Getting started with SCJ
Last October, I started working with Florida International University’s College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts, specifically its School of Communication + Journalism (SCJ).
As the school’s third Knight Innovator in Residence appointee, I am working with FIU faculty, students and staff on various future-focused areas of digital media and journalism education. I am available as a resource to the growing innovation ecosystem in the greater Miami area as well. This initiative is funded by Knight Foundation.
When I began discussions with the SCJ search committee, I could not have been more excited. This initiative represents tremendous potential for a type of education work that I hold dear—interdisciplinary, cross-campus, beyond-the-classroom work—and it is in a city that I consider to be my home. This type of work is hopeful. Full of nothing but potential. And—at this point in my current career-trajectory crisis—a very welcome palette cleanser from the cyclical negotiations around monetization, view-ability, CMS woes, bot this, and bot-that. Its nice to step back and think about how we are preparing our 21st century global communicators, and a lot of fun to do this work at an institution whose student body is more multi-lingual than any other in my experience.
During my appointment, I am providing consulting, mentoring and networking to FIU students, faculty as well as Miami’s media and startup community at large. Specifically, I am focusing on three core areas:
- Supporting digital literacy education for the journalism, advertising and public relations students and faculty.
- Producing a premiere event in collaboration with FIU’s Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center and School of Communication + Journalism; and
- Developing interdisciplinary beyond-the-classroom programming and opportunities for SCJ students and faculty within StartupFIU.
If you happen to interested in how my work with FIU SCJ develops, I will be posting recaps, resources and various lessons-learned in this Medium publication. I’d love for you to reach out with feedback and/or any interest in collaboration. Please don’t be shy. Below find more details about my application process.
I lived in Miami from 1997 to 2004, during which I earned my bachelor’s degree at University of Miami’s School of Communication and worked my very first grown-up job in the art department at Ocean Drive Magazine. In fact, I left in 2004 because of desire for professional development and for access to more opportunities in digital news media both of which was quite lacking in Miami at the time. Over the past twelve years, I have maintained a minimal network in the city through various workshops and events. Its amazing how much the city has changed and how many more resources and opportunities are available now to young and mid-career journalists that were not quite so prevalent just a decade ago.
When I applied for the position, I was asked to submit a letter of interest that explained how I might approach to the position. This was quite a challenge for me. My writing muscles have atrophied over the years. And I like to think I make a better impression and can present stronger pitch through face-to-face conversation. That said, here is an excerpt from my LOI:
I could not be more excited about this initiative as it represents tremendous potential for an interdisciplinary, cross-campus project in a city that I consider to be my home. I am interested in developing programming or a project that would enable early-stage journalism ideas to collaborate with students in other colleges — perhaps in collaboration with StartUp FIU — through human-centered, prototype driven design. This kind of programing could play a significant role on campus as well as in Miami.
I am passionate about digital communities. I believe in framing the problem, user-centered research and egoless collaboration. I work in media, design, user-experience and digital strategy. In some ways, my narrative as a practicing journalist is not uncommon. Like so many of my peers, practicing journalism and valuing its role in a democracy has been a calling for me. My first publication was my elementary school newspaper: The Tropical Tribune. Later, at thirteen, my father gave me his old Nikkormat camera and I spent much of my high school years learning how to use the technology, compose shots, as well as tell stories through a frame.
At seventeen, I pursued an education at the University of Miami. I worked for a design faculty to help him execute software workshops. I have an aptitude for software and technology and found that my powers were useful at a young age. As his classroom aide, Professor Carl R. Stano was uniquely positioned to indicate potential in his young, photography-focused aide as a designer, not just as a shooter. In fact, I can remember the exact moment Stano stopped me mid-sentence and proclaimed, “Miranda. You are a designer.” It is because of this statement, my first professional job was as a designer and artist at a local Miami magazine: Ocean Drive. This statement not only changed my professional focus but also realigned my entire understanding of self. Photography gave me skills in composition and visual narrative. Design gave me a career.
Over the next eight years, I bounced around newsroom art, graphics, photo, presentation, and design teams taking on every opportunity to practice my visual journalism skills as specified through design, photography, video, copy and interactive. By the time I joined The Boston Globe in 2010, I had worked all of the newsroom production and presentation desks possible. And, thanks to my time at Ocean Drive Magazine, I had professional experience with clients, sales and advertising. I turned 30 about six months before joining the Globe and I had the resumé of someone 15 to 20 years my senior.
This. This is not an original story. However, what I did with my first professional decade, how I applied my past experience moving forward, that part of my journalistic autobiography is nuanced and unique.
My work at the Globe put me at the forefront of innovative design techniques applied to information-rich, high-volume websites. I left the Globe in the middle to join a fascinating project at Northwestern University: the Knight Lab. At the time of my joining NU’s community, I thought it might be interesting to work through many of my own idea for prototypes with the team at the Lab. And, so did each of the faculty. And, the students wanted the staff to teach them to be programmers and developers. If we tried to address each individually we were never going to move forward. Instead, we developed a work environment on campus that enabled a community to happen. A microcosm. Now the Lab provides an open, collaborative environment for interdisciplinary exploration and conversation, where students and professionals learn together and from one another. I learned volumes about working with and managing a university center that deeply intersects with faculty and students with competing agendas. In my three years, our team achieved the following:
• Defined a unique approach to journalism education that produces the strongest candidates of journalism-technology talent on the market;
• Delivered useful, interactive, open-source, free-to-use storytelling tools (some of which generate nearly eight million monthly uniques) for storytellers in the service of digital journalism;
• Developed an engaged community of international, national and Chicago-local journalists and storytellers navigating the intersection of journalism and code.
I am proud of my work at Northwestern U., and even more gratified by the Lab maturing to a point that I felt comfortable moving on. Currently I consult consults with various media brands and professional organizations, designing and producing innovation experiences. I am an active Society for News Design board member.
I hope that you find my experience developing opportunities for entrepreneurship, journalism and education innovation combined with my deep belief in prototyping and design-thinking techniques as a methodology for enabling growth to position me as an ideal candidate for your visiting faculty position.
Since starting this position, my work has become more actionable. Its hard to pitch a project dependent on collaboration and buy-in from potential colleagues that is immediately actionable. I made some assumptions that turned out to be wrong, and over the past few months I have found ways my efforts can be more meaningful to the FIU community.
I will write more about each of the following in the coming weeks:
- I am developing a replicable workshop focused on digital literacy, audience development and tactical social media.
- The “Mobile Media Culture in the Americas” event is rapidly approaching.
- And, I have learned quite about just how far off my assumptions were in my LOI on just how I might collaborate with Startup FIU. So, I am back at the old drawing board right now but I have not given up yet!
As I mentioned above, I will be posting recaps, resources and various lessons-learned here. I’d love for you to reach out with feedback and/or any interest in collaboration. Also, I am always interested in a coffee.
