KERA Celebrates 50 Years

By Jen Carter, Station Products & Innovation

KERA in Dallas/Fort Worth is celebrating the station's 50th anniversary. The anniversary event, which will be held today, is meant to both celebrate and raise awareness around public media issues by showcasing how stations and the industry have changed over the last five decades. Deborah Johnson, Executive Vice President for Development and Marketing and Alan Melson, Director of Interactive, sat down with the SPI team to answer some questions about the event.

Tell us a little bit about the 50th anniversary event. It’s described as a multimedia fundraising event. What does that mean? Why was this format chosen?

We wanted to do something to honor the pioneers who established and evolved the station and those who helped reach milestones throughout KERA’s 50-year history, and bring more attention to the important role KERA has played in the North Texas community.

We wanted it to be a true “event” – something that would be memorable and fitting for KERA’s milestone anniversary. When the opportunity arose to hold the event at the Wyly Theatre, a beautiful venue in Dallas’ Arts District that opened in 2008, we realized that the event’s scope could grow to encompass video and a variety of presenters to make it a true celebration of the station’s past as well as its bright future.

All of the speakers have played a role in helping build KERA’s reputation and visibility in the North Texas area, from Jim Lehrer and his early days on Newsroom to Cokie Roberts and Scott Simon’s strong work on NPR programs, helping strengthen that brand as an integral part of KERA’s programming in North Texas. We’ll also have Asleep At The Wheel as our special musical guest, as a nod to their long popularity with KERA audiences and within public television as a whole.

It's really been a team effort across the entire station – from the marketing and interactive staff, to the development staff, the CEO and board who have done an amazing job fundraising, and the programming and production staff who dug through hours of tape to find gems from throughout KERA's history.

You mentioned KERA’s long history with North Texas. What were some of the most memorable events, stories, etc?
KERA has a rich history. The station's founder Ralph Rogers, a Dallas business leader, went on to become the chairman of PBS and helped to save funding for public broadcasting by appearing before a Congressional subcommittee during the Nixon administration. Rogers worked with KERA general manager Bob Wilson who brought a revolutionary local news program, Newsroom, to the air in 1970, and hired a young Dallas journalist named Jim Lehrer as host.

In 1974, KERA launched KERA-FM as the area's first National Public Radio affiliate. That same year, Wilson and head of TV programming Ron Devillier took a chance on a British comedy show, Monty Python's Flying Circus, which made its American debut in Dallas and went on to be a smash hit for public television stations across the U.S.

What are some of the expectations for this event?
In addition to the multimedia fundraising event, there are quite a few things going on around the anniversary, which have built community interest and engagement:

The SPI Files: Ashley Barcum, OETA

By Amy Baroch, Station Products & Innovation

Last week we took a hiatus from The SPI Files so we could eat some turkey. This week we are recharged and raring to go with a visit to Oklahoma where we catch up with Ashley Barcum at The Oklahoma Network (OETA).

Who are you and what do you do at OETA?
I am Ashley Barcum, Director of Communications at OETA. I started as the public information manager, but my role has grown to include marketing/promotions, media/public relations, brand management, web services, legislative outreach, community engagement, print design... And I just started producing a local show. So, I get to wear many different, creative, challenging and (typically) fun hats.

How long have you been at OETA?
Six lovely years!

Before OETA, what did you do?
PR for the Oklahoma Society of CPAs – the perfect warm up to a career in public media, right?

If you didn't work in public media, what would you be doing?
Certainly a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. Or a kindergarten teacher.

Explain OETA in Twitter-style, 140 characters or less.
Oklahoma’s statewide public media network provides engaging educational content that enables all ages to discover and explore the world around them.

We noticed that OETA currently has a survey link posted to the station's home page. We love that you are asking your users what they want and how OETA can "meet their online needs." What was your strategy around the survey and have you learned anything surprising?
It [has] been a couple of years since we launched our current site and over the last year it became clear that there are certain front end services/features and backend solutions that needed to either be developed and integrated into our current site, or included in a new overall web strategy and site. Plus, with all of the solutions PBS Interactive (PBSi) has been rolling out, we wanted to maximize the benefits of integrating with PBSi products and services, something our current web structure does not allow. We put an internal committee together to begin rethinking our web presence. During committee meetings, I realized that staff wanted many different things for many different reasons. But really, it comes down to what external users want, what they expect and need from us online. How can we make OETA.tv a compelling and useful web experience? We wanted to learn how/why people are using the site, what they want from OETA online, what do they not want – we want to streamline, yet expand our services and our users should define that. When asked what service or functionality they would like added to the site, a majority of users requested a live stream of our programming. I knew the desire was out there, but I didn’t know it topped our users’ wish list.

Holiday Schedule for PBS Interactive

PBS offices will be closed the afternoon of November 23 – 25 for the Thanksgiving holiday. We will re-open on November 28.

In addition, during the week of the November 21 – 25, PBS Interactive will have a moratorium on any new product releases or updates. Work will continue on existing projects, as well as any emergencies if they come up.

As always, you can reach the SPIs at pbsi_stationservices@pbs.org.

Have a safe and happy holiday!

The SPIs

Prosper to Begin Prospecting on Behalf of Member Stations

By Marla Krueger, Associate, PBS Interactive

On the heels of the recent launch of the experimental “Best of PBS” newsletter, the Prosper team will be rolling out another experiment, prospecting names on behalf of member stations. A top-level light box screen will fade the site page into the background and appear in the foreground of pbs.org. This light box will solicit email sign ups to be a PBS Insider. As a PBS Insider, a viewer will receive the monthly “Best of PBS” newsletter and gain access to PBS exclusives.

The light box offers a directed, streamlined sign up requiring just an email to help increase overall response rate. When a user visits pbs.org, the light box will appear on the screen, just as it is displayed in the image below. The user must engage with the light box either by entering an email or by closing the overlay. The user will only see the light box once, unless the user resets his or her cookies.

Best of PBS Light Box

Initially, there will be a limited deployment on just the pbs.org homepage and pbs.org topic pages. In the future, the Prosper team hopes to deploy the light box on even more areas of pbs.org where there are higher levels of traffic.

The user profiles collected through the initial light box ask will be grown through a series of engagement tests that will capture more information about the user including a full name and his or her local station preference. The goal being to smartly engage and then drive these audiences toward declaring an affinity for a local PBS station.

The expected window for rollout is late November into early December. Keith Brengle, Director of Online Giving explains, “Our core mission is to acquire qualified names for PBS’ member stations. The team is hoping that a top level email sign up for individuals to be a PBS Insider is the right catalyst to start adding brand new names to existing member station lists.”

What online tools and or resources are you currently using for generating prospective members for your station? For those who have already been experimenting with member prospecting on your station site, do you have any case studies you could share?

COVE: We can rebuild it . . . better, stronger, FASTER!

Recently, we rolled out a significant upgrade to the COVE video portal. We rebuilt the foundations of COVE to improve the overall performance of the video experience.

This upgrade is an important release because it addresses the number one pain point we hear from stations, the slowness of the COVE experience. Based on performance tests, and station feedback, we are already seeing dramatic load time improvements across the board.

While each station portal will be slightly different, we're seeing average overall improvements of 3x-10x. Homepages have gone from taking many seconds to load to less than a tenth of a second. Program pages now take half a second on average to load (down from an average of 5 seconds).

We are excited about this upgrade to the portal experience, and we hope it enhances your user’s experience with the content you create.

On a personal level, as someone who has been on the COVE development team since its beginning, I’m thrilled about this improvement because COVE’s success is an important part of my life. While that may sound a bit dramatic, there is a story to tell that began a little over three years ago.

The Weekly SPI Debrief - November 18, 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.

In the Station Spotlight this week we head to Minnesota to catch up with TPT's John Daenzer and Jessica Foell for a tour of their Capture Minnesota project. The site taps into the passion that people feel for their home state by asking them to submit photographs that, to them, are quintessentially Minnesotan.

This week on The SPI Files, we visit with Edgar Roman, Senior Director of Software Development at PBS Interactive to discuss the pluses and minuses of cloud computing.

Does your station have holiday content? We want it! PBS Interactive is looking for holiday-related content from your station to share across pbs.org during the holiday season. Contact the SPI Team with all your holiday themed content and ideas

Follow the links below to continue reading...

• Station Spotlight: TPT Captures Minnesota
• The SPI Files:Edgar Roman, PBS 

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

Station Spotlight: TPT Captures Minnesota

By Kelsey Savage, PBS Interactive

Capture Minnesota Project

Like each local station, every state has its own personality and substance. TPT’s Capture Minnesota project taps into the passion that people feel for their home state by asking them to submit photographs that represent the quintessential Minnesota.

The project, which started in August, is “a celebration of our entire state”, according to John Daenzer the Vice President of Interactive Media at Twin Cities Public Television. ”We love where we live, and we know many, many very talented photographers do, too. We also were confident that they would appreciate an online place to share their work and enjoy the contributions of others just like them. The response has been extraordinary.”

Currently, after four months of operation, about 50,000 photos have been uploaded by both professional and recreational photographers. Almost 8,000 users have cast 2 million votes and generated over 80,000 comments. How did TPT generate such an enthusiastic response? Jessi Foell, Interactive Content Coordinator at TPT says, “We announced it to our staff first to get the ball rolling since we have a lot of great photographers in house. From there, we did on-air promotion, social media promotion and ads in our newsletter, magazine and website.”

In September, TPT found another way to drum up participation around the Capture Minnesota site by offering a “Challenge” section (http://www.captureminnesota.com/challenges). In a round robin-esque voting style, users are shown two photos and asked to pick their favorite based on that challenge’s theme. Past themes have included topical events, like “State Fair” (http://www.captureminnesota.com/challenges/state-fair), or open ended categories, such as the color blue (http://www.captureminnesota.com/challenges/the-color-blue-3). Watch out though, because the beautiful photos and sophisticated ballot system make it easy to slip into a voting trance.

Wordless Wednesday: Welcome CAC

Lunch break during the Communications Advisory Committee's (CAC) Meeting at PBS

The SPI Files: Edgar Roman, PBS

By Jen Carter, Station Products & Innovation

Last week the SPI Files went shopping with shopPBS's Nadia Bashir. This week we are sticking close to home and learning about software development and cloud computing with PBS Interactive's Edgar Roman.

Who are you and what do you do at PBS?
My name is Edgar Roman and I am the Senior Director of Software Development at PBS Interactive. Essentially, I am in charge of the software development team that creates and maintains the online products for PBS Interactive.

How long have you been at PBS, and what did you do before working at PBS?
I’ve been at PBS for two years. Before this, I worked for eight years at Symantec, a global provider of information security software and services. I ran the software development team for the Managed Security Service.

If you didn't work in digital media, what would you be doing?
Definitely something related to online services and software development. I enjoy solving hard problems and building cool products.


What are the top three reasons stations might want to consider using cloud computing?

1. Lower overhead and time savings. If things are working, then everything seems fine, but what happens when a hard drive blows and you have to spend a week to get repair services
2. Consistent environments. I’ve been there before – over time a data center tends to get many different models as you buy new hardware over time. Dealing with multiple revisions of hardware during upgrades and patching makes my head hurt.
3. Ability to Scale. The nice thing about the cloud is the ability to turn up or down the number of servers at a moment’s notice. If you find the load on a server to be overwhelming, then in 10 minutes you can add additional capacity instead of having to wait weeks for new iron to arrive.

Any drawbacks to using a cloud?
Yes, it tends to be more expensive up front. But if you factor in time and effort from the team, it’s really not. Consider the items you can skip:

• Determining the hardware requirements
• Learning how to setup complex technologies like SANs, server clusters, replication, fiber channel, network topologies
• Dealing with hardware failures
• HVAC issues and power supplies
• Testing you backup UPS and power generators
• Having a remote location backup facility

In terms of reliability, it’s pretty good, but not immune to failures as well. You still have to have a good disaster recovery plan – that doesn’t change.

Updated: The Best of PBS lets Readers be Insiders

By Kelsey Savage, Project Coordinator - Interactive and Marla Krueger, Associate 

 

PBS Interactive is launching a new, experimental newsletter called the “Best of PBS.”  The goals of the monthly newsletter are to give users an exciting glimpse into what makes PBS special and is a tactic within Prosper’s overall cultivation strategy -- A test of one way to engage new audiences and drive them towards declaring an affinity for a local PBS station.

The first installment of the newsletter will be sent Monday November 14^th to a small, initial list of names. This inaugural “Best of PBS” newsletter will profile a mixture of television and online initiatives, like the Fall PBS Arts Festival  and the recent unveiling of PBS Food.  

“This is one of many ways that we will be attempting to turn an anonymous visitor on our websites and mobile apps into a station prospect,” explains Kayla Nicolay, Senior Manager, Online Fundraising.  Individuals will have a chance to be a PBS Insider by signing up on PBS.org to receive the “Best of PBS” and then each month, they will get an insiders view into PBS.

We’ll also be experimenting with ways to leverage the Best of PBS newsletter for stations that may be looking for another tool to supplement their online cultivation process. 

Station Spotlight: WPBT2 Offers Multi-Platform Teaching and Learning with KidVision VPK

By Kelsey Savage, PBS Interactive

KidVision VPK iOS App

In this week's FYI Corner, we looked at some ways interactive media is impacting the education field for students, parents and educators. One example of how technology is being used by stations to both engage and educate comes from WPBT2. Their KidVision VPK initiative uses online “virtual field trips,” sample lesson plans, and a mobile app to help early educators get their students ready to make the leap into kindergarten.

We recently spoke with Jack Kelly, WPBT2’s Vice President for Production and KidVision VPK mobile app creator, to hear a little bit about the station's work and its educational impact in Florida.

What is KidVision VPK and what prompted you to create this site? Who is the target audience and how do you promote this service to them?
KidVision VPK serves the early childhood workforce by providing FREE, ongoing professional development that teachers can use to earn required annual in-service hours, continuing education units (CEU), and receive curriculum support. In the classroom, teachers use the KidVision VPK virtual field trip to stimulate student learning and keep track of student standards achievement with provided assessment grids. Take Home Pages give teachers a friendly way to get parents involved in their child’s education. Additionally, KidVision VPK is a useful resource for parents to teach education standards to four year-old children in order to prepare them for kindergarten.

We developed the site in response to a pressing community need. Florida voters approved the Florida Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten Act in 2006. The community need was that there was a lack of training for pre-K teachers. We decided to develop a professional development site that could give teachers standards-based learning tools. We then partnered with a local university to provide a structured program whereby teachers could earn Continuing Education Credits. Our primary target audience is early childhood educators. We promote the service through partnerships with Early Learning Coalitions, country children services, and targeted mailing to VPK centers. We now have more than 14,000 users from every county in Florida.

Why did you decide to create a mobile app? How does the content on the newly launched mobile application differ from the online content?
We decided to create the app as a way to give parents and kids a convenient way to watch, play and learn. Besides watching the virtual field trips, kids and their parents can play fun quizzes, and parents can extend the learning environment by reading activity plans designed for each video.

Wordless Wednesday

Jen Carter Looking Organized for a Wednesday

View from Inside Jen Carter's Awesome Lamp

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

FYI Corner: Educational Tools Keep Going Digital

By Jen Carter, Station Products & Innovation

I was recently babysitting for a friend. Right before his parents left for the evening, his mother handed me an iPad and showed me where I could find his approved folder of programs. At first I was a little confused, and I felt a little sad for the kid - I remember growing up with coloring books and a very large home computer. But after looking more at the iPad, I was amazed at just how many applications, programs and tools there are available for this little guy to use. I even found myself playing with it for a while, once he showed me how to use it.

Education has always been a core value of public media, so the integration of digital technology into educational tools is a very important trend for our industry. We are even seeing some of the more successful educational tools that have come out being snapped up by larger companies.

HTC, a big name in mobile technology, recently acquired Inquisitive Minds whose major product is Zoodles, a free kid-friendly web surfing tool for desktop, tablet and smartphone browsers. One key element to Zoodles’ success is the easy to use parental controls. Top features that parents can decide on include blocking games based on certain elements of the program, ad blocking of personally questionable content, and promotion of educational subjects. This acquisition is one in a growing list of deals that lends more credence and validity to these types of educational tools.

The SPI Files: Nadia Bashir, shopPBS.org

By Amy Baroch, Station Products & Innovation

Last week the SPI Files learned a few advance tips about what iMA will be doing at SXSW this year from director, Jeannie Ericson. This week we polish up our shopping carts and ride down the halls of PBS to visit Nadia Bashir with shopPBS.

Who are you and what do you do at PBS?
I’m the eCommerce Marketing Manager at shopPBS.org. I focus on marketing in the different web channels that bring users to shopPBS.org, including email, paid search, social media, display media and more. I am also responsible for managing the shopPBS.org station affiliate program.

You are one of the newer faces around here. How long have you been at PBS?
Three months.

Welcome! Before PBS, what did you do?
I have worked on web marketing efforts for a start-up, and also for a travel visa and passport provider, where I built the web analytics, paid search and email programs from scratch.

If you didn't work in public media, what would you be doing?
Traveling the world.

Explain shopPBS in Twitter-style, 140 characters or less.
shopPBS carries PBS-related DVDs, Blu-rays, books, apparel, home decor and more. By supporting us, users support the PBS programs they love.

Last year, shopPBS did some special events around the holidays. Are you planning similar activities this year?
There is A LOT going on during the holidays! We will be running a culinary sweepstakes centered around Lidia’s Italy and giving away three great prizes. Be sure to visit shopPBS.org in mid-November to check out the prizes and learn more. Also, we have a great merchandise collection for The Fabric of the Cosmos featuring gadgets, games, books and more. We will be carrying a lot of fun merchandise around the Downton Abbey Series 1 rebroadcast and Downton Abbey Series 2 premiere, including gifts, jewelry and accessories.

shopPBS has been embracing social media a lot lately. In what ways has shopPBS been evolving over the past few years?
We understand that social media is a conversation and would like to use it to understand what users want. We have been highlighting our special offers via social media so that loyal PBS viewers and fans can take advantage of them.

What is the next big thing for shopPBS?
Expanding the assortment of merchandise we carry.

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? Elmo
I am currently listening to… Can't Help Falling In Love cover by Ingrid Michaelson
I am currently reading… Textbooks for my MBA classes
I’m currently watching… Atonement
Most overused phrase: "I know!"

The Weekly SPI Debrief - November 4, 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.

SPACES ARE LIMITED! Keyword Research Workshop

Analytics have shown that if you invest in keyword research upfront you can attract new visitors for many months or even years without additional marketing. Join us for our next featured webinar/ online workshop on Keyword Research November 15th, 2011 from 2 - 3pm ET. This is great precursor to the SEO Workshop in December. Limited seats are available and we will cap this workshop to about 20 people to allow for hands on practice of concepts introduced by PBS NewMedia Director, Melanie Phung.

To sign up for this workshop visit https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/228364018.

This week the PBS Food project started their holiday planning and they want to share your local content! The team is planning to pull together a package that points off to related Thanksgiving content from your station. Content is not limited to recipes. Other more general holiday content would work as well.

Let the Food team know (arcarufel@pbs.org) or contact us with anything you may want to share. If you have content we'd like to hear from you before next Friday, November 11.

In this week's Presented by Incubation Lab we have Part 3 of a three-part series looking at natural disaster coverage on the #localPBS 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 venture a little further out in public media to catch up with Jeannie Ericson at the Integrated Media Association (iMA). Before iMA, Jeannie worked at Public Broadcasting Atlanta (WABE & PBA30) and helped establish Lensonatlanta.org, the first regionally focused, online community for a major metro area. Want to know which direction Jeannie and iMA will take in the next few months?

Follow the links below to continue reading...

• Presented by Incubation Lab: Covering a Natural Disaster, Part 3
• The SPI Files: Jeannie Ericson, iMA

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 3

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. 


In case you missed it, read Part 1 and Part 2 of the series.

Teresa Peltier, WSKG

A Personal Guide to Survive
by Teresa Peltier, Emerging Media Specialist, WSKG

Without a doubt, covering a natural disaster, even from a computer station at the dining room table, requires a lot of determination and internal motivation. But it’s also important to remember to take care of yourself. Here are some helpful tips that might aid others who find themselves in similar shoes (or rain boots).

Pack snacks.
From a real survival standpoint, please ensure your safety, and your family’s, before committing to any work responsibilities during a time of crisis.

Even if you intend to work from home, as I did, make certain to obey evacuation orders, road barriers and other warnings. Your computer isn’t going to work if you’re 10 feet under water. I went to the store twice to get bottled water and non-perishable food, and luckily made it out before the store flooded two hours later, cutting me off from any other food supply. So, pack your snacks in advance.

Wordless Wednesday: Meet Me in St. Louis

Marla Krueger
At Nine Network for OVEE Training

Mike Bauhof, Nine Network of Public Media
SAC Member