The SPI Files: Jeannie Ericson, iMA

By Amy Baroch, Station Products & Innovation

Last week we learned more about what WUCF is doing down in central Florida with our feature on Grant J. Heston. This week we venture a little further out in public media to catch up with Jeannie Ericson at the Integrated Media Association (iMA).

Who are you and what do you do at iMA?
I am the Executive Director for iMA. I do what a lot of small business owners do. I draft the vision and business plan; I contract partners to help with execution; I manage the accounting and forecasting (with help); I write web copy and press releases and I tweet; I manage the web site; I visit stations and conferences to get to know those in our industry; I brainstorm solutions to support our mission and figure out how to implement; I look for partnerships and collaborations; and I try to consume as much news and trend information about technology, public broadcasting, media, and other relevant industries as possible. Every day is different, which is precisely why I enjoy it so much!

How long have you been at iMA?
Since July/August, 2010

Before iMA, what did you do?
I was working at Public Broadcasting Atlanta (WABE & PBA30) to establish Lensonatlanta.org, the first regionally focused, online community for a major metro area. Prior to PBA I worked at the IBM Innovation Center where I managed a wide variety of strategic web and mobile-based initiatives for corporate clients.

If you didn't work in public media, what would you be doing?
I would likely be civically active in Atlanta. I love this community, and it’s important to me to be part of solving our challenges. I’d love to be involved with the Atlanta BeltLine project. The BeltLine is a 25 year, $2.8 billion project that will provide a network of public parks, multi-use trails, and transit along a historic 22-mile railroad corridor circling downtown and connecting 45 neighborhoods. The Atlanta BeltLine is the largest, most wide-ranging urban redevelopment project currently underway in the United States. The appeal for me is not only the long-range positive impact on Atlanta, but it’s the intriguing challenge of coordinating economic factors,
environmental issues, transportation goals, historic and artistic interests, neighborhood and metro-wide public opinion, changing political winds, and on-going fundraising over the course of 25 years. A mind-boggling set of variables!

Explain iMA in Twitter-style, 140 characters or less.
iMA strives to enable collaboration/sharing and provide thought leadership/education to help #pubmedia innovate and improve efficiency.

iMA has been working really hard on the next conference at SXSW. What are some of the sessions and activities you are planning this year?
I’m really excited with the way the conference is coming together this year. We are planning some very focused tracks that will provide insights into the best of the best in pub media AND how the trends outside the industry can help us do a better job serving our communities. We’ll have a one day Executive Summit with discussions about stations becoming leaders in solving some of our more significant industry challenges. There will be a track dedicated to deep technical discussions, clinics, and presentations on topics and technologies like Drupal, HTML5, WordPress, Open Source Tools & Tricks, Advanced Analytics, Mobile Design, and more. And finally we’ll have sessions targeted at a Digital Management level audience around topics such as the Public Media Platform, Bento and NPR Digital Services interoperability, Social Media ROI, CRM Systems, What pub media can learn from Silicon Valley startups, the Business Case for Mobile DTV, and still lots more. We will start posting session details on our web site in the next couple of weeks as we confirm speakers. I’ve been really encouraged by the response so far!

The Weekly SPI Debrief - October 28, 2011

By Marla Krueger, Station Products & Innovation

Welcome to the Weekly PBS Interactive Station Products & Innovation Debrief, which is designed to give PBS stations a rundown of product updates and opportunities announced this week on our blog.

The FYI Corner this week takes a look at the iPhone 4S and the newest and perhaps most interesting feature available on the 4S, the Siri. It’s a voice active search (VAS) function that allows the user to verbally search and perform functions they would otherwise have to be done by those pesky finger things that grow at the end of palms. So, what affect could VAS have on station sites?
 
In this week's Presented by Incubation Lab we have PART 2 of  a three-part series looking at natural disaster coverage on the local pub media level with WSKG's Teresa Peltier, Emerging Media Specialist, and Amy Wielunski, Manager of Membership & Special Events. They share how their station provided valuable online and on-air information to the community during and after the September flood events resulting from Tropical Storm Lee. 

This week on The SPI Files, we are traveling due south to visit Grant J. Heston at our newest PBS member station, WUCF located at the University of Central Florida. Grant is the University of Central Florida Associate Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs.  What does Grant see as the future for public media and how does WUCF fit into that vision? 

Finally, we are looking for a station test subject for our latest SEO Experiment.   Are you interested in upping your SEO with guidance from our resident expert, Melanie Phung? We are seeking a local station that would be willing to experiment with our new SEO worksheet, get some hands-on help, and then present the findings at an upcoming SEO webinar. Find out what you can rank for, what you rank for now, and prioritize your SEO terms. Interested? Contact the SPI's.  

 

Follow the links below to continue reading...

• Presented by Incubation Lab: Covering a Natural Disaster, Part 2
• The SPI Files: Grant J. Heston, WUCF
• FYI Corner: Welcome to the Family 4S

As always, the SPI team appreciates all of your valuable comments and participation on our site this week and every week.

Presented by Incubation Lab: Covering a Natural Disaster, Part 2

Between September 7th and 8th, Tropical Storm Lee stalled over the Southern Tier of New York and Northern Pennsylvania. Throughout the heavy rainfall and the extensive flooding and damage that followed, WSKG staff determinedly provided coverage of the dangerous events. 

In this Presented by Incubation Lab three-part series, Teresa Peltier, Emerging Media Specialist, and Amy Wielunski, Manager of Membership & Special Events, share how WSKG carried on during and after the event, providing valuable online and on-air information to the community. 

Amy Wielunski, WSKG

Go Big or Go Home: Finding a Way to Help
by by Amy Wielunski, Manager, Membership & Special Events, WSKG

As public media employees, we’re ingrained with the mission of our stations. We’re here to serve our community, but when disaster strikes, it’s sometimes hard to see where your best service can be done.

There are the broadcast essential folks who immediate know what to do and (in most cases) how to do it, and then there are the online/new media folks who immediately spring to action as curators and disseminators of the information that needs to get out to those in need.

But as a fundraiser, it would be easy enough to sit back and phone it in – let the staffers who are specifically related to distributing information to the masses handle the load. Fortunately, at WSKG, we’re not those kinds of people.

Wordless Wednesday

Kristin Calhoun's Survival Rations

Kristin Calhoun's Decision Making Tools

What does your Wednesday look like? Send us your pictures or comment below.

FYI Corner: Welcome to the Family 4S

By Jen Carter, Station Products & Innovation

Apple pushed out its latest device recently with the release of the iPhone 4S. The 4S includes upgraded features like a dual-core A5 chip, 8-megapixel camera and optics, the iOS 5 (operating system) and iCloud, and Twitter integration (so you won’t miss a tweet from @SPI_PBS). A full list of features can be found here, and reviews of the 4S can be found everywhere, but specifically here.

The newest and perhaps most interesting feature available on the 4S is Siri. It’s a voice active search (VAS) function that allows the user to verbally search and perform functions they would otherwise have to be done by those pesky finger things that grow at the end of palms.

Very simply put a "search" is spoken by the user, and then processed by Siri. The user selects from the results or manually keeps digging. The results appear on the device via the mobile version of the site. This works similar to Google Voice that can be found on Android devices. The idea is that eventually VAS will get “smarter” and provide more tailored results based on what the user's search and select behaviors.

Siri is a major new feature for iPhone users, but while this melodic feature is still being classified as Beta, it appears VAS is primed to become the new hot bed of mobile OS competition. So, what affect could VAS have on stations? Simply put, mobile sites are becoming more important.

Since voice searching is primarily done on mobile devices, the increased attention to VAS could mean more mobile traffic to station sites. If for instance a user asks “what is on station WXYZ tonight at 8?” on a mobile phone, they will visit the station's site on the mobile device. If station WXYZ doesn’t have a version of their site formatted properly for mobile, it could result in a poor user-experience and frustrated potential viewers leaving that site. This is something stations may want to seriously consider since the VAS trend is growing in popularity with each new smartphone release and may eventually become standard in all devices.

For stations already knee deep in the mobile platform, what features can be used to drive traffic to station web and social media sites?

For those stations not yet on mobile, are there ways you want to leverage the space?

The SPI Files: Grant J. Heston, WUCF

by Amy Baroch, Station Products & Innovation

Last week, we talked to Geoff Bishop about all things mobile. This week, we are traveling due south to visit Grant J. Heston at our newest PBS member station, WUCF at the University of Central Florida.

1. Who are you and what do you do at WUCF?
I am Grant J. Heston, University of Central Florida Associate Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs. On behalf of UCF, I work with Brevard Community College to operate our new public broadcasting partnership, WUCF.

2. Before WUCF, what did you do?
Before WUCF, my duties at UCF included (and still do) leading the communication strategy for university priorities and initiatives; managing emerging public issues and crisis communications; and serving as the official university spokesperson.

3. If you didn't work in public media, what would you be doing?
Learning to play guitar...and likely not very well.

4. Explain WUCF Twitter-style in 140 characters or less.
The new, and ONLY, PBS station for central Florida that saved PBS for our community.

5. WUCF is PBS's newest station – taking on the diverse area of central Florida. What is it like to be part of something so exciting?
I believe that those of us working on WUCF will regard this as some of the hardest, but most satisfying, work of our careers. Central Florida cares about PBS and has embraced our “little-engine-that-could” station. I am so proud of what UCF, Brevard Community College and our dedicated teams have accomplished.

6. We love WUCF's new initiative to find 10,000 new voices in the central Florida community to be a part of shaping WUCF's future. Will WUCF News be involved with this initiative and if so, how?
Though UCF has been a part of central Florida for almost 50 years, WUCF is new. We want to get to know our viewers and have them get to know us. They have already told us so much that will help shape how we program and operate WUCF.

7. Recently, I had the pleasure of attending PubCamp West near Los Angeles. Some of the topics we discussed were integrating media, specifically newspapers and online media, and reaching the community – all through public media. What are your thoughts on this? How will WUCF news serve the local community?
One of our priorities is to put the “public” back in public broadcasting in central Florida. This month we launched two local shows: Metro Center Outlook, which discusses regional and state economic issues. Guests include Florida Gov. Rick Scott, former Senators Bob Graham and Mel Martinez and more. Global Perspectives is hosted by a UCF Pulitzer Prize winner and features thinkers from around the world. And more shows are coming.

8. What is the next big thing for WUCF?

We announced WUCF on June 2 and had to be on air July 1. We launched a new station in less than four weeks. What is next is for WUCF to [do] some of the things we could not do because of the time crunch. We will build community partnerships. We will add programs our viewers want to see. We will talk to, and listen to, our viewers. We will live up to our statement that we are the community’s channel.

9. What do you see as the future for public media and how does WUCF fit into that vision?
Now more than ever, public media needs to be innovative. Viewers have choices for information and entertainment, and we need to be one of their first choices. Build on what makes us special – quality programming that is intelligent, enriching and provocative – but don’t be afraid to stretch and try new things to reach new audiences.

And – just for fun – a few quick-fire questions:

iPhone or Android? iPhone
Dogs or cats? Dogs
Blog platform of choice? Wordpress
Elmo or Grover? Grover
I am currently listening to… The Rifles
I am currently reading… Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
I’m currently watching… PBS, of course!
Most overused phrase: "Fantastic!"

The Weekly SPI Debrief - October 21, 2011

By Marla Krueger, Station Products & Innovation

Welcome to the Weekly PBS Interactive Station Products & Innovation Debrief, which is designed to give PBS stations a rundown of product updates and opportunities announced this week on our blog.

This week the SPI team was four people down as Kristin Calhoun, Amy Baroch, Tricia George and I traveled to NETA Kansas City 2012. We will be 110% Game-Ready by next week with all the highlights from NETA, and we hope everyone who traveled to the conference had safe travels. 

We are happy to announce that on October 18th, PBS publicly announced the launch of the full PBS Food online experience! The new website offers more than 150 of public television’s local and national food programs all in one place. Follow the link below to read more. 

In this week's Presented by Incubation Lab we start a three-part series looking at natural disaster coverage on the local pub media level with WSKG's Teresa Peltier, Emerging Media Specialist, and Amy Wielunski, Manager of Membership & Special Events. They share how their station provided valuable online and on-air information to the community during and after the September flood events resulting from Tropical Storm Lee.

This week on The SPI Files, we stay close to home to talk with Geoff Bishop, Director of Mobile Products at PBS, to learn more about the exciting new things that PBS is working on in the mobile landscape. What’s around the corner for PBS mobile?

Follow the links below to continue reading...

• Food's ready!  
• Presented by Incubation Lab: Covering a Natural Disaster, Part 1
• The SPI Files: Geoff Bishop, Director of Mobile Products at PBS 

As always, the SPI team appreciates all of your valuable comments and participation on our site this week and every week.

Food's ready!!

By: Ashley Carufel, PBS Food Web Producer, PBS Interactive

Over the past few months, the PBS Food team has posted several project updates on the SPI blog. We are happy to announce that yesterday, October 18^th, PBS publicly announced the launch of the full PBS Food online experience! The PBS Food content aggregates and promotes the breadth and depth of PBS cooking content by featuring PBS personalities and programs, local station content, and select APT/NETA programs.

The content channel began development in March with a test group of eight stations who reflected a variety of food content as well as station size. Each station contributed a selection of recipes from their cooking programs and food blogs for inclusion on PBS Food, assisted with user testing, and provided constant feedback during the development process.

The Food team would like to thank the following eight test stations for their enthusiastic involvement and important contributions to the channel: KCTS 9 in Seattle, KQED in San Francisco, WVIZ/PBS Ideastream in Cleveland, WQED in Pittsburgh, WMHT in Albany, WXXI in Rochester, WTTW in Chicago, and WGBH in Boston.

The PBS Food content channel features a recipe database of over 1700 recipes from both national and participating local cooking programs. PBS Food provides a full listing of all cooking programs and personalities, which includes station branding and exposure for program underwriters.

As the Food team winds down development work with the test stations, the team has already begun contacting another wave of eight stations to begin on-boarding more local content. All stations who have cooking/food programs represented on PBS Food have already been contacted by the SPI team, and can review their program's placeholder pages and contact the Food team with any suggested changes.

We would love to include content from all of our wonderful station food content, though we have to proceed in a phased approach. If you have content you think would be a good fit for the PBS Food site, please contact Matt Schoch (meschoch@pbs.org) or Ashley Carufel (arcarufel@pbs.org).

Your station can promote the launch of PBS Food on your social media accounts with the following suggested language:

Twitter: Join the ultimate foodie experience! @PBSFood offers popular chefs' best cooking secrets w/ 1700+ recipes. http://www.pbs.org/food/

Facebook: Need inspiration in the kitchen? Check out the new PBS Food site, and immerse yourself in some of the best kitchen secrets public television has to offer.

Browse more than 1700 recipes, see videos from your favorite chefs. and more! Bon Appétit! http://www.pbs.org/food.

We’d also like to thank the WNET Interactive Engagement Group for helping us design and develop the site. It was a pleasure to work with one of our stations to create this delicious site.

Everyone loves food, so be sure to check out the full PBS Food online experience and let the Food team know what you think!

Presented by Incubation Lab: Covering a Natural Disaster, Part 1

Between September 7th and 8th, Tropical Storm Lee stalled over the Southern Tier of New York and Northern Pennsylvania. Throughout the heavy rainfall and the extensive flooding and damage that followed, WSKG staff determinedly provided coverage of the dangerous events. 

In this Presented by Incubation Lab three-part series, Teresa Peltier, Emerging Media Specialist, and Amy Wielunski, Manager of Membership & Special Events, share how WSKG carried on during and after the event, providing valuable online and on-air information to the community. 

Teresa Peltier, WSKG

Online Flood Coverage
by Teresa Peltier, Emerging Media Specialist, WSKG

While many contributing staff needed to evacuate their homes (and eventually report on the flooding overtaking their homes), I was thankfully spared any damage, and took the helm of our online flood coverage endeavors from a computer station at my dining room table.

Online Flood Coverage 
Our online flood coverage stemmed from four main outlets: WSKG.org (our main site), Facebook, Twitter and WSKGNews.org (our news blog).

Main Site Portal: 
On WSKG.org, our new Web Developer, Joshua Ludzki, implemented a quick resource page for flood information, the “Flood Tracker.” The Flood Tracker hosted information from counties, cities and towns, a widget featuring tweets about the flood, National Weather Service alerts and easy-to-read graphs of river level forecasts for thirteen locations on four area rivers.

The SPI FIles: Geoff Bishop, PBS

Last week, we packed our bags and headed out to the southern plains of Texas where we found Daphne Dowdy Jackson, General Manager of BasinPBS - the smallest station in the PBS system. 

This week, we are staying close to home to talk with Geoff Bishop, Director of Mobile Products at PBS, to learn more about the exciting new things that PBS is working on in the mobile landscape.

Geoff Bishop

1. Who are you and what do you do at PBS? 
My name is Geoff Bishop, and I'm the Director of Mobile Products here at PBS. I ensure our mobile product compass is always pointing in the right direction.

2. How long have you been at PBS, and what did you do before working at PBS? 
I've been working in media since 2004. Before joining PBS, I worked at AOL as a Technical Product Manager. In February of 2010 I joined PBS as a Tech Lead for the Consumer Facing Product team. I've been in my current role since June, and loving every minute of it!

3. If you didn't work in digital media, what would you be doing? 
Hmm. It would be a toss-up between a World of Warcraft gold farmer and an espresso machine modification specialist. And yes, it's an either-or.

Presented by Incubation Lab: DVD Sales – The Amazon comes to Vermont

The Presented by Incubation Lab series presents at the benefits of DVD sales services and the effect they can have on clearing out inventory. Adam Rabin, Director, Web & Interactive Content for Vermont Public Television, shares their use of Amazon with us:


Looking for something about the history of Lake Champlain?

Well, at Vermont Public Television, we have that on DVD.

In fact, we have a lot of DVDs taking up room in our warehouse.

For the last few years we had been moving maybe 1 or 2 DVDs a month through our online shop at vpt.org. We're a small state, so that number just seemed normal to us. But, because we had some new titles to add and quickly disappearing space in our warehouse, we finally got around to re-thinking the shop. While looking into new shopping cart and credit card processing solutions for the library, I checked out Amazon Webstore (http://webstore.amazon.com/) and discovered that it could be a good solution for us.

Wordless Wednesday: Updating SPI Brochure/Prepping for NETA

Amy Baroch

Max Duke

The SPI Files: Daphne Dowdy Jackson, BasinPBS

by Amy Baroch, Station Products & Innovation

This week, we packed our bags and headed out to the southern plains of Texas where we found Daphne Dowdy Jackson, General Manager of BasinPBS - the smallest station in the PBS system.

1. Who are you and what do you do at BasinPBS?
Daphne Dowdy Jackson, GM at Basin PBS

2. How long have you been at BasinPBS?
6 years. I took over with a fresh board and transitioned the station from a university to a community licensee.

3. Before BasinPBS, what did you do?
I began my career as a broadcast journalist on the commercial side. Anchored and reported the news in Midland then Oklahoma City before switching to media relations then PBS...which is by far the most rewarding.

4. If you didn't work in public media, what would you be doing?
Production. So, probably taking your lunch order.

5. Explain BasinPBS in Twitter-style, 140 characters or less.
@Likely the smallest PBS station in the system. 8 employees and no studio (until next year!) Basin PBS has rebuilt from nothing. Two license changes in two years took us to our knees, but we've emerged strong and fresh.

6. BasinPBS does a great job reaching out to the local community. We noticed the In Your Neighborhood section of Basin's website with lots of fun photos from station events. What other ways have you experimented with user-generated content or using social media to engage your community?
(ugh. Stop looking at the website! We're re-doing it soon!) With such a small staff, we have to partner smart on engagement. We've created non-profit partnerships to raise our profile. We provide airtime and marketing/production expertise and the non-profit hosts 2 Basin PBS partnered events per year. As for user generated content, we're exploring a partnership with the local planetarium to solicit community-produced short films.

7. What is the next big thing for BasinPBS?
Basin PBS has been living in borrowed quarters in two locations 30 miles apart for 5 years while we rebuilt our support system. Next year, we're moving to our own home in downtown Midland. Funders love the move and it'll put us right downtown with corporate sponsors.

8. What do you see as the future for public media and how does BasinPBS fit into that vision?
Public media has to fill a local need. Our sponsors like to be seen around great national content but they are engaged because of our local service. For us that service isn't just content, it's business. We've made ourselves valuable to funders and philanthropists by providing support to their favorite non-profits.

And – just for fun – a few quick-fire questions:

iPhone or Android? iphone
Dogs or cats? dogs! Berto the Maltese, purchased during a PBS conference
Elmo or Grover? Grover
I am currently listening to… Pandora 70s Lite
I am currently reading… Last Call by Daniel Okrent
I’m currently watching… Curb Your Enthusiasm
Most overused phrase: Mazel

The Weekly SPI Debrief - October 7, 2011

By Marla Krueger, Station Products & Innovation

Welcome to the Weekly PBS Interactive Station Products & Innovation Debrief, which is designed to give PBS stations a rundown of product updates and opportunities announced this week on our blog.

Do you want to become a member of the PBS Interactive Station Advisory Council (SAC) or nominate someone whom you believe would be an excellent candidate for the council? There are currently four openings and we are looking to fill them with station smartness.

For more information on the role of SAC members visit the SAC Charter in Station Remote Control (station login required).

To nominate someone or nominate yourself visit: http://tinyurl.com/3zfdc8m

Nominations must be submitted by October 14th, before 5:00pm ET.

This week on The SPI Files, we wanted help celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by opening the files on director/producer Ray Telles whose recent film, The Storm That Swept Mexico airs on PBS later this month. Ray, a KQED alumnus, is a director and producer at Paradigm Productions. Paradigm Productions is a non-profit production company, which creates films and progressive media about history, art and social issues. While The Storm That Swept Mexico is about serious subject matter, Ray has augmented the viewer experience by creating an interactive website to accompany the film, with a Facebook Quiz and Google Earth maps.

In our FYI Corner, this week we take a look at the new Kindle Fire. Will this be the next big thing? What is your e-reader preference?

How are you celebrating Jacques Pepin? With the launch of Essential Pepin, KQED has several items to share with stations: a 3-minute tribute video to Jacques (includes great footage with Julia Child), short cooking demonstrations, and entire episodes. Everything is embeddable at http://blogs.kqed.org/essentialpepin/

And finally, the FOURTH Webinar in the Project VoiceScape Webinar Series will be Thursday, October 13, 12:00-1:00PM ET, Video Storytelling: The (only) 7 things you need to know (how to do).

This series of five webinars introduces PBS stations and educators to the how and why of integrating youth media making into public media.

RSVP to Leslie Rule. She'll provide the phone number for each webinar. The registration link for each webinar is my.adobe.acrobat.com/ayvtrain

Please be sure to check out the rest of October's Professional Development activities on the right rail of our blog. If we're missing anything, just shoot us an email.

Follow the links below to continue reading...

• The SPI Files: Ray Telles and The Storm Swept Mexico
• FYI Corner: Amazon Hopes to Ignite Users with New Kindle Fire

As always, the SPI team appreciates all of your valuable comments and participation on our site this week and every week.

News from the PDC October 2011

by Amy Baroch, PBS Station Products & Innovation

Once again we bring you the latest and greatest highlights from our Professional Development Calendar (PDC).

As always, you can find the calendar on the right rail of our blog - just scroll down a little and there it is. Feel free to send us opportunities you want to share with the rest of the system or access the calendar to attend some of the posted events.

Here's just a sampling of what we've got on tap for the next few weeks:

Thursday, October 13 @ 1PM EDT

Video Storytelling - The (only) 7 things you need to know (how to do)
(Free webinar presented by PBS and Project VoiceScape) RSVP to Leslie Rule.

• This is the 4th in a series of five webinars presented by Project VoiceScape - a partnership with Adobe Youth Voices, PBS and POV to mentor today's best young documentary filmmakers. The series introduces PBS stations and educators to the how and why of integrating youth media-making into public media.

Tuesday, October 18 - Thursday, October 20, 2011

2011 NETA CONFERENCE - Kansas City, MO
http://www.netaconference.org/

• Join NETA, PBS, CPB, APTS, public media stations and producers for this worthwhile meeting that gives you answers, information, and time to speak candidly with peers on the important issues. Members of PBS Interactive Station Products & Innovation, PBS KIDS, and Jason Seiken will be there to share all the latest news. Visit www.netaonline.org for more details and to register for one of the best #pubmedia and #localpbs conferences of the year.

Tuesday, October 25 @ 2PM EDT

From Social Media to Social Strategies
(Free webinar presented by ReadyTalk) RSVP
Learn different ways to increase registrations, traffic, activity and loyalty by integrating your site with social networks and social plugins. Alan Tarkowski is Gigya's Director of Business Development and is an expert in social marketing and online sales, with 15 years of experience. The webinar will cover:

• Trends in the social marketplace such as capturing user data and social search
• Different social strategies available
• Action items websites can take to make their sites more social
• Applying social analytics to improve results.

There is always something interesting happening on our calendar, so be sure to check back often and stay informed and on top of the digital world! And let us know what you think of our calendar in the comments below.

FYI Corner: Amazon hopes to ignite users with new Kindle Fire

By Jen Carter, Station Products & Innovation
With names like Fire and Silk Amazon is picking up marketing va-va-voom in the form of the newly released, newly improved, Kindle.

With Apple dominating a lot of the tech ecosystem it’s still important to find room for those “other” folks. With that in mind Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and the Amazon team have created a new product that is sure to excite and delight someone…right?

The eReader market pretty much started with Amazon, and the company has often dominated. Even with lots of competition over the past couple of years, the Kindle is still one of the best basic readers out there. Which makes it particularly nice to see Amazon innovating and keeping up with new trends in the landscape while staying true to what they’ve been able to do best.

Bezos’s recent letter sharing Kindle's evolution from your basic eReader to something more slick and sophisticated with a ton more functionality was nice to see. And by sophisticated we are talking “high-end” and by high-end we are talking more expensive. However, compared to the price of the iPad and the Nook, Amazon’s new Kindle is quite reasonable at $199.

According to the letter which Amazon prioritized highly on their homepage last week, the thought process behind this shift is that “there are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp.”

The non-cosmetic part of this product seems to encompass that which the company has been striving to create for the past decade or so. According to Amazon, “Kindle Fire brings everything we’ve been working on at Amazon into a single, fully-integrated experience for customers – instant access to Amazon’s massive selection of digital content, a vibrant color IPS touchscreen with extra-wide viewing angle, a 14.6 ounce design that’s easy to hold with one hand, a state-of-the-art dual core processor, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, and an ultra-fast mobile browser – Amazon Silk – available exclusively on Kindle Fire.”

The SPI Files: Ray Telles and The Storm That Swept Mexico

by Amy Baroch, Station Products & Innovation

This week we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by opening the SPI Files on director/producer Ray Telles whose recent film, The Storm That Swept Mexico airs on PBS later this month.

Who are you and what do you do?
I’m Ray Telles and I’m a director and producer at Paradigm Productions. We just completed The Storm That Swept Mexico, a 2 hour documentary and a website, which was funded by the NEH, ITVS and LPB. The website we’ve created with funding from ITVS has a number of interactive features, which are fun and useful. In the next week we’ll launch a series of three study guides and video modules for teachers to download from our site. These modules deal with the art, leaders and women of the Mexican Revolution of 1910.

How long have you been at Paradigm Productions?
Paradigm Productions is a non-profit production company, which Rick Tejada-Flores and I founded about 15 years ago to create films and progressive media about history, art and social issues.

Before establishing Paradigm Productions what did you do?
I worked at KQED- San Francisco’s PBS station from 1980 to 1992 with a couple of breaks to do independent productions including a Frontline's Children of the Night and an hour for the “Americas” series for WGBH. In 1993, I went to work in New York at ABC’s Turning Point and then NBC’s “Dateline.”

You have a personal reason for creating a film about the Mexican revolution – can you elaborate about your family’s connection? Why do you think that the Mexican Revolution is important today? I grew up with stories of the Mexican Revolution. My grandfather on my mother's side and my great grandfather were involved in the anti re-electionist movement in the state of Chihuahua to overthrow the dictator Porfirio Diaz . My grandmother on my father’s side fled Mexico in the midst of the revolution (1914). The Mexican Revolution touched most Mexican and Mexican American families and its impact is still felt today. The role of the U.S. in the events leading up to and during the Mexican Revolution helped establish and maintain the complex relationship between the two countries that continues to play out in the 21st century.