Sprucing Up The Site For 2010

December 30, 2009

You probably noticed that I’ve made some slight tweaks to this web site — most notably, removing the language about being Nashville’s tech beat reporter. I’ve also removed the mention of “Linklove” — my ill-fated project to help strengthen local journalism — and replaced it with a link to David Cohn’s far more effective project, Spot.us. [I encourage everyone to check out what he's doing and drop the project a few bucks if you've ever found the articles on this site useful or entertaining.]

I’ll admit it. I’ve neglected my blog since (by my mental estimates) July of this year and in doing so, abandoned the coverage of Nashville’s technology community. I have perfect explanations for doing so, too.

First of all, most of July was spent preparing for the epic journey to San Diego where I covered the year’s largest annual Comic-Con as a reporter for Geeks of Doom. The second reason is because of an insightful conversation I had with Marcus Whitney about how our beloved city really isn’t big enough to gain traction that would merit coverage of technology. That doesn’t mean it never will, but for now I’m choosing to refocus my time elsewhere. Entirely where exactly that time will be spent, I can’t talk about just yet — but soon.

During the last few months I’ve certainly had my hands full writing for Geeks of Doom, Social Media Rage, The Drill Down and a handful of other publications on the web and in print. I’ve also guest hosted a slew of awesome podcast shows (Cinegeek’s Culturesmash, Social Blade and Social-Blend). In fact, this year has been so jam-packed with great stuff that I have to write an entire post about it after I publish this one.

The point is, I’ve been keeping busy and that won’t change at all in the next year. I purchased geekjournalist.com a while back and may end up revamping my site under this domain (or redirecting it to this site for the purpose of inflating my ego to epic proportions). Probably a custom CSS is on the books as well even if I don’t switch the domain.

Either way, I’m determined make things happen in 2010 — with the exception of writing lame blog posts about my blog posts. That will not happen in 2010, I assure you.

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Posted by Tom Cheredar

Fixing Journalism with Link Love | Knight News Challenge

December 1, 2008

linklove-teaser

I submitted only one idea to the 2008 Knight News Challenge [newschallenge.org] to better journalism in my local area of middle Tennessee using open-source technology. While I saw many other applicants enter two or even three total ideas to improve the craft that some of us are lucky enough to call a career, I focused the bulk of my mental energy on just one concept. Quite a few friends, Kent Flanagan and Paul Van Hoesen in particular, lent me their ears and offered advice as I revealed my plan to take back the media for the community and forge a brand new relationship with how reporting news is done on the web.

If you haven’t been exposed to it yet, the project I pitched is called Link Love and it’s currelinklove-logontly awaiting a verdict from the judges panel for the second round of the contest. You can read about the project on the official application site.

Much still needs to be done if my idea does advance to the final round of judging. Attaching some real costs to the development as well as hammering out a tentative operating budget for the year will require more research than others since the total funding I requested was very lean compared to others. Truthfully, money is not the driving force for this project, although it is absolutely necessary. The real challenge will be engaging the community of journalists, citizens and developers once the idea is fully realized and executed.

Regardless of what happens from this point forward, I’m prepared to follow though with idea of Link Love because I truly believe it will strengthen local news on the web. We can’t afford to flounder any longer but, that’s exactly what we’ll do as a society if we don’t realize the value in sharing information.

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Posted by Tom Cheredar

The Status Of BeerCamp Nashville

November 17, 2008

beercampteaser

After a long and interesting discussion with other member of the BarCamp Nashville 08 organizers at the post un-con un-dinner un-get together, we decided the fate of just how to handle future non-profit events. Now part of this discussion had to do with off-shoots of the “Camp” events, such as the one I had pitched earlier in the week devoted to homegrown brewing… BeerCamp Nashville.

The short of it is, it’s not going to happen.

The slightly longer version is that after talking with folks that night and hearing Dave Delaney’s thoughts on the subject, I’m not so sure there really need to be a separate “Camp” for beer. I say that with full understanding that the response I got to hold an event like that were phenomenal. I got at least 50 responses via twitter and a handful through e-mail. I learned that there is a local homemade brewing culture in Nashville and honestly, they’d like to see an event large enough to foster education and discussion of craft beer. The interest is certainly there, but the BarCamp mythos is one of technology and by venturing into very non technical fields (such as beer, and man I did try to interject the tech) you risk diluting the whole spirit of the unconference.

It’s that and my heart just isn’t in it enough to stage an entire event for a subject that I know very little about. But with that being said, I very much want to see something like this happen. It’s part of the reason why I said something about BeerCamp in the first place. So if someone else wants to pick up the leader stick and run with it, I’m totally cool and will help in any way I can.

This of course puts some of my other ideas in the graveyard as well…

JarCamp Nashville

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A discussion of Jam and perserve lovers among the many many locals in the area who specifically jar their own jam and pickle their own vegetables. It’s really crazy that no one has thought of this before. It certainly has wings and would have flown high if not for my change of heart. Also gone is…

CodCamp Nashville

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Local fish culture. Need I say more? Probably not but I’m going to anyways. This unconference is for lovers of fish and by that I mean if you love the entree of fish then come. If you happen to be a strict vegan, that’s cool bring your pet goldfish Goldie and demonize your fellow neighbors.

RickRollCamp Nashville

camp3

Probably the greatest of all musicians, Rick Astley, evokes a universal appeal. This camp, which I hear is already going forward, would celebrate Rick and his rich history of never letting us down. Ever. He means that too. Never.

BlandCamp Nashville

camp4

This one actually begins as soon as you stop reading my blog.

CampCamp Nashville

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An event where local folks come together to talk about Camp culture, how to start a new camp, how to exploit it, make money off of it…etc. It seemed like the most natural thing to do for all us BCN08 organizers. Sadly, no one else actually shares this sentiment.

DaveCamp Nashville

camp61

An event to celebrate the culture of Canadian folks named Dave. Why Canadian people only? Well because that country has several wild Yetti roaming the white tundra while we only have one big foot (lame). Also because I didn’t think it was possible to love ham anymore than I already do but the Canadians found a way: Call it Bacon. Brilliant. I’m really sad this one isn’t going to happen because it means no free iPod accessories and no interesting discussion from Canadian Daves living in Nashville.

-t.c.

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Posted by Tom Cheredar

Long Overdue Children’s Book Is On the Way

November 8, 2008

Today is significant for two reasons: 1) My friend Stephanie Gurne’s sister is getting married and 2) shortly there after we’ll be resuming the children’s book we started month and months ago after she got side tracked with massive wedding planning tasks.front-pic

The artwork shown above was actually from some early sketches Steph did after we initially discussed the story, which is about a little boy and his brother who decide their dad must be a super-hero since he’s always flying in and out for work. The working title is, predictably, “I Think My Dad Is a Super-Hero” and it’s loosely based off of my own memories of growing up with my little brother.

The project has actually been around much longer, as I originally wrote the script in late 2006 for a friend who didn’t quite understand the concept of illustrating a story made for children. I had very little interest in pursuing it past that point until Stephanie mentioned that it was one of her main career ambitions to do create a children’s book. I casually threw the idea out and have been in love with it ever since she did the initial sketches. Seriously, I can’t imagine anyone else doing the book now.

Here are a few more sketches by Stephanie Gurne (@sgurne on Twitter):

sun-cloud

Check out her full Flickr sketch book of BEAUTIFUL artwork, here.

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Posted by Tom Cheredar