I regret that it's taken me a very long time to update The Cortadito. I haven't even finished telling you about my Viernes Culturales evening and already the Calle Ocho Festival has come and passed. I have so much to tell you about that long and exciting day!
Ok, so why the hiatus? It has a lot to do with a conference I attended back in February: The Knight Foundation's 2012 Media Learning Seminar. This annual gathering, which took place at the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Miami, is primarily for community foundations interested in funding journalism-related projects. This is the second year I've attended, and I'm not sure how I got on the invite list, but I'm not complaining!
Creative ideas percolated in my head as I listened to the speakers, who included Eli Pariser (founder of Moveon.org) and Ethan Zuckerman, director of the MIT Center for Civic Media and the founder of Global Voices (see a summary of Ethan's comments here).
Ethan opened his presentation using the metaphor of the tour guide to describe how journalists, including citizen journalists, can help the public navigate community news and information. “Our responsibility to people who care about our communities," he said, "is listening to the broader conversations and putting them together in a way that people can listen to them."
I was sitting next to Rahul Bhargava of MIT's Civic Media Lab, and across from Leo Burd of the Civic Media Lab, and both glanced at me with a smile when Ethan continued to reference the idea of a "guide." Both of them knew about LittleHavanaGuide, and Rahul had used it to suggest places for his wife and child to visit during his time at the conference!
The conference was focusing on journalism, and yet LittleHavanaGuide was not designed to offer regular articles as an online newspaper or magazine would; in fact it is a bit difficult to update content because of the overall structure of the site. Fueled with too much coffee and plenty of inspiration, I began scribbling ideas in my notebook.
I continued to ponder the journalism possibilities for LittleHavanaGuide while taking the MetroMover back to Calle Ocho and then walking up the street to one of my favorite spots, Tinta y Cafe. As I sipped on a cortadito, I thought through what I had learned at the conference. I wondered how LHG could incorporate some of the multimedia tools I'd been introduced to, like VoIP Drupal (Leo from MIT had invented it).
VoIP Drupal allows for audio commentary to show up on a map, and to be added by phone. People can make commentary about a specific place leaving a voicemail message, and their comments show up on a website (as an audio file). Here is an example of a local multimedia tour project made possible with VoIP Drupal. This project enables people to make comments about a place as it was in the past, as it is now, and as they hope it will be in the future.
How could I create a mapping project like this for Little Havana?
I wondered about ways to easily add new stories to LHG every month, and for those stories to be searchable and connected to other content on the site. Rahul had suggested that I turn much of my content into an e-guide or e-guides, which makes a lot of sense. If people are looking at my site from a portable device, they might want to access the information all at once with a simple download instead of having to wait for pages to load. They they could peruse the information at their convenience.
Even if I couldn't add VoIP Drupal right away, I could at least incorporate maps into my stories. Ethan Zuckerman himself referred me to a new project, currently in Beta (not open to the general public), that allows people to add "notes" to particular places on a GoogleMap. He suggested I sign up to be part of the Beta.
I've signed up, and am eagerly anticipating the moment when I can incorporate these maps into my stories. Imagine an article that would allow you to post notes related to places that have a connection to the story? Pretty cool stuff, I think.
Hmmm ... and what about creating content in Spanish, and in print? I had so much to think about. I needed some time just to reflect and let my head stop spinning.
As such, I've been something of a hermit for the past months, working on new designs, talking with my programmer, listening to the needs and concerns of locals and visitors. The good news? The site WILL be going through a redesign and it should be ready by the end of April!
In the meantime, I'll do my best to keep updating LHG, but please understand if it's a little under-updated as I work on preparing the content for the new site. I welcome your own comments about how I can improve LHG. It's not too late!
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