite a few years and am very interested in management and training. Why? Because I have worked with some very good managers and have really benefitted from their support and guidance. I have also attended some great training courses.

On the flip side, I have worked in teams that don't work very well. My experience is that it doesn't take a lot to get a team working well - the right people, the right goals, the right culture, the right reward. Simple - but oh no. Poor managers are usually at the heart of poor performance and team dynamics.

So, I'm going to be posting on management and training issues.

The hopeful trainer

There's a first for everything and this is a first for me - my first post on my first blog. My aim is to jot down thoughts on management and training and also point out interesting information on development - something I am passionate about.