Articles by

Elise Hu

  • Article

    How human-centered design thinking can transform community media

    Published February 11, 2013 by

    Products like Apple’s first mouse, standup toothpaste and Sealy mattresses were all conceived by IDEO, an influential firm that has pioneered “design thinking” to create new products or systems. Design thinking brings together human behavior with what’s technologically viable for new products. But you don’t have to be a trained designer to use the method. IDEO partner Fred Dust joined Knight Foundation Vice President/Journalism and Media Innovation Michael Maness to share some insights on how to apply design-thinking to better inform communities. Seven takeaways from their talk: 1. The future relies on changes you make now. Get good at spotting it. The early ATM, for example, was a glimpse of the future of banking. “Suddenly we were entrusting a machine to give us money. And if you think of that, it means we’re more and more comfortable with not using people to deal with our money.” Today, online banking is a normal behavior. But it all started with an initial change in behavior that led to systematic change. 2. Get real insights from real people, and build empathy for them. As you take on new projects to reach out to your community, seek out insight from your users. But don’t ask them, observe them.  If you ask people what they want, you get what they think they want. For example, when radio stations survey audiences, people tend to say they listen to classical music when they’re alone. But classical music stations know that audiences aren’t tuning in en masse. To understand people, go spend time with them and get to know them deeply. “There’s value to spending real time with the people you’re designing for, in context,” said Dust. “Don’t let your judgement or pre-knowledge override the people you’re designing for,” said Dust. “Empathy gets to better solutions.”   3. Invest time observing and not assuming.  
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    Community foundations share moments of truth

    Published February 11, 2013 by

    During this week's Media Learning Seminar, community foundation leaders shared snapshots of their local information projects. Here's a recap: Noah Erenberg of the Winnepeg Foundation says when foundations become content creators, they shouldn't underestimate how far and wide a strong story will travel and the credibility that it accrues. Patricia Swann of the New York Community Trust shares how her organization's "Feet in Two Worlds" effort helped bring ethnic journalists into the mainstream and get them exposed to a larger audience.
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    Six lessons on how community foundations met #infoneeds, empowered citizens

    Published February 11, 2013 by

    As mainstream media continues its fast-paced change, community foundations are adapting aggressively to fill the gap in information needs. Leaders from three community foundations — the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the Central Carolina Community Foundation and the Greater New Orleans Foundation — shared a few ways they stepped up to take a bigger role in engaging their citizens in the news and information space. BUILD CREDIBILITY FIRST Don’t just announce to a community “We’re here” out of nowhere, said the Central Carolina Community Foundation’s JoAnn Turnquist. Engage with stakeholders, first. To build credibility in its community, the Central Carolina Community Foundation took a personal focus and built that effort into a role in broader civic conversations by starting with a digital literacy project aimed at senior citizens in 11 counties in North Carolina. Since senior citizens were relying on shrinking print newspapers, the group wasn’t accessing news and information in a key way it was being delivered — online. So the foundation recruited students, trained them on how to work with seniors and tech, and students became digital coaches. The success of the training project was a big boost to the foundation. “It really did propel us into having a seat at the big kids table,” said Turnquist. Now, in areas it cares about — land use or education or others — the foundation has credibility as an organization that can bring people together.  MAKE UP FOR A SMALL STAFF BY LEVERAGING PARTNERSHIPS Hampered by a small staff? No problem. Turnquist says foundations should leverage relationships with mainstream press, colleges and other civic organizations. “We do have the ability to bring folks together and leverage their strengths,” said Turnquist. In New Orleans, as the Times-Picayune cut its publishing schedule and its staff, the Greater New Orleans Foundation stepped up by partnering with a new investigative non-profit news source, The Lens. “You really have to address that craving hunger for news and information,” said the Greater New Orleans Foundation’s Josephine Everly.
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    Zuckerman: How to use media to amplify community voices

    Published February 22, 2012 by

      Ethan Zuckerman believes the Internet is the most powerful tool humans have to understand one another’s differences. But, he says, we’ve yet to tap its potential. “The way we use the Internet keeps us from making those connections,” said the director of the MIT Center for Civic Media and founder of Global Voices. Zuckerman told the hundreds gathered for Knight’s Media Learning Seminar that the sociological phenomenon of homophily — the tendency to gravitate toward people with similar traits — also governs our Web habits and online conversations. "We find the same ways to sort ourselves in whom we associate with online,” Zuckerman said. In a speech Tuesday, Zuckerman told foundation and community leaders that the task for content producers today is to act as guides to the Internet, helping show audiences not only what they want to see, but what they need to see. “As tourists in a city, if we want to see various parts of the city, we find a guide. How do we create guides for the Internet?” Zuckerman asked. His work with the Center for Civic Media centers on how to map, contextualize and amplify global voices with tools that, he says, can be applied to any community. Zuckerman’s four-step approach:
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    Lessons learned from using the Community Information Toolkit

    Published February 21, 2012 by

    L to R: Mayur Patel, Kathy Bisbee, Alicia Philipp and Kelly Lucas This post is part of a series about the 2012 Media Learning Seminar, a gathering of foundations, news organizations and tech experts on community information needs. Watch the livestream Monday and Tuesday at knightfoundation.org/live. One year after the release of Knight's Community Information Toolkit, foundations putting the guide to use say it has been critical in identifying community needs, creating collaborations and helping push for important change. The Information Toolkit is a five-step guide to helping communities take better stock of their community information flows. Where do people go for information? Where are the gaps and areas for improvement? And how can the data gathered help lay groundwork for action? The aim: Strengthening communities by strengthening their information systems.  "We should all think about ourselves as being in the business of helping communities have conversations with itself," said Mayur Patel, Knight's Vice President for Strategic Assessment. Patel led a panel of community foundations speaking about how the toolkit has helped advance their missions.  Some key insights: 
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    Ideas you can steal: Community information projects that worked

    Published February 20, 2012 by

    Left to Right: Knight Communities VP Trabian Shorters, Minnesota Philanthropy Partners' Jennifer Ford Reedy, Boulder County's Chris Barge, Silicon Valley Community Foundation's Margo Rawlins, Community Foundation of Great Buffalo's Clotilde Dedecker, and West Anniston Foundation's Tycoma Miller.   This post is part of a series about the 2012 Media Learning Seminar, a gathering of foundations, news organizations and tech experts on community information needs. Watch the livestream Monday and Tuesday at knightfoundation.org/live. As part of Knight’s Media Learning Seminar (livestreaming today and tomorrow), five community foundations presented successful projects and ideas that could be applied to other community engagement efforts around the country. 1. You Choose Bay Area: Silicon Valley Community Foundation With rapid growth in the Bay Area threatening the quality of life, the foundation wanted to get more people involved in regional planning. So the foundation went for a three-pronged approach to engage its community. They built an interactive website called “ You Choose Bay Area,” initiated a media campaign that involved a partnership with public radio station KQED and hosted a series of public forums.    
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    @dangillmor: Six ways foundations and groups can help keep communities informed and engaged

    Published February 20, 2012 by

    This post is part of a series about the 2012 Media Learning Seminar, a gathering of foundations, news organizations and tech experts on community information needs. Watch the livestream Monday and Tuesday at knightfoundation.org/live. Dan Gillmor has been watching closely as digital and social media upended the world’s “legacy” models for communication. The Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship director has spent much of the last decade considering how the media ecosystem has evolved, and in particular, how non-corporate interests like community groups and non-profit foundations can help keep alive some of the most important traditions of the disappearing traditional press. “We’re in a fundamentally different situation,” he said of how communities get information today. “We create stuff, make it available and people come and get it. Consumers become creators and then become collaborators. The collaboration part is the most exciting and I think we're going to be figuring that out for generations to come.” Gillmor addressed the 400+ attendees of Knight’s 2012 Media Learning Seminar this morning.  His advice to foundations and community groups who want to take part in keeping their audiences informed and engaged:
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    How to keep up with Knight Foundation’s Media Learning Seminar

    Published February 20, 2012 by

    Community foundations, news organizations and technology innovators are in Miami this morning for Knight Foundation’s 2012 Media Learning Seminar, where leaders from the various fields will explore what they can learn from one another and discuss the growing opportunities for effective collaboration. More than 400 people are registered this year, making this the biggest Media Learning Seminar yet. But you don’t have to be in Miami to keep up with the sessions, speakers and presentations. For the first time, much of the conference in Miami today (Feb. 20) and tomorrow will be livestreamed. You can find the link and schedule at knightfoundation.org/live. We’ll also be tweeting @knightfdn, the foundation’s main twitter account. You can keep up with the hashtag #infoneeds, that participants and observers here will be using. And this blog will be featuring posts throughout the two-day conference. I’m Elise Hu, a digital journalist at NPR and Knight Foundation’s conference blogger for the seminar this year. If you have questions throughout the event, feel free to tweet me @elisewho and use the #infoneeds hashtag. Featured speakers include Eli Pariser, author of The Filter Bubble, MIT’s Ethan Zuckerman, and Dan Gillmor, founding director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship.   
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    New teacher’s guide uses social media to teach about First Amendment

    Published December 16, 2011 by

    Livestream of #FreeToTweet entries at the Newseum  Researchers say schools do an “adequate” job of teaching the First Amendment in a historical context, but they fail in giving students practical ways to learn about freedom of speech and the press. So Thursday, Knight Foundation and The First Amendment Center offered a new way to update lessons - by launching a teacher’s guide for using social media to teach about the Bill of Rights, whose 220th birthday was celebrated at The Newseum in Washington, D.C.