Please introduce yourself

[Chris O'Brien]

Welcome to the Next Newsroom Conference. In early April, we'll gather at Duke University to talk about what the newsroom of the future could and should be. But before you arrive, this is where you can start to connect with other folks who will be there. If you see someone you'd really like to meet, send them a note and make a plan to grab a few minutes together at the conference.

To kick things off, please post a short note here introducing yourself. Tell us why you're coming, and what you hope to learn during your time there.

[Greg Linch]

My name is Greg Linch and I am the editor in chief of the The Miami Hurricane student newspaper at the University of Miami in Florida.

Our newsroom is changing in two notable ways: we are moving more and more towards the Web (though not as fast as I would like) and we are moving out of our digs in the University Center to the new Student Activity Center, which is expected to be completed early next decade.

I am overseeing the Web project, working with our visuals editor and webmaster. We are still in the early stages of the process and will probably be doing a lot of work on it during the summer.

OUR NEXT NEWSROOM
The newspaper business manager, the yearbook editor and I have effectively thrown out the plans tentatively agreed upon last year by our predecessors and worked with the architect to devise a new blueprint. The space is confined to the back corner of the second floor, and we had no say regarding the size, but we've made the best of it -- conceptually.

Somehow Student Government got twice as much office space, and a sweet lake view...

Thankfully, we were able to convey the necessity of separating, and properly separating (with a wall for privacy and noise), the newspaper and the yearbook. In addition, we have rearranged the layout to allow more space for the business operation, which seemed to be an afterthought in the prior plans.

While we've taken positive steps, I'm still frustrated that our next newsroom will not be as inclusive as it should be. It will maintain the physical current separation of the radio station (which will be downstairs) and the TV station (which is in the School of Communication).

We love our yearbook friends, but the new arrangement will not really strengthen our collaboration with them. For example, they are an annual publication (we are twice weekly) and we already do a good job of sharing photographers, designers, writers, etc.

WHY I'M ATTENDING
I would like to learn about other newsroom projects and hope to bring back ideas that will help our organization with our new office, new Web site, etc.

[Beth Lawton]

Hi, everyone!

My name is Beth Lawton, and I'm with the Newspaper Association of America. We're not exactly in a newsroom, though we did move into a new building last year! We're based in Arlington, Va., and I met Chris through the Journalism That Matters group.

I'm interested in meeting everyone in North Carolina because part of my job at NAA is to study social networking, mobile devices, online video and any and all technology that's changing the news(paper) business. (To see what NAA has done lately in this area, go to www.naa.org/digitaledge.)

I'm interested in something brought up months ago -- whether the newsroom of the future actually has to be physical. And, I'm definitely interested in hearing how all of your newsrooms have changed/are changing right now.

See you soon!