My advice: Take 15 minutes for innovaten every week. | Astrid Csuraji

20 Things You Should Try in 2020 (if You Work as a Journalist)

January 1, 2020 might begin so comfortably. Even before I check my social media accounts, the sensor dashboard on my smart bathroom mirror pops up. The fireworks at New Year’ s Eve seem to have been a huge success: The sensors report that it was loud and bright. A glance at the fine dust card confirms the consequences of the fireworks. The drone flies in the first pictures. And the coffee machine brews my coffee extra strong. This future is within reach. A new decade approaches. I believe it will be the decade in which things become reporters. The decade in which networking will infuse our lives. And every sofa will be connected to the Internet.
Here is the Journalism of Things Bucket List. There are 20 things on it that you should do in 2020 to be ready for the journalism of things.

1. Add “time for innovation” to your calendar. 15 minutes is a good start. Set to weekly repeats.
2. learn a command in a programming language. And then another. Start with Python, Ruby, Javascript. For example, in the codecademy.com. Or, if you want to build things with C++. (here: bit.ly/in3commands)
3. Your smartphone has at least 25 sensors built-in. Find out what sensor data your smartphone collects. Ideally with a game. bit.ly/smartphone-sensors
4. Use a GPS tracker app. Use it to draw a image with geodata. Slowly walk a heart-shaped path through the city. Publish the screenshot of the map.
5. Build your own sensor. For example a noise sensor in a stone. I have prepared something for you: bit.ly/soundstein
6. Turn the sensor data into a service for the readers of your Twitter account: “The quietest spot in our neighbourhood is currently the Bank am Fluss”. How does that work? Read step 7.
7. Use the post office on the Internet of Things, the service ifttt.com. Create your own reminders for news sources. That could be a new article about handbags in the American Instyle, the next text in the New York Times about Angela Merkel or a new tweet of the medium magazine (medium magazin
8. Pair a Smart Home device with the New York Times IFTTT-service. For example, you can dim the light when a new longread appears. Or link the weather report to your tado thermostat.
9. Think about what your smart fridge could tell you about them. Or your kettle. Or your cuddly toy.
10. Follow the accounts of smart things and creatures on Twitter. For example the squirrel in @TheSquirrelCafe by Carsten Dannat. And vacuum cleaner robot Marvin, who keeps the @sensorenresidenz (sensor residence) of Marco Maas clean.
11. Build your own squirrel café. And help finding out whether the squirrels’ nut consumption is actually a measure of the harshness of the coming winter. You can find instructions here: bit.ly/eichhorncafe.
12. Build yourself a news receiver. For example made of cardboard. The paper signals are a good start: papersignals.withgoogle.com
13. Let an object speak. The easiest way to do this is with hot water, the Tonie Box and a creative tonie. Tonies are audio characters. With hot water you can take the chip. It says: bit.ly/karlklimabaer. I’m so fascinated by it that together with Astrid Csuraji I founded a start-up on it: tactile.news.
14. Talk to a voice assistant for more than ten minutes. And I don’t mean that you complete your shopping list.
15. Find out what political views Alexa, Siri, Cortana and Google Assistant hold (tip: feminism! space travel! Donald Trump!)
16. Find out who provides the information when you ask language assistants for healthy nutrition or medical advice.
17. Build your own voice application. With the great Voiceflow application, you can do it in ten minutes. My favorite application: “Alexa, your opinion? Alexa answers in ten variations: “Of course you’re right, Jakob.”
18. Let an AI finish a text you can’t cope with. Adam King has provided a service for the OpenAI project for this. bit.ly/neueenden
19. Journalistic text will no longer be tied to displays for longer periods of time. Label a surface with good journalism. This can be an arm, a lantern pole or a wall. You can use a robot like scribit.design, a spray can with spray chalk or a digital stamp.
20. Take a day to invent something you are proud of. That could be a piece of software. Or a cardboard prototype. The Ideas Sprint method could help you.