I feel like I must say this again: I love San Francisco. The sites, the people, the food, the atmosphere, everything. I honestly don’t think I can handle a long distance relationship so I’ve already begun thinking about when we will meet again. Sigh. Anyway, back to my adventures at the Online News Association Conference!
SF Union Square
Most of Friday, as shown in my last post was spent hitting the streets of SF and finding out from locals how they consume news. Austin Fast and I produced a SoundSlides show, ONA ‘09 Word on the Street, with the audio we recorded along with some photos of those we interviewed and spots around SF. This gave us a chance to get to know the locals and observe some of their daily habits. A few things I noticed: A lot of San Franciscans smoke cigarettes. It is legal to drink publicly if your drink is in a brown bag. And, a lot of them smoke “medical” marijuana openly, but more on this in a later post!
Smoking is a common habit for San Franciscans
We also attended a session, Your Audience, Your Advantage, which played along with the idea of our slideshow. The panel talked about getting to know your audience, finding out who is consuming your content, how to involve them, and using metrics to engage them.
I’d say the best part of the day was our Lunch with Leo. I was sitting at the table next to Leo Laporte, “The Tech Guy”, and watching his every bite…um, can you say stalker? I think he noticed me snapping pictures of him the whole time, but I didn’t care.
For those who don’t know, Laporte is one of today’s most famous tech journalists, known for his radio show “Leo Laporte-The Tech Guy” and his podcast and live-stream of This Week in Tech. His speech was on several things from getting to know your audience and writer’s niche to the world of advertising.
Me with Leo Laporte
I totally screamed when he left the lobby. This was an opportunity of a lifetime, and not just for me. Sean is a devoted listener and knows a lot more about the tech talk on TWiT so this was a golden opportunity we both couldn’t pass up.
I’ve got so much more to say, so this is going to be a three-part post. Tomorrow, I will cover the last day at the ONA Conference and on Thursday, I will talk all about my totally epic visit to the TWiT Cottage. Stay tuned.