Friday, September 14, 2007
Sree Sreenivasan 002, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, New Media Professor: Mr. Media Interview, Pt. 2
(Return to Part 1)
BOB ANDELMAN: One of the things that most of these sites we talked about have in common is that they kind of originated out of college campuses or, at the least, they were popularized there. LinkedIn, of course, was more developed out of Palo Alto and the Silicon Valley area, but MySpace, Friendster, and Facebook all really grew out of college just as before them, Napster was a big college phenomenon. You’re on campus, Sree. I hate to say it, but what are the kids buzzing about these days? What’s coming up ahead of us?
SREE SREENIVASAN: Well, my students, I hate to call them “kids” because their average age is 27, and some of them are amazed how much we are using Facebook because, when they were in college, Facebook wasn’t there, or they just missed Facebook if they’re 23, 24. Like I said, it’s not necessarily a function of age as much as what your friends were using or if they were using anything at all. And I think on campus it would be fair to say that Facebook is a big thing. But I was at a dinner party where a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old with their father. The 14-year-old is complaining to the father that, “Dad, all you oldies are ruining Facebook. We’re looking for something else. We’re trying to find our own new Facebook where all these old people aren’t hanging out,” so that if he’s searching for Mary Jane, who he saw across the college campus the other day, rather than Mary Jane who is in her 50s. So that’s what he meant by that. There’re too many adults on there.
SREENIVASAN: What has excited the world, of course, is the iPhone. I myself don’t have one because I can’t afford one. And I see that one of the things that is also happening is we’re all in kind of back-to-school mode, and we’re seeing prices on all the computers are falling. Prices are falling, but more importantly, they’re getting faster and better and more horsepower.
I haven’t actually seen any new gadget that I can talk about except one. One just occurred to me. There’s something that I’ve been using, and I like very much called Flip Video, there’s a website, theflip.com. It’s a very cheap digital camera that has a built-in USB connector so that you shoot your video, and you upload it to YouTube right away or share it via email. And it works very well so I’ve been excited about that. You can get it at theflip.com. It shows you how the technology is changing, that the cell phones and cell phone cameras are going to get better and at the same time, these other gadgets that allow you to take decent quality video and audio in something that used to be a brick a few years ago are now becoming right in the palm of your hand.
ANDELMAN: Now, you bridged two worlds. I want to make sure we talk a little bit about journalism as well. I’m curious, how do you balance the twin demands on your life? That is, how do you split your time between teaching journalism and practicing it?
SREENIVASAN: Well, you used a key word in there that you didn’t realize. The word twin. I have four-year-old twins.
ANDELMAN: I know that, yeah.
SREENIVASAN: And the two of them are a very big demand on my time. I like to say that my day starts when I go home. The other stuff is all very easy. As dean of students at the J school, I have 400 babies, and having toddler twins trains you well to deal with adult students because some of them, it’d be fair to say, are needy also. But, quite frankly, how I’m able to do this is because I have a great support system at home. My wife is very generous with her time and allowing me to do things, but I also find that I have had to turn around my body clock in a way to deal with the newer demands. For example, I get up early because I have television work I do a couple of days a week on the air, but as a life-long all-nighter puller and someone who would not go to bed before one o’clock and two o’clock, I now go to bed at 10:30 and wake up at five just in order for me to do a couple of hours of work before my kids get up. It’s amazing how much work you can get done between five and seven. But it took decades of my body clock going in one direction, and having to turn it was not easy. The other thing I’d say is also making use of as many technology tools as possible to make your life more productive, and maybe we can talk about a couple of examples.
ANDELMAN: Sure.
ANDELMAN: I think we both know the answer to that question.
SREENIVASAN: And the answer is “No.” So I read lifehacker.com and irritatingly, one with a similar name called lifehack.org, and both have very good tips.
A couple of other ideas that I use to kind of keep track of things electronically: My wife and I are now on what’s called Google Docs. Have you seen Google Docs & Spreadsheets? These are kind of online versions of Office of both Excel and Word. And it’s a simple thing. How we use it is we put our expenses online, but only the two of us can see it. We have passwords. In the old days, if we had to reconcile our checkbooks or keep track of expenses, it would be on one computer at home, and you’d have to get on the computer and put it in. Now, during the day whenever there’s a lull, we’ll go online, and we’ll just put in our expenses, and we’re sharing and working off of one document rather than working off of one computer at home. That’s one of the ways in which I’m using that. It’s been very, very helpful.
Another quick tip, which I’m sure your listeners know, is to use both Yahoo’s and Google’s alert systems, which will alert you every time something you’re interested in is added to their index. So google.com/alerts and yahoo.com/alerts will let you know when something you’re interested in is added because, as you know, when things are added to Google or Yahoo, they’re added kind of to the back of the line, and most of us don’t go past the first three or four links on the results page, let alone the fifth page or the 50th page or the 500th page. Those are ways I use to keep track of things.
One funny story about Google Alerts: One of my good friends moved to D.C. and was writing for the Washington Post, and I would drop her a note every time she had a piece in the paper. And she was so touched that here I was taking the time to track down her story on B17 or C12 or whatever and dropping her a note. Of course, when she found out I was using Google Alerts to alert me every time she had a byline, she was not amused.
ANDELMAN: You know what, I use Plaxo that way for birthdays. My friends and family have become so impressed that I’m suddenly keeping up on that stuff, but what you have to understand is that I have a Mac and I have Address Book, and Plaxo automatically reads my address book and updates birthdays from that so I don’t miss birthdays or anniversaries anymore, either. I guess I just let the cat out of the bag. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.
SREENIVASAN: Yeah, I know. But you can edit this, right?
SREENIVASAN: Well, we could have a whole hour-long conversation on this. I’m someone who gets two daily newspapers delivered to his house and five magazines that we pay for by subscription. I would say that yes, it is an issue I think reporters of all ages need to understand, that the business has changed. It isn’t just changing, it has changed, and you have to pick up as many new media skills as you can. It isn’t just the skill set, however. It’s also the mindset, and there are ways in which you can pick up some of these things without actually going to college and taking a class. Just reading up more on these changes and keeping up with them is important.
I also find that, at our school as with a lot of journalism schools, when the economy is in trouble, we kind of benefit, unfortunately, in the sense that when people are being laid off, and the journalism economy is tough, people go back to journalism school or look to re-train themselves. So we benefit a little bit from that. And this year, we have the largest starting class ever at the journalism school because, with so many people that are coming this fall, the school is already kind of bursting at the seams. Now that doesn’t mean that we ourselves aren’t trying to re-tool the curriculum, adjust, because we cannot sit on our laurels, either. One of the examples I give is that, last year, the Washington Post won an Emmy Award for video. That tells you two things have changed. One is that the Washington Post has changed and is doing video and is doing it very well. And the second is that the Emmy awards have changed, that they realize that some of the most compelling and interesting video is on newspaper websites. So if those two institutions can change, everyone and every institution can change.
ANDELMAN: So what would be the best single advice you would give someone thinking about a career in journalism?
SREENIVASAN: I would say that journalism is still a viable, important career. You will have a wonderful time. You will be able to do a lot for society. Almost no other career will give you the kind of wide canvas that journalism does. But you have to go into it with your eyes open and know that we’ve seen layoffs, we’re seeing market forces putting great pressure on traditional journalism. But I believe that there will always be a market for reporting and writing and production, and good writing, in the end, is the key to all of this, whether it’s on the web or whether it’s on the radio or audio or video. It will always be part of what we’re doing.
I remain bullish. Otherwise, I wouldn’t work in a business and at a university where we’re charging people money to come and learn the stuff. So I remain optimistic.
ANDELMAN: I guess the journalism skill sets will probably always be in demand, but that the application that the students use it for might be different from the day they start as a student; by the time that they graduate, it will be something completely different.
SREENIVASAN: And that, of course, happens all the time. That change is happening right before us.
© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.
(Return to Part 1)
BOB ANDELMAN: One of the things that most of these sites we talked about have in common is that they kind of originated out of college campuses or, at the least, they were popularized there. LinkedIn, of course, was more developed out of Palo Alto and the Silicon Valley area, but MySpace, Friendster, and Facebook all really grew out of college just as before them, Napster was a big college phenomenon. You’re on campus, Sree. I hate to say it, but what are the kids buzzing about these days? What’s coming up ahead of us?
SREE SREENIVASAN: Well, my students, I hate to call them “kids” because their average age is 27, and some of them are amazed how much we are using Facebook because, when they were in college, Facebook wasn’t there, or they just missed Facebook if they’re 23, 24. Like I said, it’s not necessarily a function of age as much as what your friends were using or if they were using anything at all. And I think on campus it would be fair to say that Facebook is a big thing. But I was at a dinner party where a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old with their father. The 14-year-old is complaining to the father that, “Dad, all you oldies are ruining Facebook. We’re looking for something else. We’re trying to find our own new Facebook where all these old people aren’t hanging out,” so that if he’s searching for Mary Jane, who he saw across the college campus the other day, rather than Mary Jane who is in her 50s. So that’s what he meant by that. There’re too many adults on there.
SREENIVASAN: What has excited the world, of course, is the iPhone. I myself don’t have one because I can’t afford one. And I see that one of the things that is also happening is we’re all in kind of back-to-school mode, and we’re seeing prices on all the computers are falling. Prices are falling, but more importantly, they’re getting faster and better and more horsepower.
I haven’t actually seen any new gadget that I can talk about except one. One just occurred to me. There’s something that I’ve been using, and I like very much called Flip Video, there’s a website, theflip.com. It’s a very cheap digital camera that has a built-in USB connector so that you shoot your video, and you upload it to YouTube right away or share it via email. And it works very well so I’ve been excited about that. You can get it at theflip.com. It shows you how the technology is changing, that the cell phones and cell phone cameras are going to get better and at the same time, these other gadgets that allow you to take decent quality video and audio in something that used to be a brick a few years ago are now becoming right in the palm of your hand.
ANDELMAN: Now, you bridged two worlds. I want to make sure we talk a little bit about journalism as well. I’m curious, how do you balance the twin demands on your life? That is, how do you split your time between teaching journalism and practicing it?
SREENIVASAN: Well, you used a key word in there that you didn’t realize. The word twin. I have four-year-old twins.
ANDELMAN: I know that, yeah.
SREENIVASAN: And the two of them are a very big demand on my time. I like to say that my day starts when I go home. The other stuff is all very easy. As dean of students at the J school, I have 400 babies, and having toddler twins trains you well to deal with adult students because some of them, it’d be fair to say, are needy also. But, quite frankly, how I’m able to do this is because I have a great support system at home. My wife is very generous with her time and allowing me to do things, but I also find that I have had to turn around my body clock in a way to deal with the newer demands. For example, I get up early because I have television work I do a couple of days a week on the air, but as a life-long all-nighter puller and someone who would not go to bed before one o’clock and two o’clock, I now go to bed at 10:30 and wake up at five just in order for me to do a couple of hours of work before my kids get up. It’s amazing how much work you can get done between five and seven. But it took decades of my body clock going in one direction, and having to turn it was not easy. The other thing I’d say is also making use of as many technology tools as possible to make your life more productive, and maybe we can talk about a couple of examples.
ANDELMAN: Sure.
ANDELMAN: I think we both know the answer to that question.
SREENIVASAN: And the answer is “No.” So I read lifehacker.com and irritatingly, one with a similar name called lifehack.org, and both have very good tips.
A couple of other ideas that I use to kind of keep track of things electronically: My wife and I are now on what’s called Google Docs. Have you seen Google Docs & Spreadsheets? These are kind of online versions of Office of both Excel and Word. And it’s a simple thing. How we use it is we put our expenses online, but only the two of us can see it. We have passwords. In the old days, if we had to reconcile our checkbooks or keep track of expenses, it would be on one computer at home, and you’d have to get on the computer and put it in. Now, during the day whenever there’s a lull, we’ll go online, and we’ll just put in our expenses, and we’re sharing and working off of one document rather than working off of one computer at home. That’s one of the ways in which I’m using that. It’s been very, very helpful.
Another quick tip, which I’m sure your listeners know, is to use both Yahoo’s and Google’s alert systems, which will alert you every time something you’re interested in is added to their index. So google.com/alerts and yahoo.com/alerts will let you know when something you’re interested in is added because, as you know, when things are added to Google or Yahoo, they’re added kind of to the back of the line, and most of us don’t go past the first three or four links on the results page, let alone the fifth page or the 50th page or the 500th page. Those are ways I use to keep track of things.
One funny story about Google Alerts: One of my good friends moved to D.C. and was writing for the Washington Post, and I would drop her a note every time she had a piece in the paper. And she was so touched that here I was taking the time to track down her story on B17 or C12 or whatever and dropping her a note. Of course, when she found out I was using Google Alerts to alert me every time she had a byline, she was not amused.
ANDELMAN: You know what, I use Plaxo that way for birthdays. My friends and family have become so impressed that I’m suddenly keeping up on that stuff, but what you have to understand is that I have a Mac and I have Address Book, and Plaxo automatically reads my address book and updates birthdays from that so I don’t miss birthdays or anniversaries anymore, either. I guess I just let the cat out of the bag. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.
SREENIVASAN: Yeah, I know. But you can edit this, right?
SREENIVASAN: Well, we could have a whole hour-long conversation on this. I’m someone who gets two daily newspapers delivered to his house and five magazines that we pay for by subscription. I would say that yes, it is an issue I think reporters of all ages need to understand, that the business has changed. It isn’t just changing, it has changed, and you have to pick up as many new media skills as you can. It isn’t just the skill set, however. It’s also the mindset, and there are ways in which you can pick up some of these things without actually going to college and taking a class. Just reading up more on these changes and keeping up with them is important.
I also find that, at our school as with a lot of journalism schools, when the economy is in trouble, we kind of benefit, unfortunately, in the sense that when people are being laid off, and the journalism economy is tough, people go back to journalism school or look to re-train themselves. So we benefit a little bit from that. And this year, we have the largest starting class ever at the journalism school because, with so many people that are coming this fall, the school is already kind of bursting at the seams. Now that doesn’t mean that we ourselves aren’t trying to re-tool the curriculum, adjust, because we cannot sit on our laurels, either. One of the examples I give is that, last year, the Washington Post won an Emmy Award for video. That tells you two things have changed. One is that the Washington Post has changed and is doing video and is doing it very well. And the second is that the Emmy awards have changed, that they realize that some of the most compelling and interesting video is on newspaper websites. So if those two institutions can change, everyone and every institution can change.
ANDELMAN: So what would be the best single advice you would give someone thinking about a career in journalism?
SREENIVASAN: I would say that journalism is still a viable, important career. You will have a wonderful time. You will be able to do a lot for society. Almost no other career will give you the kind of wide canvas that journalism does. But you have to go into it with your eyes open and know that we’ve seen layoffs, we’re seeing market forces putting great pressure on traditional journalism. But I believe that there will always be a market for reporting and writing and production, and good writing, in the end, is the key to all of this, whether it’s on the web or whether it’s on the radio or audio or video. It will always be part of what we’re doing.
I remain bullish. Otherwise, I wouldn’t work in a business and at a university where we’re charging people money to come and learn the stuff. So I remain optimistic.
ANDELMAN: I guess the journalism skill sets will probably always be in demand, but that the application that the students use it for might be different from the day they start as a student; by the time that they graduate, it will be something completely different.
SREENIVASAN: And that, of course, happens all the time. That change is happening right before us.
© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.
Labels: Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Facebook, Flip Video, Friendster, Google Docs, LinkedIn, MySpace, Plaxo, Sree Sreenivasan
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