I have a shorter two-minute edit at the ONA website.

In digging around on my hard drive, I remember I had an extended cut, and it might be of interest for Leo’s fans.

I also live-blogged his keynote speech as it happened.

And if you really want the full live stream, you can check it out on PaidContent.org.

In yesterday’s CollegeJourn chat, a group of student journalists produced a road map for our first global collaborative reporting project. Sarah Jackson blogged about the idea here, and Josh Halliday wrote about it for the Online Journalism Blog here.

Students, join us. Take up the assignment. Use this opportunity for one of your journalism classes, produce a piece for your college media outlet, or just jump in because you want the unprecedented experience for your resume. Teachers and pros, we welcome any help and guidance you can give us!

We split the topic of health into two, so that the feature writers and beginning reporters could jump in to one area and the data-miners and investigative reporters could jump into another.

If you want to do a news feature, here is your assignment:

What does health mean in your area?

Get creative. We want to get humanizing stories from around the world. How does your town’s attitudes toward health differ from the rest of your country, and how does your country differ from other countries? Find those stories and share them.

Here’s some prompts you may want to explore:

• What is physical health?
• What is mental health?
• What is good health care?
• What is a healthy work/leisure balance?
• What is healthy eating?
• What are healthy relationships?
• What is addiction?

Use writing, video, audio, slideshows, whatever you see fit. You can produce one story or many. It’s up to you to get creative. But do get specific to your geographic location.

If you want to help us with the data-driven reporting, here is your assignment:

How does the health care on my university campus compare to the health care at other universities?

We want to examine what happens when a student becomes sick or injured on the university campus. What process do they go through, what’s the quality of care, and how does it rank with other campuses around the world?

The first leg of the assignment: Establish a narrative on what happens to a sick or injured student on campus. The second part is gathering data from each area, such as:

• Distance to nearest hospital or clinic
• Ambulance response times
• Average cost of visit (if not to student, then to whom?)
• Number of clinicians per 100 students
• What services are available on-site
• Population statistics over time for the campus
• Statistics like weight, pregnancy, AIDS diagnoses, gonnohrea/syphillis, etc.

Any statistics we can find that will help us compare campuses, we want to dig up. It will also take a basic explainer on how your country’s health care system differs from others, and that will take collaboration and note-sharing.

We realize this can be very complex. We also want to be flexible in case the stats are unavailable, but we want you to use good reporting skills to do whatever necessary to find out.

I should also mention that the coordinating and planning will be conducted in the English language, but we are open and willing to find a way to accommodate non-English speakers. (Suggestions welcome!)

We are going to use Paul Bradshaw’s Help Me Investigate website to coordinate. Please contact either me (suzanneyada ~at~ gmail) or Josh Halliday if you want to participate, and we will invite you to the HMI group. (We also have a WiredJournalists’s group you can join here without invitation.)

This means for you North American CollegeJourners that the Sunday chats will be moved up to 3 pm ET/noon PT until further notice, so we can chat at a reasonable global time and update each other about our progress.

So you have your assignment. It’s due Oct. 30, but each week we will advance our reporting and share notes, so we will know where we need to go for the next week. You’ll have a support group and clear guidance for what’s expected week by week.

More logistics will be hammered out, and we will keep you informed.

Any questions?

EDIT: Here is the Google group we are using to do internal coordination. Leave a comment here on this blog and then join — I’d like to know who you are!

This time, we’re breaking out of the navel-gazing. Let’s stop talking about journalism and do some journalism.

We talked last Sunday about ideas for student reporting projects (transcript here), then quickly realized that there’s real potential for online collaboration around a particular story or topic.

Two ideas popped up, and they could go hand-in-hand. The first one focuses on data-gathering from all over the world on a particular issue. This is more geared for hard news. What information can you waaaaay over there access that my readers waaaaaay over here would want to know? Is (insert topic here) really this good/bad around the world? This one was inspired by ProPublica’s Adopt-A-Stimulus-Project efforts, but we need a subject that students around the globe could tackle.

The other idea would be focused on a word, like “victory” or “death” or “love” or “injustice,” and have student publications around the world publish stories that reflect their geographical location and culture with that theme. This could be feature, or hard news, or even arts and photography students could contribute.

It’s possible to cross-breed the two, but I had an idea of offering both assignments at the same time — the theme-based idea for audio/video reporters, feature writers or beginning journalists, and the data-gathering idea for the investigative journalists, data visualizers and computer-assisted reporting students. (BTW, I’m not suggesting multimedia reporters can’t be investigative and vice-versa, but some stories and topics lend themselves to different platforms, you know what I mean?)

On Sunday (that’s tomorrow!) we’ll be deciding many of the details, such as what the assignment will be, deadlines (if any), how to collaborate and what to do with the final product. Sarah Jackson (@sarahsodyssey) has already blogged about her vision here. It’s an exciting one.

Please join us at 8 p.m. BST if you’re in Europe and 3 p.m. ET/noon PT if you’re in North America. Those locations have already had CollegeJourn chats set up, but we want to expand to other continents, too, so please check out what time that will be in your time zone.

Also, join the newly formed CollegeJourn group on WiredJournalists. It could be just the platform we use to do the planning and collaboration.

From left: Moderator Geanne Rosenberg, Suzanne Yada, Sandeep Junnarkar, Dan Gillmor. Taken by Dan Kennedy: http://twitpic.com/crwn1

I came back from the AEJMC conference full of ideas. I think my panel on social media with Dan Gillmor and Sandeep Junnarkar went really well, though Jeff Jarvis had to cancel for health reasons.

First, what I told the educators (in addition to the points in my last post):

• Try BarCamps. Let the students organize themselves for one weekend a semester, and have them put on their own conference. Assign it if you must, but let them decide what needs to be taught.
• Students want the ability to experiment and fail. There needs to be a grading system that allows for this.
• Educators and even some students feel queasy about marketing themselves. With all due respect, they need to get over it.
• Don’t teach social media tools, teach concepts behind them. Don’t teach Twitter, teach why Twitter.
• Live-twittering or putting your face down to your notepad, it’s the same thing. It’s “continuous partial attention,” and it’s what journalists do. (I’m not particularly good at it, so I didn’t live-tweet the conference.)

Other ideas from the panel:

• Too many students think someone’s going to fix the industry for them. Sorry. It’s all on the students now.
• J-profs need to get out of “oracle mode.” Gillmor said he had to learn to hold his tongue, and Junnarkar said he had to find ways to be less harsh in editing but still get the students to correct themselves. (I’m torn on this one; I want my stories ripped apart!)
  
• Students are becoming very reluctant to talk to anyone in person, even over the telephone. I’ll be honest here: I’m fighting this problem myself, and though I’m getting better I could use any prodding at my disposal. Instructors, wield the pitchfork.
  
• “Industrial journalists” was the buzzword of the panel, referring to the people working in the media that produces a physical product that requires manufacturing and shipping (i.e. a newspaper). Lots of people resented or delighted in the distinction.
• From what I’ve heard of Arizona State’s program, it has a lot of things going for it. Gillmor sets up a Ning for each of his classes and has students write and correct Wikipedia entries. There’s also an entrepreneurial class, and (if I remember correctly) students edit each other’s work on live on WordPress.
• In the old school way of sourcing, journalists had friends of friends, or sources of sources. With social media, you’re able to source at a more random variance, but not everyone in the world is on social media, and it limits your options. Use both.

In the discussion after the panel, there was a rift between longtime educators and others who felt that journalism education was going the way of the dodo. Or rather, the way of print.

That was to be a theme for the rest of the convention. People walked out on Nieman Lab’s Josh Benton, who challenged the future of the copy editing, at least according to Doug Fisher’s write-up. (More of his AEJMC blog posts are here.)

The tone oscillated between old-school mourning and new-school chastising. But it honestly, truly, wasn’t as much of a downer as it sounds. I enjoyed myself. It was my first AEJMC, and I went as an undergrad. So I came with eyes wide open in the belief that AEJMC can’t really be that stodgy — when someone like Dan Conover writes a winning paper like this?

Other random AEJMC thoughts (because I have links to dump and I love me some bulleted lists):

• I have a new respect for educators and researchers. I still don’t want to go to grad school.
• The conference naturally had a heavy focus on research, which I love. Problem is, research is in the past. I’m also interested in the D of R&D. Let’s develop, yes?
• Check out Lisa William’s slideshow, “Thinking like a startup for journalists” (which you will simply have to see in person for full impact. She’s hilarious).
• I went to visit the Christian Science Monitor newsroom. Bill Mitchell of Poynter was also there and already wrote up a great summation. I spoke with editor John Yemma and told him, in all honesty, that if I were to start a publication from scratch, it would mimic their model (online first, weekly print delivered by post, in-depth stories, etc.) Not a kiss-up.
• One of the highlights of the convention was the Great Ideas For Teachers presentation. Posters with curriculum ideas lined the walls of a ballroom. Read this year’s winner here, previous winners here, and order them all here.
• Guy Berger’s AEJMC assessment was based on the limited tweeting and blogging coming from the conference, and I wish I blogged as the conference was going on. (But the stupid hotel charged for Internet access. Who does that nowadays? Grr!) The gist of his blog was fairly accurate, though.
• Michele K. Jones, Alfred Hermida, Carrie Brown-Smith and Steve Fox also weigh in on the conference.
• Read AEJMC’s blog posts and Hot Topics. A lot of thoughtful observations there.

I will be speaking to a host of journalism educators, and I am not going to waste this opportunity.

So just a few hours ago, we held a CollegeJourn.com chat about what we, the journalism students already immersed in social media, wanted to tell these educators.

Read the full transcript here, but here’s a very brief summary:

• Professors need to not only teach social media, but practice it. It is now their job to understand this.
• The students are also resistant. Just because they’re young and on Facebook doesn’t mean they know social media.
• There’s a lesson plan in comparing ethics policies, legal quandaries and best practices of news organizations using social media. Less emphasis on teaching the tools, more on teaching principles.
• Students who know social media should become TAs or peer teachers, or help organize a bootcamp/BarCamp at school to teach both students and the professors about social media.
• But, professors, please still keep hammering fundamentals. Don’t get lost in the latest buzzword. Everything taught about social media should point straight back to the basics.

But even after all that discussion, the most telling is the separate session that happened among three college journalism powerhouses (if you don’t mind me being so bold). Daniel Bachhuber, Greg Linch and Joey Baker from CoPress were particularly peeved at the idea that all it takes is a few social media courses to bring j-schools up to snuff.

What they want is a revolution. A radical dismantling of the entire structure and starting from scratch. Adding a class on Twitter isn’t going to cut it.

Read this, or better yet, download the podcast to hear for yourself. Also, read Daniel’s previous posts here, here and here on rebooting journalism education.

CollegeJourn had previously hosted a Bring-Your-Professor chat night, another must-read synopsis. It sounds like we might need another one. This time, will there be a single school out there who will listen?

ADDENDUM

Hoisting up some more links for your reading pleasure, thanks to comments from Daniel, Greg and Joey:

• Mark Hamilton’s “Remaking Journalism Education: Some Thoughts.”
• Vin Crosbie’s “Anatomy of a 21st Century Media Executive“ and “Getting Journalism Education Out of the Way.” (Plus Joey’s Publish2 links.)
• Greg’s posts on “Wanted: Resident Butt-Kicker (Thoughts on journalism education)” and “Rich Beckman discusses how to reshape journalism education.”

1. Reflections of a Newsosaur: The best of the best in my opinion. Not only does Alan Mutter write original content about the business side of journalism, he also uses cold hard data to back it up. A numbers man and a news man.
2. The Media Business: I only found Robert Picard’s blog recently, and I wonder why this guy isn’t mentioned just as often as Alan Mutter. Certainly he has the resume to impress and the blog posts to back it up. Really great information and analysis.
3. Poynter’s NewsPay: One of Poynter’s newer blogs, created to keep track of all the new crazy ideas for reinventing the news business. The Transformation Tracker is also a must-read: It’s a supplemental list of links that’s updated constantly and by category.
4. Poynter’s Biz Blog: How this differs from NewsPay exactly, I’m not sure, but it is different enough to be a separate blog. It seems to be more news and analysis of the already-established industry. Still essential reading.
5. Editors’ Weblog: Gives an international perspective on everything from print journalism, Web 2.0, multimedia and other analysis. From the World Editors Forum.
6. MediaCafe: It’s more hit-and-miss than the previous blogs, but when it hits it really hits. Like this post that offers a downloadable spreadsheet of different scenarios for paid online content for 50K circulation newspapers. (What do you expect? They’re media consultants.)
7. MMCDigiMe: The blog has numerous interviews with key players in the reinventing-journalism business. The MMC is for the Media Management Center at Northwestern, which also offers plenty of research available to download. The blog is coupled with MediaNoted, a great aggregate of links.
8. Newspaper Death Watch: Of course it’s depressing. But someone’s gotta do it. And the folks behind Newspaper Death Watch do a great job of rounding up news on the industry that’s more than just some paper’s obituary somewhere.
9. Monday Note: Every Monday like clockwork, these two Frenchmen write in-depth thoughtful analysis on various media and their complex business models, complete with numbers and data. This used to be an e-mail only newsletter. So glad they turned it into a blog.
10. Rebuilding Media: This one brings together four thought leaders in the field and lets them opine on rebuilding the industry. Good focus on business models in particular.
11. PaidContent: Content comes in many forms. PaidContent snatches up news and headlines about how those content creators can, do and should get paid.
12. MediaBistro: In addition to the excellent TVNewser and WebNewser blogs, you can go to a local media blog for LA, SF, NY and DC, or turn on the firehose with all news about print, ads, design, TV, web and everything else here.
13. RevenueTwoPointZero: It’s slightly outdated and quotes Clay Shirky too much for my liking, but it has really interesting ideas for boosting revenues. From the Society of News Design people.
14. State of the Media: OK, so it’s not quite a blog, but it is such absolutely essential reading that I couldn’t NOT mention it. The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism hands over the keys to understanding where the business is and where it may be headed.

I also have to mention Nieman Lab and Romenesko. Though they aren’t strictly business, they still blog about what’s happening on the biz side of things. They’re just too good to leave off this post.

What are some of your favorites?

Also, a very short apology for lack of updates here, though it’s not for lack of writing. I’ve been writing here and there for the Public Press, San Jose Metblogs, TNTJ and these writeups that summarized our big CollegeJourn chat a few months ago. Plus, Twitter and Facebook are killing blogging, don’tcha know.

It was a fun interview, but I tend to ramble when I speak, so let me emphasize a couple of points:

• Yes, j-schools should be weeding out students who aren’t going to cut it. There are simply more journalism students than jobs. Perhaps we should stop coddling the tagalongs. And perhaps deficiencies in the journalism curriculum help sort out the people who are there to get a degree only, and those self-starters who see something they need to learn and will go out and learn it, whether or not there’s a class offered.
• Fancy modern tools are great. Telling stories is better. I will stand by that and plan to emphasize that in tonight’s chat.
• By show of hands, how many students know they can directly approach whoever sets the curriculum at their school?
• I want to give proper credit to my own school at San Jose State University. During many weeks of the CollegeJourn chats, I realize that I am lucky to have professors who at least acknowledge the need for new media. There’s still room for improvement, there always is. But most of my concerns about the future of journalism are not aimed towards the SJSU faculty. They’re doing the best they can.

I did want to clarify one point: I said print is dying. That’s not the full truth. The INFLUENCE of print is diminishing and the demand for print-side jobs are on their way out, which makes it even more important to shake old-school professors awake from their belief that they should teach nothing but print skills. However, there are still niches available for print, so it should still be included as one of many things students should learn.

Here’s some specific contexts where print still makes a lot of sense, off the top of my head:

• Free publications, particularly in low-income neighborhoods or downtown areas.
• Coffee shops.
• Waiting rooms.
• In-depth weeklies or monthlies, publishing articles too long to be read comfortably at a computer. That is, until e-readers become as commonplace as books, which still has a long way to go.
• Public transportation – planes, trains and buses. Again, until e-readers become ubiquitous.
• College campuses.

Yes, I said college campuses.

Print makes sense there because of its small geographic circulation (the campus and its neighborhood), the advertising revenue and, perhaps most importantly, its lack of competition for attention.

Look at the way students pick up the paper. They walk to class, minding their own business, perhaps thinking about how boring their next teacher is going to be. Then they see a newsstand and remember that yes, there is a campus publication, and they pick it up, just in case class is going to be as boring as they feared.

If the publication was primarily online, what would compel any student to go there first instead of Facebook or MySpace? The only chance you have of getting read online is to post an article that went viral in other classmates’ Facebook news feed.

Another argument for print, which comes from a surprising source: I stumbled on this recap from a student Editors’ Day conference in Southern California (full disclosure: I participated heavily in JACC when I was editor in chief at College of the Sequoias). I was completely surprised to see one of the top complaints from students is that instructors push new media too hard.

It’s the students who still want to focus on print. And why not? Anyone can post a blog; not everyone appears in print. And because print still makes the most sense for college campuses, news staffs are already stretched thin just trying to put out a quality newspaper.

Students want to produce in print, and students want to read print. Most of the money is made from print. So what’s the problem?

The problem is after graduation.

Not every journalism student is going to be employed in print niches. That’s why it’s so important to diversify. But because print still makes sense on the college campus, how can we ask them to do more video, audio, blogging and multimedia for a publication that they 1) typically aren’t paid to work for and 2) may only be taking as a requirement for graduation?

I think we better figure out a way, and quick.

We’re going to try and limit (or carefully control) the “print is dead” discussion at tonight’s CollegeJourn.com chat. But as long as it’s relevant to the subject, we will carefully tread the subject. It’s is the main reason why I am blogging here: to get it out of my system and be fresh and ready.

So join us. 8-11 p.m. EST.

Hey everyone, this is a last-minute chat widget since the other room doesn’t work.

Please sign in with your Twitter name, please cross-post your favorite chats to your Twitter using the #collegejourn hashtag, and please have fun! (And please ignore the occasional spam from Meebo.)

Topic for hour 1: Inspired by Elliot Njus’s comment at collegejourn.com: What are a few things college papers can start right now to improve its coverage?
Topic for hour 2: How can we encourage reporting on something deeper than surface-level topics?

If you haven’t read part one of these resolutions for journalism students, start here. And take good notes. Because we move on to the second overall goal, which applies to just about everyone in any profession, not just journalism students:

Network like mad

• First things first: Make people remember your name.
  Much of this entire list are specific ways to make this happen, but here’s the gist: You want people to know your name like they know Anderson Cooper’s (@andersoncooper). So start using your real name online. Hammer on your specialty and make that shine through. Make yourself a brand. The personal brand was the topic of discussion over at Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists, (@TNTJ) which is well worth the read. EDIT: Jay Rosen sent me this excellent post from Sarah Lacy, who knows a thing or two about personal brands in journalism. Andy Dickinson (@digidickinson), who teaches at the University of Central Lancashire, also touches on the rise of individual brands here. And the very-non-journalist self-proclaimed guru Dan Schawbel (@danschawbel) likes to waffle on about this (sometimes annoyingly so, but the information is still there). I took my own advice between my last post and this one and renamed my blog from “Everyday Journalism” to just “Suzanne Yada.” Many other bullet points on this list are more specific how-tos that fall under this “branding” umbrella, like the next one:
     
• Consistency is everything.
  Be consistent through your writing style, your follow-ups with your sources, the way you meet deadlines and in your social networking presence. That all reflects on your reputation, and it’s your most valuable asset. That’s your “brand.” Have people who visit your blog, see your resume or look at your portfolio recognize it’s from you. You can start with something simple: Megan Taylor (@selfmadepsyche) says here that she reuses the same colors with everything she does online. And David Cohn (@digidave) of Spot.Us does it best with his five personalities image and use of the same nickname across all his social networking sites. Student Adam Hemphill (@ahemphill) says here succinctly: “If you’re not consistent with your message, potential employers or collaborators will not know what to make of you. Think about these questions: What is your goal? What are your most valuable skills? What do you want to affect? Consider these things and develop a plan for presenting yourself consistently, whether you’re answering interview questions or tying Web sites together visually.”  
    
• Get professional, not stodgy.
  Yes, you do need to create an image that says that you know your stuff and you mean business. So take down the frat party pics from Facebook and change your email from whatchutalkinboutwillis85@aol.com. Google your name and make sure everything you find is something you want an employer to see. But Jesus Christ, don’t take out ALL your personality, people! News does not have to be dry, and neither do you. You’re not a robot, and sources are less intimidated talking to a human than they are talking to a, gasp, journalist. Yes, still have expertise, but be lively, be engaging, be intelligent, be funny, even be a smart-ass if it calls for it. Christopher Wink (@christopherwink) a freelance journalist in Philadelphia, says that adopting a clear voice in your writing style is all part of your brand. But you do have to learn to let your style show through without being opinionated or skewing your reporting. (Keeping your writing style intact through the editing process is another story altogether.) 
      
• Get your domain name. 
  If you don’t already have “your name dot com,” do it yesterday. It’s only $10 a year or so, sometimes even less. Post your resume, portfolio and clips on it at the very least, and if you’re adopting the very first resolution to Write Like Crazy, post your blog there too. That way, when that potential internship calls you back and asks for clips, you don’t have to keep them waiting for an e-mail. Just tell them your URL.
     
• Start collecting potential sources.
  It’s never too early to start filling out your little black book with phone numbers. Reporting is ALL about connections. Who can you call 30 minutes from deadline to verify something (other than trying Help A Reporter Out [@skydiver] )? If a source knows who you are, they’re much more likely to help you. And now’s the time to initiate those connections. Whether you’re the campus crime reporter or a wannabe food critic, make your name known now so you don’t have an uphill battle to climb later (say, 30 minutes from deadline). And keep a backup of that little black book (or BlackBerry database)! Keep it updated, organized and ON YOUR PERSON at all times. 
       
• Make Twitter your friend.
  Notice that I’ve posted a (@username) after every single person I mentioned in this post from beginning to end? Those are their Twitter names. It is not a coincidence everyone has them, and I didn’t exclude anyone just because they didn’t have a Twitter account. If you are a journalist and don’t have one: Fix. That. Problem. Right. Now. Use your Twitter to network with both other journalists AND potential sources. Start on the journalist side of things by following everyone I’ve referenced in this post (especially those in the next bullet point). Also follow 10,000 Words’ top 10 journalists on Twitter, or start with this list I posted on Twentysomething Journalist. Then add your name to this wiki of Twittering journalists and see who else you would like to follow there. If you’re really ambitious, add the people who follow @JournalistTweet, and follow them yourself. To hunt down potential sources, go to the advanced Twitter search and look up people tweeting about your beat subject in your area. Poynter (@poynter) gives basic journalism Twitter tips here. Steve Yelvington (@yelvington) explains more thoroughly here. Shawn Smith (@shawnsmith) gives a huge list of Twitter tools here. 
       
• Read and follow other journalists’ blogs and Twitters. 
  Find the good journalism-related bloggers out there and read them religiously. Fill up your RSS reader (like Google Reader) with their work. Give ‘em feedback, ask questions. Link to them, quote them, share their posts, reply to their tweets and they just might return the favor. Want to get started? I’ve freshened up my blog roll on the right column of this Web site with some high quality folks, but if that’s too much to follow, then start with these. These are all the names that are at the top of my mind right now — playing into the importance that your personal brand makes:
     
  YOUNG JOURNALISTS:
  Greg Linch (@greglinch)
  Emily Kostic (@emilykostic)
  Daniel Bachhuber (@danielbachhuber) 
  Megan Taylor (@selfmadepsyche) 
  Meranda Watling (@meranduh) 
  Daniel Victor (@bydanielvictor) 
  Anyone else involved with CoPress (@CoPress) 
  Anyone else involved with Tomorrow’s News Tomorrow’s Journalists (@TNTJ)
     
  SEASONED HEAVY HITTERS:
  Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu)
  Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis)
  Patrick Thornton (@jiconoclast)
  Ryan Sholin (@ryansholin) 
  Chrys Wu (@MacDivaONA)
  David Cohn (@digidave) 
  Mindy McAdams (@macloo)
  Steve Yelvington (@yelvington)
     
• Boost the link economy.
  The exchange of links makes the Internet go ’round. So do it. When you come across a blog post or an article you like, save it and spread it. Write a blog post about it. Share it on Delicious, Twitter, Publish2, Google Reader, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon. Make it second-nature. That’s how you meet people, make contacts and build a name for yourself. But it’s more than that: Jeff Jarvis  (@jeffjarvis)  harps on linking as a journalistic skill too. When you are immersed in your beat, instead of viewing other news outlets as competition, he suggests you do what you do best, then link to the rest. If your beat has an online presence (like those at BeatBlogging.org), reference as much information on your subject as possible. Having a robust collection of links about your subject sets you apart as a well-read and connected source of information of your beat.
            
• Join online networks.
  Get on LinkedIn right away. Jump in on blog rings, like TNTJ or the Carnival of Journalism (even if unofficially). Join Facebook groups like Reinvent Newspapers , CollegeJourn or the aptly named Journalists and Facebook. Find forums like Twentysomething Journalist. Sign up for Ning sites like Wired Journalists, Visual Editors, The Modern Journalist and The Next Newsroom Project. Join Twitter groups like Change Journalism, #journchat or #collegejourn. Your name will be known as long as you have good ideas and discussions behind it. As an extra bonus, having a presence on all of these gives you wonderfully high rankings in Google.
       
• Join associations.
  Part of me wants to tell you to join as many journalism-related associations as possible. The other part thinks it’s best to pick one or two and go hog-wild with those. Since most associations worth listing on your resume cost money, I am going with the latter option and I’m saving up my pennies for a membership of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Society of News Design this year. (Be sure to check if your school has chapters and what the price of membership is.) It doesn’t matter if you’re a multimedia reporter, a photojournalist, a copy editor or an investigative reporter; are interested in religious, environmental, health care or GLBT issues; or you come from a black, Asian or Hispanic background. There’s an association for you. Once you find one, network like hell with the other members, and attend any and all meetings associated with it. If you can’t find an association that interests you on any of these links here, just Google your interest plus the words “journalists association” (without the quotes). You might be surprised.
       
• Get business cards. 
  I’m serious. Design them, print them, carry them everywhere, especially to those association events mentioned above. Vista Print will give you 250 for free, but I personally think the tagline they add to the back of the cards makes you look cheap. (Full disclosure time: My family owns a handful of print shops in Central California, so I am naturally going to encourage you to support your local printer. ;) ) EDIT: Gina Chen (@bloggingmom67) commented here to add: “Be sure all your contact info is on your business card. (This is more advice for folks who have been employed for a while and never thought of putting their blog address on their card. Do it.)”
        
• Get rid of the business cards. 
  You are not going through the trouble of getting business cards just to have a stack of them in your closet. SCHMOOZE. Pass them out. I’ve given mine out in formal networking settings, to people I’ve interviewed for stories, I’ve even handed them out to a few people on a bus stuck in traffic. You’re not selling your soul here, you’re letting people know who you are and how you can help them, either in telling their stories or being the best damn hire they’ll ever make.  
       
• Hone your elevator pitch. 
  Sum up your personality and career goals in 10 seconds or less, and repeat it over and over in your head. It’s called the elevator pitch because you never know who you might bump into in an elevator, and you have to be prepared. Memorize your pitch so the exact wording tumbles out of your mouth the next time you bump into Ms. Executive Editor in the checkout line. (Career marketing consultant Michelle Dumas [@michelledumas] posts a more thorough look here. Or try the 15-second pitch generator here.) Once you spill your spiel, hand them your professional business card with your URL on it, and they have an instant ticket to your whole portfolio of work.   
       
• Never underestimate the power of lunch. 
  Free food is just one of the stuff journalists like. Feeling like a mentor to a fresh-faced journo student is another. When Sean Webby (@seanwebby), a San Jose Mercury News reporter, came and spoke to my magazine writing class, I had the guts to hand him my card after class. He handed me his. I e-mailed him later and offered to buy lunch. He e-mailed back with an even better offer: a two-hour tagalong on his beat. That experience was as phenomenal as it was educational. And it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t do this next item:   
       
• Follow up. With everything. Yes, even that.
  With everyone who hears your elevator pitch, with every business card you collect, with every e-mail exchange that happened today or the one that happened six months ago, follow up. When someone links to you, thank them. When someone writes something of interest, leave a comment. When someone retweets something you said, respond. When in doubt, follow up. Also, invest in some thank-you cards. Actual, paper-based ones. Send them to the internships that called you back, the professionals that speak in your class, your teachers, your student editors at school publications, and most importantly, after every interview or callback from potential employers. Have the fact that you follow up on everything become a part of your “brand.”

Now, I fully realize the title of this post is sorely misleading. This isn’t just for journalism students at all. This is for everyone wanting to develop their career, whether you’re simply looking for another job in the field or an entrepreneur wanting to expand your startup’s network. But there’s a reason I’m specifying journalism students: We don’t think about this stuff nearly enough. We don’t go to the campus job center or read career advice blogs. We have our heads stuck in the projects that are right in front of us. So it’s my hope that a post with the words “journalism students” in the title is more likely to be read. 

Because now is the best time to make a name for yourself. Do it before this so-called real world comes by and hits you in the face. Do it now, while you have the flexible schedule and the energy.

Set specific goals, right now. Take a look at both these blog posts and choose a couple of these items you really want to focus on this year. But only a couple at a time! Then tailor them to your situation. Give them deadlines, timelines and other specifics, such as “I will order and pass out 250 business cards by March,” “I will study PHP one hour a weekend,” “I will blog once a week for 10 weeks” or “I will pitch three stories to magazines by May.”

In fact, just close this browser. Shut off the Internet. Go make your own personalized list of resolutions, and do them. Now.

EDIT 1: Jay Rosen just sent me this link on personal branding, which I added to goal #1.
EDIT 2: Stumbled upon Will Sullivan’s (@journerdism) fantastic series on job hunting and career advice. They are must-reads. 32 real world advice to journalism grads. How to network like a ninja. 94 journo job-seeking resources. Freelance and entrepreneur tips. Also, read his advice to college students here.
EDIT 3: Meranda Watling (@meranduh) wrote a lovely post in response to mine, putting all of these tips into a professional perspective.
EDIT 4: A newly-formed Twitter and Facebook group, #CollegeJourn, has been added to the “Join online networks” portion of this post.
EDIT 5: Jim McBee posts a reply here from the perspective of a “grizzled, cynical, ex-journalist.” He warns against killing yourself for the news business. Worth reading and considering before you dive into these resolutions.
EDIT 6: I am hearing from quite a handful of teachers and students who are using this blog post in their classrooms. That’s fantastic! Please leave a comment with your school and location (and URL if you have one!); I and other students would like to know who we all are so we can connect with each other.
EDIT 7: I added a line to “Get business cards” to include Gina Chen’s comment here.