He came to speak to my class one day about how some people make fun of him for just being a reality show celebrity, but the last laugh is on them he said because the show helped him market and develop his personal brand. Something he did must have worked. Kwame is still giving speeches and milking his 15 minutes of fame five years after the reality show aired.

I surveyed the members of our Carolina Association of Black Journalists and most of them didn’t have a web portfolio, Twitter or a LinkedIn account so I created a checklist for them to actively create and monitor their personal brands online. I have spent the last month creating this site, establishing profiles on different networking Web sites and posting my resumes everywhere. It seemed like a wise step since I am graduating in December. However, DigiDave (David Cohn) brought up an interesting point in his blog about making sure to be authentic when you are creating a personal brand. Is it phony for students who are looking for jobs to develop an online personal brand?

I don’t think it is.

Personal branding guru Dan Schawbel said the following about the current job environment in the first chapter of his new book, Me 2.o: Building a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success:

Almost two-thirds of the American population— around 194 million people—is online, where the majority of recruiting is now conducted. The competition to get jobs is intense; more than 1.5 million graduates will be receiving their bachelor’s or master’s degrees this year and entering the job market, when the job growth rate is expected to be its lowest in five years…This intense competition for jobs is a driving factor in the acceptance of the personal branding practice. Another is the shift to Web 2.0, the transition from one-way communication to community-driven environments on the Web.

(You can download the first chapter here)

As long as you stay authentic and transparent about yourself, I think it’s a great idea to spend time each week developing your personal brand. In today’s competitive environment it may be absolutely necessary. Below are a couple web portfolios by students that I really think know how to develop their personal brand:

Julie Turkewitz – Julie is a true multimedia journalist. She can write. She can shoot photos. She can film and edit. Plus, she speaks Spanish. Her Squarespace site displays all her skills in a very visual site. One of my favorite features is her “Resume Snapshot” that declares her personal brand statement. She also has a blog that she regularly updates and solicits contributions from other young journalists.

Andrew Dunn – Andrew has created a following of journalism students, professors and professionals at his site. He does a great job staying authentic and discussing issues that he is going through. One of my favorite features is his “Online Tools” section which can be a continual resource for students trying to learn more about computer assisted reporting.

Daniel Bachhuber – Daniel has a Twitter account, Google profile, Publish2, LinkedIn, Uwire along with several other social network profiles. His blog is simplistic but original.

It’s called “Farther Down The Rabbit Hole.” I have really been obsessing about children’s books lately.

In case you don’t get the reference:

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) is a novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll.^[1] It tells the story of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar and anthropomorphic creatures.

“Down the Rabbit-Hole,” the Chapter 1 title, has become a popular term for going on an adventure into the unknown

Source: Wikipedia

It is almost the one month anniversary of NicoleNorfleet.info! (Balloons and confetti fall from the ceiling) This site’s main purpose is for employers and other recruiters to find out more information about me. It is basically my online portfolio. With my blog, I am trying to give the perspective of a soon-to-be journalism grad. I have to admit, nothing too special about it. But this site helps me focus. While right now the blog just has a couple of posts about my opinion on journalism issues, I am going to grow it into being a more personal look at some of the anxieties I’m experiencing during my last couple months of being a student.

Today I found myself going over my future plans in my head, a habit that I seem to do more and more lately as my booting from the nest looms near. I am now deadset on going to Japan next year. Before I would just mention my goal to live in Japan during networking events as a way to sound interesting. However, I am now actively looking for opportunities in Japan. I’ll talk more about that in a later post. Anyway, I am definitely going to Japan next year whether that country wants me there or not. When I’m there, I’m going to write a detailed blog about my daily experiences. I want it to be kind of like a Tokyo Times. When I was in a journalism class two years ago, I started a blog for class called Black Otaku. I basically just talked about otaku culture from an African American’s view. It was kind of popular (mostly because of a post I did comparing Kanye West’s “Stronger” music video and Akira). Today I bought the domain www.blackotaku.com in preparation for next year’s adventures. Exciting! We’ll see how it turns out.

Photo by Wendy Thigpen Holmes

Today is First Amendment Day at UNC. I’m in class with black tape across my mouth to show the importance of this amendment. This campus-wide, day-long event is designed to both celebrate the First Amendment and explore its role in the lives of Carolina students. Today students are reading from banned books, singing banned music and discussing the importance of each of the rights protected by the First Amendment. The Carolina Association of Black Journalists is staging a demonstration of the ways African Americans pushed back when they were denied First Amendment freedoms during the Civil Rights Movement in America. More about that after the jump. Remember to be tolerant when others exercise their rights.

Can you name all five freedoms mentioned in the First Amendment? (I always forget one) Get the answers after the jump!

First Amendment Freedoms:

Religion – The First Amendment prohibits government from establishing a religion and protects each person’s right to practice (or not practice) any faith without government interference.

Speech – The First Amendment says that people have the right to speak freely without government interference.

Press – The First Amendment gives the press the right to publish news, information and opinions without government interference. This also means people have the right to publish their own newspapers, newsletters, magazines, etc.

Assembly – The First Amendment says that people have the right to gather in public to march, protest, demonstrate, carry signs and otherwise express their views in a nonviolent way. It also means people can join and associate with groups and organizations without interference.

Petition – The First Amendment says that people have the right to appeal to government in favor of or against policies that affect them or that they feel strongly about. This freedom includes the right to gather signatures in support of a cause and to lobby legislative bodies for or against legislation.

(Source: First Amendment Center – Voices for the First)

Here’s video from First Amendment Day by the Daily Tar Heel

Some key findings from a new survey by the First Amendment Center:

• 71% of Americans still see a free press as a necessary “watchdog on government,” though nearly half of those responding (49%) strongly disagreed with the statement that the news media reports the news without bias.
• Only freedom of speech was named by more than half of respondents, 55%. Freedoms of religion, press and assembly were named by less than 20% of those responding.
• Nearly one in five Americans (19%) saw the First Amendment as “going too far” in the rights it guarantees.

Many people don’t know that the Civil Rights Movement helped moved the First Amendment.

NAACP v Alabama (1958)

The Supreme Court ruling protected the free-association (assembly) rights of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People members from official harassment. As part of its strategy to enjoin the NAACP from operating, Alabama required it to reveal to the State’s Attorney General the names and addresses of all the NAACP’s members and agents in the state. But the Court concluded that the state could not compel disclosure of the group’s membership list under a statute that required such information from out-of-state corporations. In the tumultuous civil rights era, the Court recognized that divulging the names of NAACP members would expose them to attack and so undermine the ability of the group to advocate its message.

How would your life be different if there wasn’t a First Amendment?

NYTimes tech columnist David Pogue has been accused of a journalism no-no, engaging in conflicts of interest. Critics have ranged from his techy counterparts to even his paper’s public editor. Pogue is criticized for reviewing new products in his popular column and also writing books about some of them. The NYTPicker just blogged about a podcast Pogue was interviewed in Sunday when he admitted that his “Missing Manual” series might be a conflict of interest but that other tech writers were guilty of the same practice. What’s more is that Pogue chose to defend himself by saying he was “not a reporter.”

Here’s some of what was said:

Leo Laporte: Well that’s – and that’s the question David. If you were a blogger – I mean, are you a blogger for the New York Times? I mean if you – I mean you have a blog. If you were a blogger, nobody would say this, it would say – or an opinion – let’s not say blogger, let’s say a columnist, an opinion person. Nobody says to David Brooks why is it that you aren’t a fan of President Obama, actually I guess he is, but I mean you are not a columnist, you are a reporter or are you not?

David Pogue: No, no, you know by the way I’m suddenly realizing this is all just making it all worse for myself but I just – I got it that – the haters are going to hate even more – .

Leo Laporte: You know, you can’t win with the haters.

David Pogue: I am – I am not a reporter, I have never to journalism school, I don’t know what it means to bury the lede – okay, I do know what it means, but I’m not a reporter, I’ve been an opinion columnist…

Leo Laporte: Right.

David Pogue: …my entire career. I express opinions, I try to entertain and inform.

Read the whole transcript of the podcast

NYTimes Public Editor Clark Hoyt brings up this point about Pogue in his column:

His multiple interests and loyalties raise interesting ethical issues in this new age when individual journalists can become brands of their own, stars who seem to transcend the old rules that sharply limited outside activity and demanded an overriding obligation to The Times and its readers.

Pogue is a columnist. Unlike Bob Steele, a professor at DePauw University and a scholar at Poynter, I don’t see a problem with him writing books about what he has given reviews on. He is a tech expert. I rather that he would write the books since he has the expertise. It would be kind of limiting for him and punishment for his readers for him to not write about something in his column because he is writing a book on it. Published journalists write blog posts and columns about subjects they have books on all the time.

I agree that he should just have to have  a disclosure statement with articles that he has books about just so people can know the facts and judge what they want to take away. A new survey shows that less that 30% of Americans believe that the media is accurate. Everyone – even a brand like Pogue – has to be held accountable. The NYT has now created a policy that forces Pogue to disclose his book projects when reviewing a product. Pogue also has a disclosure statement on the Web site.

I would add a couple of other demands to his list:

1. Computer assisted reporting – I would have thought that because Niles is a member of the ONA that he would have put more of an emphasis on computer assisted reporting, but maybe he didn’t want to go into the particulars of course subjects. While UNC has expanded its multimedia and online reporting course load, there is no class to instruct students on how to collect and present data online.
2. A place to publish – Luckily, there are several different mediums at my school to generate clips, however, j-schools themselves should give opportunities for students to be published. If I had to choose between completing an assignment for my college newspaper or an assignment for my reporting class, I would choose my newspaper story. Why? Because I want that clip! Schools need to find ways to give incentive for students to do their best in class. Why not just make a classroom an online newsroom and create a simple WordPress site to publish the class stories?
3. Research opportunities – Schools should have honors classes and independent study courses for students to explore particular interests and media issues. A big part of fostering research is giving some wiggle room in the j-school curriculum and requirements so that students can afford to take classes with research opportunities. J-schools should also make an effort to provide scholarships for students who want to conduct research outside of the classroom too.
4. The business of news – I commented on the OJR article that students need to understand the business of news. Especially now, students need to understand the idea of creative destruction and why people are getting laid off left and right. Penny Abernathy’s class opened my eyes to the real issues plaguing the news industry.

What are some other demands that you can think of?

CitySourced screenshot (Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

QUICK POST

Journalists Tweeting at TechCrunch 50 are excited about the prospects of CitySourced, a digital startup focused on mobile civic engagement tools.

Here is how the people at CitySourced describe their mobile apps:

1) a free, simple, and intuitive tool empowering citizens to identify civil issues (potholes, graffiti, trash, snow removal, etc.) and report them to city hall for quick resolution; 2) an opportunity for government to use technology to save money and improve accountability to those they govern; and 3) a positive, collaborative platform for real action. Our platform is called CitySourced, as it empowers everyday citizens to use their smart phones to make their cities a better place.

I think they are thinking about how people could use an application like that to send to certain news desks. I don’t think that idea is really revolutionary. Many papers have some kind of system like that or similar to that. NYTimes could come out with an iPhone application like that. It would probably be pretty easy.

I’m more excited for how it will help cities like Philadelphia deal with issues, however, do the people who would most likely to need it (people who live in regions where there is a lot of graffiti and potholes) have nice enough cell phones to make use of the applications or is this just a generalization?

I signed up for the newsletter to see where this goes.

It’s finally come…my last semester at UNC. Due to my four-year commtiment to The Daily Tar Heel and my tendency to take classes that I was interested as opposed to classes that were required, I have had to take an extra semester. It was a decision I made last fall after consulting several professors and friends.

I don’t regret the decision. The job market isn’t too hot right now. Many of my friends have set up base at their parents’ houses until they find jobs. I’m using this semester as a sort of transition time.

Last semester, Prof. Abernathy introduced me to a new way of grading students. In The Art of Possibility, I learned about Benjamin Zander, a conductor who gave his orchestra students an assignment at the beginning of each term. He asks them to write a letter to themselves, dated for the end of the term, describing what they did during the semester to deserve an A.

They have to live up to their own expectations. Xander found that when he read the letters at the end of the semester the students actually fulfilled their goals. Grades in education is just a way of comparing one student to another. They don’t help you develop, and they don’t always accurately portray whether you understand the information. I remember when earlier in my college career I took a high-level Spanish class PASS/FAIL. I ended up getting a B+ in the class because I knew during the semester that I didn’t have to just worry about grades, but instead I concentrated on learning.

If I was going to write a letter to myself to read at the end of the semester, here is what I would have to do earn my A:

Nicole: I received an A this semester because I laid the proper foundation for a better career and a better life. I became a better journalist and paid more attention to news event around the world instead of just being trapped in my little bubble. To become more confident in my web skills, I brushed up on my HTML and became more proffecient at another programming language. My AP Style skills are flawless, and my love and appreciation for SEC documents have grown tremendously. I have retrained myself in multimedia production and editing since it has been a minute since I have had to do it by myself. I’m no longer afraid of being alone. I can have fun by myself even when I am not surrounded by my friends. I have cooked a new dish each week. Holy shit, is that a six-pack?! All of my bills have been paid on time, and I have a better sense of how to manage my finances. Last but not least, I have landed a job offer that will help expand my mind and help me on my path of growth. Holla at your girl! Sincerely, Nicole

Let’s see how I make out!