Small World Labs

I have discovered that Marine Corp Marching Band is better than coffee for riding my morning grogginess. Standing by a random convention hall floor I was startled by the blast of trumpets playing us into the hall. My search for coffee, now unnecessary, has been replaced with preparing for today's busy schedule.

On tap for today are some big name speakers, namely all three presidential candidates, and several social media panels. Unfortunately, they are all at the same time as the presidential speakers so we'll see who has the better draw.

Wow- just had full presentation of the colors. I'm going to shut down for awhile to take notes on the general session.

**Update #1**
If yesterday's theme was doom and gloom, today's is renewed hope. The opening session titled "Making Journalism Matter" and by the chairwoman's own admission was conceived originally to talk about how journalist have persisted through hardships including threats, death, and a fragmented audience. Luckily the market moved and the session was about how new media has transformed and enhanced the public service mission of newspapers. You can tell that their is still unease about "citizen journalism" on the panel but, to a one, the panelists all are confident and enthusiastic about new media and social media as critical parts of the newsroom of the future. Below are a couple of the projects cited:

http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/photography/2007/bottomline/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/interactives/dcschools/

While those stories took center stage, it was a project by the Cincinnati Enquirer that really caught my eye: http://www.cincymoms.com/ A social network created by the newspaper to target a vibrant community. While different our community for Neighborsgo, both sites represent the true promise social media holds for the newspaper industry: The opportunity to create and service communities of readers. Is the click on a banner ad for pampers worth more on cincymom.com than on enquirer.com? You better believe it... the value of a recommendation/review of a pampers product on the social network is even greater. The social media panel is later today- we'll see how people are getting the message.

**Update #2**
The official(according to only me) theme of today is "Newspaper is not the only thing we do" and the "Building the Roadmap" panel drove it home. It was repeated not less that 5 times and since there were only 3 panelist that is a lot of repetition of one phrase.