JEE Camp by Kasper Sorensen

JEEcamp, an unconference about the future of journalism took place Friday, May 8th at The Bond in Digbeth. The event, organised by Paul Bradshaw, saw a group of 85 journalists and media producers getting together to discuss the current state of the industry and, how to make money from journalism.

JEECamp: Speed – dating by These Digital Times

The entrepreneurial spirit was high at this years JEEcamp, unlike last years event where people were still holding on to their jobs, it was clear that this year was all about looking forward. Kyle MacRae kicked off with the only formal presentation (followed by an interesting Q&A session) of the day, about the rise and fall of Scoopt.com – a venture, trading photos with big media companies on behalf citizen journalists. Kyle and his wife ran the company for a couple of years before selling it to Getty Images, who eventually shut it down a few months ago.

One of the main topics of the day, that kept coming up, was the power of hyper-local journalism. James Hatts, editor of London-SE1, see a future of one or two person publications and stressed the importance of having people on the ground, as opposed to sitting behind a desk. SoGlos.com, a local online magazine covering the area of Gloucestershire, was presented by the co-founder James Fryer. He explained how they make hyper-local work by focusing on high quality content, and something as old-fashioned as email newsletters.

JEEcamp is an unconference, meaning the agenda for the day was organised in a wiki-style, where everyone could contribute their ideas. One of the more creative suggestions was speed networking. Here, random pairs of attendees get one minute to swap cards and explain what they do, before moving on. Paul Bradshaw was on the clock and would let people know, with random sounds from his iPod, when it was time to ’swap partners’.

During the open-mic session, Sue Greenwood presented Sweeble.com, a site launched only a month ago to help individuals and groups launch their own newspaper or newsletter. The service is neither print- or web-only, the site enables everyone to quickly print their newsletter for physical distribution. It’s is particular focused on clubs and organisations, but Sue also believes it provides individual journalists with a possibility to move beyond their blogs.

In true unconference spirit, impromptu panels where formed through random selection of attendees, although people did have the option of politely saying no thanks, most where up for it. Joanna Geary, former Birmingham Post reporter, volunteered to chair a Brum heavy panel including Jon Bounds, Tom Scotney, Sue Heseltine and John Thompson. Dave Harte from Digital Birmingham headed the 2nd. and last panel of the day, selected panellists included, among others, Robin Morley from the BBC and Andy Dickinson.

Both panels, as well as the everything else that happened at the event, was live blogged by myself and a group of journalism students from the Birmingham City University. The archives and tweets are still available, and a quick search on vimeo and flickr will reveal visual snacks from throughout the day. Everything from around the web is automatically aggregated and published over at JEEcamp.com.