Lessons from ONA14

Now a full week removed from the ONA14 conference, I’ve had an opportunity to reflect on the experience. Like previous ONA events, the key takeaway is a renewed sense of inspiration to try new things.

I must admit, I was disappointed in the lack of sessions or discussions that were directly applicable to local newsrooms. Still, I found many of the speakers were motivational and that the time out of the normal workflow gives me a chance to reboot.

The other large sense of value came from discussions with corporate honchos from various companies and counterparts from other newsrooms. Sometimes I just don’t know what I’m thinking until it comes out of my mouth in conversation with a thought-provoking new friend.

One day after the conference, I wrote a summary of my takeaways for my dedicated ONA blog. It mentioned some goals that I set, based on my inspirations in Chicago. Here, I’ll list the goals again, followed by the progress I’ve made so far.

1. Short, scripted videos with inspiration from Emily Grasile (Hopefully this is something I can do next week)
2. Find opportunities for both small and large visualization projects (2 for election coverage so far: Voter maps and campaign spending)
3. Try games tools like the GitHub from the Guesstimator or Twine (Used a different tool to make an AP US History quiz for the Jeffco Schools story)