This year's Online News Association conference (Sept. 12-14, Washington, DC) was sold out and sessions were packed. Notably for a recent journalism event, the mood was mostly upbeat.
In addition to pre-conference workshops, ONA 2008 tracks included:
- How'd they do that?
- Emerging tech and the newsroom
- Be an evangelist
- My digital beat
- Teaching and learning
- Multimedia learning lab
If you weren't there, you're still in luck. This year, ONA's student newsroom team liveblogged Robert Scoble's keynote using CoverItLive. They also wrote about what they learned from that experiment.
Twitter isn't just for real-time messages. Try "snacking" (as Scoble describes browsing from social networking feeds) from ONA08's twitter stream for links to download material from sessions. You can view featured sites as well as tweets that capture the spirit of the moment.
The students' coverage of sessions features video and soundslides presentations, in addition to text stories. You also can get the "almost there" view of the conference from ONA's extensive and excellent coverage.
Check out the ONA Award winners and their projects. Get ready to enter your project next year.
In the interest of transparency, let me say I presented at J-Lab's Entrepreneur Bootcamp, mentored students in the newsroom, and was on the "A+ blog" panel. I twittered some, learned lots, and even met the Scobleizer.
