The end of the 2008 election season wrapped up a piece of my online obsession - SmartDecision08.com. Along with helping keep that site running with content from KOMU.com, KBIA.org and the ColumbiaMissourian.com I also decided to turn the partnership up a notch and produce a multi-newsroom webcast. We ended up also including a new internationally-focused newsroom called Newsy.com into the webcast as well. So for four hours we worked with content from four newsrooms and conducted interviews with participants in a big non-partisan watch party we created to coincide with the webcast. It was pretty fantastic to be able to combine multiple newsrooms AND the community all into one event. I’m proud of the dozens and dozens of people who helped make the event happen. I’m exhausted from it all still.

I actually had to run out of town the very next day for family reasons so I haven’t been able to truly digest the many things we were able to do since SmartDecision08.com launched a year ago. I don’t want to see the site die - so I have to come up with ways to let it continue to grow even without any funding. The great thing about RSS feeds is the content continues to flow, so I’m trying to conceptualize a way to help the website follow political news and issues even if I’m not overseeing it often.

In the meantime I’m about to go halfway around the world to train some journalists in China. I’ve never had this kind of opportunity before and I am excited and nervous to go. I’m planning to spend some quite, focused time preparing for the trip. When I get back, I hope to spend more time digesting and sharing the lessons learned from the SmartDecisoin08.com project.

I work a lot. I work at work. I work at home. I work from campus. I work from coffee shops. Recently, I convinced my boss to buy a broadband card and I have been able to work in the car. Recently, I’ve been fed up with working at home. Our DSL line was purchased four years ago. When we moved away from dial-up, it was the fastest, greatest thing since the iPod. But recently the speed has just left me aggravated. Today I finally made a call, decided to pay $20 more a month and more from 1.5MB speed to 10MB. I hope and pray it will ease the waiting period of uploading and downloading work (and fun) items. By the end of the workday tomorrow, I should be able to work faster. I’m kind of excited. No, I’m super excited.

Also, I’m trying to get an election project moving forward. It’s this collaborative effort I keep discussing. The Smart Decision 2008 site is up, but not ready. I don’t really have anyone to help with the Internet Explorer 7 CSS problems. I don’t really have a CSS person at all. It’s scary when I have such limited funds to make this project work.

BUT, we’re going to do the best we can.

I did get tipped off on a fascinating study on the electronic devices owned by college students. Get this: 97 percent of college students have a cellphone and 79 percent own a laptop. Even more - 30 percent of that 79 percent also own a desktop computer. Wow. It is proof of how ubiquitous technology is with students. Technology is assumed. It isn’t new. It is just there and professors need to find ways to take advantage of its use. I’m online all the time and I feel like I have yet to use it to the fullest. If only winter breaks were longer.

I’m working on a collaborative project where I’m hoping we’ll have multiple sources for video, audio and images. The Splashcast player seems to be our best bet. Here’s what I’ve worked on so far: