fauna corporation

Apologies all around for the longish silence here on Fauna Corporation. I’ve been working a writing contract for an advertising firm and have had less time for posting. The contract goes well, thus far, but I don’t want to forget my Fauna readers so I thought I would put something up.

On that note, while I haven’t been posting, I have been seeing some interesting content for Next-Gen Journos. The following are a few things that I’ve seen over the last few days that I thought you would all enjoy.

First, from Journerdism, a list of the 8 must-have skills for the journalists of tomorrow. The list is a little broad (ie: including programming skills), in much the same way that one could list the top 8 skills for tomorrow’s Olympian and include being multilingual and 12 feet tall. I mean, it can’t hurt, but in reality there are only so many hours in the day, so one must pick and choose what to learn. However, the list is pretty solid on the whole and does mention the ability to focus on experimentation and focus on creating artful, cross-media pieces, which I sincerely believe will be necessary to capture the next wave of web- and mobile-savvy media consumers. Of note, “fundamental journalism skills” comes in at number 8.

Next, 10,000 Words has a great list of gifts for the Journalist in your life, just in time for the holidays. While some are sort of obvious (newsprint t-shirts and boxers), some are totally awesome (CTRL, ALT, DELETE cup sets!), and either way, there is always a good reason to visit to 10,000 Words, so click on through.

Finally, from ProBlogger (a site worth visiting if you haven’t yet), a short list that substantiates the importance of having a product to sell. As journalism changes and freelancing rates remain dismal, this idea of having a product - whether it is your work, a collected series of pieces, an ebook, how-to, or anything else - becomes very important to grow revenue and audience (which in turn grows revenue and audience). While there is an argument to be made against every journalist being entrepreneurial, as technology changes us, we must change with technology. Increasingly, being entrepreneurial is tied to those changes.

Again, my apologies for the relative silence here on Fauna Corp. I am happy that my traffic has not dimished over the last couple of weeks, despite it. I will continue to do my best to keep you all up-to-date with what is happening with evolving multimedia journalism, and as always, I thank you for stopping by.