Norgdom

Well my excuse for writing this post is that it may come in handy for Cit J’s when they are out in the field reporting a story.

But also it’s kind of cool …

199Bongo is a text messaging service that will send you an answer to any question you ask within a matter of minutes (well unless the question is something you probably shouldn’t be asking ;).) Though I should warn it comes at the expense of $3 a question.
So to give it a try out I asked “Who is Bronwen Clune?”

The answer came back within about 5 minutes: “Bongo knows a Bronwen who is a former print journalist and wrote Norgdom. She is a Perth-based mother-of-four and aspiring grassroots media mogul.”

I have to say it’s not the best description I’ve heard of myself, but it was a fun experiment all the same. I couldn’t find anywhere on the companies website about when they started so I sent them the question.

Apparently they are a lot less open with their own background than they are with yours, because this is what I got in reply:

“Bongo has been around ever since he exited his mothers womb about 23 years ago. It was on that day that god proclaimed ‘Let there be bongo’.”

One amusing fact I did find on the site, was that in order to get a job at Bongo one has to have a diploma or degree. This is from their website:

“Because of the challenge involved in finding answers, we only hire people who have a diploma or degree education, or are in the process of completing one, and who consider themselves to be very good with computers.”

Didn’t know Google was that hard to use…

There are all sorts of layers (like onions) to citizen journalism. It really is such a dynamic subject and that’s what I love about it so much. News is what we make it -not what’s told to us.Citizen journalism can be something as simple as an observation (remember - ‘news just happens’) to an insider whistleblowing on an organisation. A friend of mine, Jean Perkins, pointed out a great example of the latter that happened in the US recently.

Michael De Kort was a former engineer with Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defence contractor, when he became concerned that the company was selling $24 billion worth of refurbished patrol boats to the US Coast Guard with significant security flaws.

De Kort, did the ‘responsible’ thing and tried to sort things out the ‘proper’ way by raising his concerns at Lockheed Martin, at the Coast Guard and through congressional representatives. When he didn’t get any satisfaction he turned to the press, but they dismissed his concerns as outlandish.

So he turned to YouTube as his last resort. He posted a 10-minute video in which he describes the problems with the boat’s security cameras, communication capabilities and its cold weather short-comings. It was only after the video was aired on YouTube that the Navy Times reported it, and then it was picked up by The Washington Post, NPR and got other national coverage.

ABC News (in the US) described the video as “further evidence that the internet has given the average person a way to be heard.”

It seems that this time citizen media beat the press.

I’ll keep you informed of the outcomes…

And on that note I hope to see you round the norg - observing, sharing, linking, commenting, thinking and whistleblowing …

For those of you interested in getting into podcasting, Richard Giles has posted the first chapter of a book he co-wrote for O’Reilly Media on the subject on his blog.
The chapters he has posted weren’t used in the book so Richard has shared all his hard work for free - and it’s well worth a read.

You can get hold of the book Podcasting Pocket Guide at Amazon.

Kudos to Richard for posting this!

I’m in Sydney at the moment working on some exciting things for all our Cit Js. I’ll fill you in as soon as we have some things finalised but watch this space.

In the meantime I came across another great norg word.

Norgy - that’s what happens when everyone contributes to a breaking story in a frenzied fashion.

So here’s to norgies on the norg by all you nergs out there!

Thanks to Bryce Thompson for the word! And also for this great catch cry: “News, it just happens…”

I got an email from a former colleague the other day, who told me that if Melbourne and Sydney norgs take off then at least he can say something along the lines of “Well, that Bronwen she has great norgs.”
So I thought I better clarify something for all those boys out there about my norgs! Here are some basic definitions:
norgs - the new news organisations for the 21st century, user-generated media
norks - breasts, particularly the female variety
Then there is another new word, which I heard the other day and also relating to my norgs…

nerg - someone compulsively addicted to a norg

And off the topic, but a great word anyway…

mournstabation - the mass outpouring of personal public grief - think Steve Irwin and Princess Di
Glad I got that ot that off my chest!

It has been drawn to my attention that some people feel this blog does not have enough of my own voice. Part of that reason has been my reluctance about stamping PerthNorg with ‘me’ because it really is about its users - and I am just one of those.

But I think the more we all share with each other, the better PerthNorg will become and hopefully the more I write about myself here, the more our Cit Js will write about their own experiences as well. I suppose I thought by hovering in the background people will feel more inclined to make their mark on the norg. But I realise it’s not just a case of every person having a story, but every story having a person behind it and hence my small foray into writing about me.
The story of how I dreamt up what is now PerthNorg only started at the beginning of this year. I had been hanging around the fringes of the blogosphere for about a year through my work as a freelance journalist, but my participation was somewhat limited by the fact that we have four young children. I have four unfinished and neglected blogs to prove it!

My interest in blogging was probably really born from the role it played in disseminating what was happening during the Iraq war while most of the MSM (mainstream media) were holed up in hotels.

I originally envisaged an international norg (you can read here where I came across the word) and still hope to launch that one day, but the more I looked in to the role of citizen journalism, the more I realised that it had real value in local news, that was at that point not being undertaken in any serious way. I think I could lay claim to a first, but I won’t incase …

One of the first times I made contact with the Perth blogging scene, was when I arrived at a bloggers meetup back in April and was voted mystery participant of the evening by Duncan Riley. I think that had partly to do with the fact that I knew so much about everyone there from having spent the last few months reading their blogs.

It was meeting this great bunch of people and really learning so much from them that made me think that I had to go for it. Obviously there is so more to the story - but that’s the beginning in a nutshell.

So don’t be afraid of your voice (I’m a trained journalist and I just did it, so anyone can).
PS. I found a great overseas citizen journalist type site called orato - that encourages first person reporting. Have a look, it might spark off some ideas for this local news site - PerthNorg - it is your news, your views after all.

I only got around to reading the last week’s BRW this week, although I bought it as soon as I saw the cover.

They had some fairly good coverage on Web 2.0 and social media entitled “The new and improved web”.

It made mention of a few great Australian companies making their mark in this area, including Atlassian, Omnidrive, Zapr, Remember the milk, Touchstone, The Podcast Network, Gnoos (although they listed Gnus Network Users Services in their breakout box OOPS), Bluepulse, Tangler and Tinfinger. The article is a good introduction to the concepts behind Web 2.0 for those outside the blogosphere.

One thing that stuck out for me, from the article was:

In June, a study by McNair Ingenuity Research showed that nearly 30 per cent of Australians had shared some form of digital content on the internet.

Hopefully with the launch of more norgs we can get that figure higher, but I was impressed that it’s already up to 30 per cent.

I’ll see you round the norg…

Actually I’ m putting together some documents to present to potential investors in Norg Media Pty Ltd.

And as laborious a task as it is when I sit down and look at the  potential of the new media model that our norgs have, I get very excited. (So much so that I had to come and write about it!)

Basically the sums look like this:

Norg Media = huge potential

If you would like a more serious analysis of our company and are a potential investor drop us a line at admin@perthnorg.com.au as we will be undertaking a small funding round shortly.

I’ve asked Richard Giles from Cliquecomm if he wouldn’t mind doing a podcast for us on the podcasting basics and he has agreed to it. But in the meantime, and while reading Richard’s blog, I came across this post from Michael Specht, on how his nine-year-old son put together a podcast of his own, when he realised anyone could do it.

One of the great features of PerthNorg is the fact that we can embedd podcasts, which means you can file audio stories! So if you and your mate fancy yourself running footy commentators why not record a podcast and let us have a listen. What’s the worst all our Cit Js could do? Vote you down? You can have as many cracks as it takes to get a few votes!

I’m looking forward to what Rich has to teach us - he is the co- author of the Podcasting Pocket Guide, and consults to companies and media on how to podcast. Ofcourse now that I’ve done this post he is under pressure to do it!

In the meantime I hope to hear you round the Norg!

A lot of you who have been following our progress from the very beginning - all those six weeks ago - may remember the post Stephen Hutcheon from the SMH did on PerthNorg (I can’t link to the post anymore as SMH stories are only available on the net for 8 days it seems.)

Anyway I heard from Steph on Friday soon after the news of Peter Brock’s death broke. He wanted to know if we had any Cit J reports on the event and said the SMH would happily attribute any news and photos to our Cit Js that they used.

I knew some of the Photographers in Perth group on Flickr had been talking about taking photos of the rally, but it seems the damp weather may have turned a lot of people off. Unfortunately we didn’t have any accounts of what happened from people on the ground.

But I was impressed that the SMH saw the potential in our Cit J network to cover such a huge event and I think all Cit Js shouldn’t underestimate our importance in the media landscape.

Of course as soon as Steph gave me a ring I made my way up to Gidgegannup, but my faulty sense of direction got me there too late for any breaking news reporting.

I did feel a baton passing, next time I want to get to the finish line without dropping it…