The Gazette Company of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is pleased to announce the addition of Marci Burdick and Jay Rosen to its board of directors.

Rosen is a professor of journalism at New York University, specializing in the development of journalism in the digital age. Burdick, Senior Vice President – Electronic Division at Schurz Communications, is a leader in the broadcast industry. Both new directors bring digital expertise to the company’s core print and broadcast journalism operations.

They join Chairman Joe Hladky, President Chuck Peters, Treasurer Ken Slaughter, Secretary Elizabeth Schott, Don Barry, John Hladky, Jack Evans, Charles Funk and Elizabeth Barry (emeritus) on the board.

The Gazette Company, d/b/a SourceMedia Group, is a diverse local media enterprise, reaching more than 310,000 people in the Eastern Iowa region every day through The Gazette daily newspaper, local ABC affiliate KCRG TV-9, and numerous websites including TheGazette.com, KCRG.com and HooplaNow.com. The company also is a leader in commercial offset and digital printing.

As journalism evolves in this networked environment, the company does more than publish news and advertising in print, broadcast and online.  It creates an environment of open exchange, provides unparalleled content in personal ways that enrich lives, drives collaborative opportunities to strengthen communities and discovers new and inventive ways to deliver credible information.

About Marci Burdick:

Marci Burdick is Senior Vice-President-Electronic Division for Schurz Communications, a position she’s held since February 2003.   Her responsibilities include supervision of 2 cable companies and 9 television stations and 13 radio stations.  Other positions Burdick has held within the Schurz organization include Television VP, President/General Manager of WAGT-TV in Augusta Georgia (June 2000-September 2002) and News Director at KYTV, Springfield, Missouri (1988-2000).  Prior to that, she was anchor/news director at KOTA TV and KEVN TV, both in her hometown of Rapid City, South Dakota.  Burdick has worked continuously in the media since age 14, beginning with an after-school job in radio.   She moved into television just out of high school, working full time while carrying a full college course load.

She has won numerous awards for excellence in journalism both as a reporter and news manager.  They include 2 national Edward R. Murrow awards, many regional Murrows, 4 regional Emmy awards, the national Iris Award, the national Silver Gavel Award and several dozen state broadcast association awards.  In 2010, Burdick was awarded The South Dakota Broadcast Association’s “Tom Brokaw Award” for broadcast excellence.

Burdick is active in the industry and the community.  She is a member of the Board and Executive Committee of the National Associations of Broadcasters, the industry’s leading trade association.  She is a past-President/Chairman of the NBC Affiliates Association and a past chairwoman of the Radio-Television News Directors Association.  (She was the first woman to be elected to each organization’s top leadership position).  Locally, she serves on the boards of the South Bend Rotary Club and the Studebaker Museum.  She also devotes an hour a week to reading with an elementary school student in a Title I school.

Burdick has worked on many community boards including The Salvation Army, Red Cross, “Good Community Coalition” of Springfield and has served as President of the Boards of both the  United Way of Augusta  and the Rapid City (SD) Convention and Visitors Bureau.   She has been a Rotarian for 21 years, belonging to clubs in three cities.

While in Missouri, she was appointed by the Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court to a task force to design and supervise a 2-year experiment for electronic coverage of Missouri’s courts.  The experimental rule was permanently adopted July 1, 1995.

Burdick is frequently invited to present at journalism and leadership training sessions for organizations such as the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, the Radio Television News Directors Foundation and the National Association of Broadcasters Educational Foundation.

Burdick and her husband, John, have 4 children and 5 granddaughters.

About Jay Rosen:

Jay Rosen has been on the journalism faculty at New York University since 1986; from 1999 to 2005 he served as chair of the Department. He lives in New York City.

Rosen is the author of PressThink, a weblog about journalism and its ordeals (www.pressthink.org), which he introduced in September 2003. In June 2005, PressThink won the Reporters Without Borders 2005 Freedom Blog award for outstanding defense of free expression. In April 2007 PressThink recorded its two millionth visit.

He also blogs at the Huffington Post. In July 2006 he announced the debut NewAssignment.Net, his experimental site for pro-am, open source reporting projects. The first one was called Assignment Zero, a collaboration with Wired.com. A second project was OfftheBus.Net with the Huffington Post.

Rosen is a former member of the Wikipedia Advisory Board. He is currently on the advisory board of Digital First Media, which runs two newspaper companies: Journal Register Company and Media News Group. He is also a member of the advisory board of Post Media, the largest newspaper company in Canada.

In 1999, Yale University Press published his book, What Are Journalists For?, which is about the rise of the civic journalism movement. Rosen wrote and spoke frequently about civic journalism (also called public journalism) over a ten-year period, 1989-99. From 1993 to 1997 he was the director of the Project on Public Life and the Press, funded by the Knight Foundation.

As a press critic and reviewer, he has published in The Nation, Columbia Journalism Review, the Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and others. Online he has written for Salon.com, TomPaine.com and Poynter.org. In 1990 he and Neil Postman (friend, colleague, mentor) hosted a radio show on WBAI in New York called “The Zeitgeist Hour.”

In 1994 he was a fellow at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, and in 1990-91 he held a fellowship at the Gannett Center for Media Studies at Columbia University.

A native of Buffalo, NY, Rosen had a very brief career in journalism at the Buffalo Courier-Express before beginning graduate study. He has a Ph.D. from NYU in media studies (1986).

1. Where is our online urgency, cohesion and direction?
2. Where is the feedback that acknowledges and celebrates effort, good work and success in engaging, connecting and informing?
3. Where is mentoring and coaching to success?
4. To what extent do we value the urgent and incremental dissemination of news and information to our main online audiences (as distinct from topical sites)?
5. Why do we put out a “point of view” as a media company?
6. How does content get from information network to products?
7. What does curate mean?
8. How do you measure engagement?
9. There seems to be a lack of urgency
10. “Do the right thing” does that mean ethics?
11. Last paragraph on first page unclear.
12. What is innovation?
13. Key to doing this easily and naturally is for us to work together and communicate better. I see this happening more but we need to maintain focus on working cross-functionally. How do we ensure that happens?
14. Why do the Gazette website and paper seem so disjointed?
15. Why do things that run in the paper never end up on the website?
16. What is the vision for the relationship between the products (Gazette paper & website) going forward?
17. What does community engagement actually mean to us; how will it be operationalized?
18. How do all positions in the company participate in community engagement?
19. What is considered legacy operations? Is this print, broadcast? Is this also mobile?
20. What is this thing we hear named “digital first strategy”?
21. Resonates: Chuck’s intro of Jay Rosen’s post flood – be the place where people could come as the trusted source to help get things moving. “Trusted place” – the facilitator
22. When you say we are going to be transparent and engaging do in the mission or on what we think on every issue?
23. Moving everything to KCRG? Equipment or people? (Note: this was from the first meeting)
24. We would like to see organizational hierarchy flattened and lose the content versus product. Don’t like having to go through managers to talk to another product – we should all be working together!
25. Goes beyond “buzz” words – that is good
26. Are we going to tell people what to do- in relation to “embrace and drive change”?
27. More voices = more noise. How do we decide what voices get heard?
28. Haven’t we always engaged our audience = community?
29. Where is the end game – when does the “reinvention” end?
30. Are we placing too much emphasis and resources on new niche products at the expense of legacy?
31. What do the larger changes mean to my smaller group?
32. Is there another media company having success with this process?
33. Raises?
34. What is missing? Building a cohesive team to cut unnecessary expenses… the how?
35. Unclear: how do we create an organizational community?
36. We are successful through more than monetary results.
37. Teamwork is key!
38. Color Web mission doesn’t match its objectives – value vs. $
39. Agency name?
40. How do we do all of the additional expectations, with the prior expectations, in the original constraints of time and resources? Are we sacrificing quality, customer service, and running the risk of alienating the audiences we already have established? (people feel stretched thin already at our table)
41. Should our strength of being able to share, that leads to the trusted experiences, be a stronger part of our objectives statement?
42. All of it resonates. Particularly when it comes to “thriving as a team”. If we fix that, we can fix anything.
43. Missing: We’re also successful when our customers find the best value, or improve their lives in some tangible way. We are an agent who acts in the interest of the reader/viewer/user/buyer, too.
44. Under CWP, what is $4MM – million or thousand?
45. It’s kind of wordy/long to get and keep attention/focus.
46. Confusing, in need of rewording: “We facilitate the development of the communities…” (1^st pg, 1^st paragraph). Also “We have the ability to create and deliver relevant…” (2^nd page, 1^st sentence)
47. Make more direct, more specific: “We serve a large region, where people choose to live…” (2^nd page)
48. In the vision statement, the word “thriving” is that the best word choice for what we’re trying to say?
49. Maybe this could include here how we’re different from other media companies? That we’re not given up on our mission? – MCC
50. The Color Web Printers part at the end has specific, concrete action points. Can we include actual examples of what the other departments will do? Or be less open-sky and give even some hypothetical examples? Some direction? Characteristics of what we might do? (Hold mor forums? Reach for more interaction on KCRG 9.2?) – MCC
51. Should we target some strategic communities which are more important than others? What metrics are we using to make these decisions and how do they work in sync across the organization? How do we recognize emerging communities? … or more concisely, are there some communities which are strategically more important?
52. Does the separation of key objectives put us back in silos? Should we place a better job emphasizing that true success comes working across the organization?
53. As pace of change accelerates, what effort is being placed on improving internal communication quickly?
54. Can we have some sort of bio on all the various departments and what they do, etc. This would have to be a “living thing” since it changes.
55. How can we make sure we are getting info from trusted sources? Can friends and neighbors be trusted and valuable sources? Will they have their own agenda?
56. Will we have the resources, money and training to accomplish these goals?
57. A word I’d like to see: Dynamic.
58. Some info I’d like to see: training for motivating SMG staff to innovate and grow and keep moving forward, and internal communication.
59. Under the Content mission – there is nothing about being a watchdog or holding government accountable. That’s an important omission.
60. “Connect, curate, cultivate” and inform – I get that we’re democratizing the model, but we should be sharing and building on our historic strengths of verification and research – that’s our niche and foundation of respect.
61. “We are successful when our customers’ cash registers ring” – would like this to be broader – registers ring, when community networks are strengthened, when members have a greater perspective and stronger understanding of engaging their communities, issues and institutions.
62. What is unclear/doesn’t fit? CWP goals stick out as more “tangible” than content, product, and sales goals – if looking from an external perspective, others may not care about us keeping our wages/healthcare costs in check.
63. Wondering where the pagination department fits in to this change? Because in sales, product, content and CWP it is very unclear where we fall in to all of this.
64. How do we turn the “anchors” in to “paddlers”?
65. Under sales: educate staff on all products available so they have the knowledge to know what and how to fulfill the customer’s needs.
66. How can we reiterate that fact that we’re only as good as our audience, community and facilitate more audience inclusion, while making our products MORE community driven?
67. What initiatives are we taking to make sure we’re reaching our goals at Color Web?
68. What is our region?
69. What is the criteria to determine a community?
70. How do we prioritize the communities?
71. In order for our community to improve and be a better place to live, the local media company can play a very influential role.
72. Who is the community/audience? What are they doing and how do we get involved in their lives?
73. Tension – mass media vs. targeted communities
74. Editor coffees – to engage
75. What does “co-create a regional newspaper and distribution service” entail? Working with the PC or Register, or just local non-media persons?
76. What unique offerings – is there a place or site that brings it all together? ie – a list offered externally?
77. We need more employee communication about new initiatives way before they’re rolled out, successes to be proud of, staff changes etc.
78. Does the public, our communities, understand who Source Media Group is? Many of us still need to identify ourselves as being from The Gazette, KCRG  because the public doesn’t relate to Source Media. Can we use Source Media Group because of that company out east? Should it have Gazette in the name, like Herald Publications?
79. How will pride/morale be a bigger priority? Is it the employee’s responsibility?
80. What steps will be taken to upgrade our workflows in Information Content to engage, and inform in a better manner?
81. What can I do day to day to improve our delivery of information?
82. What’s the plan to improve intra-newsroom communication?
83. Is the number one goal to have the most viewers/readers in the coverage area? Is web/social media more important?
84. What is the “meaning” of the point of a view? Political stance, etc? Does that mean giving an opinion?
85. Who internally goes to the community as a person with KCRG, The Gazette, CWP or with SourceMedia Group? In other words, several communities, the masses, are still generally unfamiliar with SourceMedia Gropu and our story. What is being done to further that initiative to educate?
86. Definition of community – broaden idea for all employees
87. Engagement – definition and tools
88. Educate what Sourcemedia group is – sales struggle with definition
89. Never say no to the community – find a way to say yes to something.
90. How do we take advantage of internal communities to develop content for current products and new products?
91. To create communities we should start creating communities at work. Have employee networking sessions with different departments to share interests and insights.
92. What do you mean by curate?
93. How do we get our work done if we have to spend so much time social networking?
94. By engage do you mean by sitting at a computer and typing answers and info to a website or actually taking the time to talk and listen to people in conversation? As a TV News photog I’m in the field 70% of my day away from a computer. It is easier to engage person to person. I think that’s the biggest issue is content people are engaging differently than people in product. – Brent Horstmann
95. Leverage and/or maximize current resources. Ex: sharepoint – it’s a great tool, but currently inefficient and underutilized. Advertising – not updated regularly, no version control, no logical structure – information everywhere.
96. What does “digital first” really mean?
97. What happens to all the story ideas, letters, photos, information that the public brings in to customer service?
98. Will Sourcemedia be changing again? When will we know?
99. How do we connect employees from different departments who might be a part of the same “community” and not know it?
100. What does “curation” mean for content people?
101. What does everyone think community means?
102. Definitions of values?
103. Better inter-office communications – sharing the great successes, not necessarily emails, simple information (not necessarily about the final project, but the progress too), intranet page updates?
104. How do we define “provide world class service to our clients”?
105. Re: eliminating waste – What, if any, methodology will be utilized to identify and eliminate waste? Often times, it seems that decisions are made haphazardly with no rhyme or reason. Ex: The online classified system rolled out in 2010, but later abandoned. While it’s important to be flexible and open to change, I would argue it’s even more important to do so in a logical and methodical way. Any plans or thoughts of utilizing Lean methodologies?
106. How do we become less departmentalized?
107. How do we measure community satisfaction?
108. What is the local information network?
109. Content – develop a culture of innovation, collaboration, inclusion, curiosity and pride. I cannot stress us being curious enough – this is critical. (Chris Earl)
110. Product – create a “hub” – ala Starbucks/Target/Ikea – a “brand” people are proud to use – proud to say “I watch/read/engage with them”. High-end products that inform and entertain. Take the HIGH ROAD! (Chris Earl)
111. Sales – Create product that co-incide with the busy lives of people “we want” – busy, successful people to show them “we’re on your side” (Chris Earl)
112. Share not stories, don’t “engage communities”
113. Nothing in content list addresses what content room will do with networking and communications. C. room is getting it – now what will they do with it?
114. Definition of “thriving community”?
115. I want to know more about 9.3
116. What is meant by co-creating a regional newspaper?
117. Missing: appreciation of customers and of our role in a forward-looking company.
118. When will Gazette/KCRG become one website? I have had several comments.
119. Engagement is primarily perceived as an online activity – how can we engage on other platforms?
120. How will the support groups (facilities, accounting, etc) play into the engagement model?
121. How will we measure engagement?
122. Is the community willing to engage with us?
123. What about people who don’t care to engage? Just give me the facts.
124. If I’m not part of a “community” (passion group) but want information – don’t engage me.
125. Internal communication? How does engineering engage, connect and inform? Not for every department.
126. Please add Customer Care to the “Sales” operating area description. It should read “Sales & Customer Care”. Thanks ~ Great job!
127. How will both websites continue to function (successfully) and separately? If we’re moving towards two brands under the same umbrella – will products merge in the future? “Team Gazette” vs. “Team KCRG” or one super-product? There is confusion about product division now, so how will it change/improve?  – Kelli Sutterman
128. Will we continue to use the topical web sites?
129. Will our viewers/readers be able to tell the difference between journalism and community contributors?
130. Social media isn’t mentioned, yet it is perhaps the best tool available to us to engage, connect and inform.
131. How are we working towards developing a culture of innovation?
132. Morale in this company is very low: people feel micro-managed, unappreciated and concerns don’t seem to be addressed, or even heard – how is this being addressed? There is fear of retribution for even asking questions.
133. Will the CDs replace the topical sites?
134. How will we differentiate between journalists and community contributors?
135. With broadcast and print employees now contributing to digital, how do we maintain the quality of the legacy products while using the same staff expected to do so many things?
136. The culture of innovation requires the freedom to innovate. This requires money and time.
137. Gain, retain and satisfy every customer with regards to the Gazette – how do we plan to do that with the paper getting smaller? Networking as a company within the company. Knowing who we can turn to outside of our immediate area to help us all reach our  goals.
138. Why? / For what purpose?  For a stronger community, more informed people, more participation, better decisions, to foster democracy, empower people, increase commerce, grow economy and make better consumer choices.
139. Define the “large region” to which we refer.
140. In content section: Journalism not part of the listed purposes. Process and technology exists, but what about journalism? Anywhere?
141. What if it were: “Our point of view” – flood victims should quit whining; Smulekoff’s; There is no budget crisis because borrowing stimulates the economy; Terry B should be governor… versus: You should know this because it is important.
142. Trust – What if we disagree on validity of source? Openness – about what we’re doing? Internally? Whom do we give credibility? With access to our platforms?
143. What is behind the statement “co-create a regional newspaper”?
144. Engagement – difficult to measure. How do we know if we’re successful?
145. Engagement larger than any one product or all products collectively.
146. What do advertisers want? Needs to be a big focus.
147. Beyond community newsroom – need to go to them, not everyone is willing to come to us, we must reach out to them. How do we become champions of the local information network, and what does it mean to be the “champion”?
148. Could we use something similar to Google+ to promote sharing within circles (communities) in our area?
149. What is “the right thing”?
150. Will we focus more on internally communicating to improve our external communication?
151. One thing that occurred to me is it will be difficult to build communities outside our organization when we don’t have a strong internal community. We need more events (not meetings) that allow interactions between people in different departments. This “meeting” was a good example.
152. What is “champion” of a local information network?
153. What is a local information network?
154. I would like to see more emphasis on improving the systems and culture we need to achieve those objectives? These objectives describe vague and products and outcomes.
155. Beyond engagement and exchange of ideas and collecting information, is there any specific outcome expected, or end goals, of the local information networks? How should they evolve? Or, is that open-ended, to be reviewed and to evolve?
156. Under product: Shifting resources to forward-looking initiatives – does this mean steadily reducing resources for the Gazette? At what point is quality compromised too much?

Who we are, and what we are trying to do

July 19, 2011

Many people have asked for a simple description of our company objectives.  This is our attempt to explain what we will achieve over the next few years.  With your input, we can make this description better.  Please let us know what you think.

Thanks,

Chuck

Source Media Group

We are creating new business and new relationships with the many communities of interest that we serve.  We are developing many new skills.

That effort is in pursuit of our vision:  We create remarkable, trusted experiences to connect and cultivate thriving communities.

Our vision is consistent with our mission:  Engage, Connect and Inform Communities

“Communities” is a broad term.  For purposes of our mission, communities are defined as natural groupings of people around an interest, purpose, vision or geography.  People within those communities want to be engaged, connected and informed.  We facilitate the development of the communities we serve, which we do in partnership with those communities.

We create local information networks built primarily from meaningful and valuable contributions from our friends and neighbors. This information network gives visibility to issues and activities in our communities, allowing exploration, investigation, experimentation, engagement, connection and commitment – easily and accessibly.  These networks do not happen on their own – they must be facilitated.  We gain the trust of those networks by transparency and engagement:  transparency by telling all about us, our point of view, why we think something is important; engagement by being relevant, inviting, and making it easy for anyone to participate, from exploration to commitment.

We create our products (such as newspapers, television broadcasts, websites and mobile applications) in connection with that network, often using the products as ways to direct people to easy entry points in the network for their desired level of engagement.

We have the ability to create and deliver relevant targeted commercial messages, and directly facilitate transactions.  We are successful when our customers’ cash registers ring.

We serve a large region, where people choose to live, work and play.  That region has wonderful assets, and can be one of the most vibrant and transformative in the world.  There are many aspects to developing the communities within that region.  We focus on a few, but in doing so we model community engagement and the creation of networks for others.

We live our values:

Seek Truth & Insight

Do the Right Thing

Embrace & Drive Change

Engage Communities

Learn & Grow

Cherish Health and Safety

Thrive as a Team

What does all of this mean for the missions and key objectives of the operating areas of the company?  We have completed our look at information content, products, sales and Color Web.  We will be completing facilities and broadcast operations, information technology and accounting in the next two weeks.

Content

We connect and grow communities by curating and cultivating valuable and dynamic information networks.

• Become champions of the local information network.
• Develop a culture of innovation, collaboration, inclusion and pride.
• Convene and facilitate conversations.
• Develop people, tools, systems and workflows to connect, curate and cultivate.

Product

Create remarkable user experiences.

• Develop a culture of innovation.
• Be zealots about audience engagement.
• Build useful and delightful tools to connect buyers and sellers.
• Shift resources to forward looking initiatives and make legacy operations more efficient, without losing quality.

Sales

Connect businesses with their customers, without regard to the vehicle connecting them. Provide world class service to our clients.

• Always be changing.
• Gain, retain and satisfy every customer.
• Find a way to help and be an advocate for every customer, including creating a new way if one does not currently exist.
• Actively participate with other departments in developing new products and improving existing products.

Color Web Printers

Be the highest value Print and Distribution Service provider.

• Co-create a regional newspaper and distribution service.
• Offset wage, healthcare and fuel increases of ~$300K/yr with increased productivity, expense control and price increases.
• Continuous Improvement in safety, customer satisfaction and culture.
• Drive $4MM in new revenue through the creation of unique offerings (variable print and photo books) and improved Sales/Marketing strategy.

We can do this, easily and naturally, by focusing on our objectives and living our values.

Engage, Connect and Inform Communities

Vision

We create remarkable, trusted experiences to connect and cultivate thriving communities

Source Media Values

Seek Truth & Insight

Do the Right Thing

Embrace & Drive Change

Engage Communities

Learn & Grow

Cherish Health and Safety

Thrive as a Team

What do these things mean to you?

1-The deal display has moved up on the page. No need to scroll to see the deal.

2-Cleaner, more simple design makes it easier to see what the deal is at a glance.

3-Easier to subscribe to the deal e-mail via the sign-up at the top right of the home page.

4-Log-in is easier to find at the top of the page

5-Sharing the deal via Facebook, Twitter and email is easier by placing the icons together at the top right hand-side of the site

6-We have added the space to add additional deals (where the business promotion is now). Strategy and deal requirements are being worked on to launch Bonus Deals in 3^rd quarter (so keep your eye out!)

7-The call out to businesses links to a survey that we will use for leads

8-We removed the map and provided an easier way for people to find the location and receive directions to the business by linking to the Google Map or Local Directory. This is located under the business address on the right-hand-side.

9- More prominent call-out to “Get $10” when you refer a friend to the program

NOTE:  a few other design enhancements will be made within the quarter. We have specific requests in with our vendor  Second Street who will pass on to their product and technology teams for development.  With this redesign, we have accomplished several design/user goals with this updated design/layout.

Our mission statement isn’t only about how our products interact within our community. Our mission statement also reflects the attitude and creativity within our company. We want to recognize all employees who work hard to fulfill this mission. Our company is full of awesome people doing awesome things and this is one way to celebrate our success.

Awesome Award

Do you know an employee who is a superstar at what they do? Has a co-worker helped you out of a jam recently? Have you witnessed someone making SourceMedia a better place to work? These are some examples of reasons why someone might receive the Awesome Award.

The Awesome Award is a traveling certificate that gets passed on from one employee to another. Once someone has been presented the Awesome Award they are instructed to wallow in their success by proudly displaying it in their work area. While there are no hard-fast rules on the length of ownership, we are asking that it is displayed for at least a week.

After basking in the glory of the award, it’s up the recipient to pay it forward by choosing another deserving employee. Upon doing so, we ask that each presenter visit the Awesome website to write a few words on why the recipient deserves the award. We want other employees to be able to read about all the great stuff going on here at SourceMedia.

Awesome Site

To read about previous achievements or if you are creating an entry for someone else, visit http://awesome.sourcemedia.net.

Upon entering the site, the current holder of the Awesome Award will be displayed. You also have the ability to view past recipients by clicking the magnifying glass on the gold star entries from the list on the left rail of the site. Blue star entries are Kudos that are acknowledgements awarded to any employee to another at any given time.

Award The Awesome

To bestow the Awesome Award on a deserving individual, click the “Award the Awesome” button at the top of the page. Only the current holder of the Awesome Award may choose the next recipient. You will be asked to provide network credentials in order to assign the award.

Award A Kudos

Where the Awesome Award can only be entered by the current holder, a Kudos can be given out by anyone. There is no traveling award for a Kudos, but recipients will receive an email indicating their acheivement. To award a Kudos, simply click the “Award a Kudos” button on top of the page. Again, you must login with your network credentials before proceeding to the entry form.

Feedback

The website for the Awesome Award and Kudos is currently only available on the internal network. We are also hoping to improve upon the look and feel of the site over time. If you have any questions about the site or some suggestions on how to make it better, please email us or fill out the feedback form from the link on the top right of the Awesome site.

Thanks,

Paul Nus & Todd Bransky
paul.nus@sourcemedia.net;todd.bransky@sourcemedia.net
Technology Department

http://thegazette.com/apps/

 http://www.kcrg.com/onthego#weather

The Gazette

• Available for iPhone, Android and Blackberry (newer models)

• Features:
  • Latest News
    • Read local news stories, events, obituaries, milestones, opinion and blogs.
  • Sports
    • Read the latest sports updates from prep to college and Kernels to RoughRiders and blogs by Hlas, Morehouse and Dochterman.
  • Weather
    • Current weather conditions and forecast. Plus cancellations due to inclement weather.
  • Photos
    • View online photo galleries. Send us your snapshots right from your phone!
  • Obits
  • Milestones
    • Browse recent engagement and wedding announcements.
  • Opinion
    • Read the latest editorial, Todd Dorman’s blog and Letters to the Editor.
  • UGC: Submit a story, photo or video from the app

The Gazette Garage Sale App

• Available for Smartphones (and iPad) but can also access on your mobile device by Texting and downloading. (Text “CedarRapidsGS” to 52732).
  • Features:
    • Search for items being sold
    • Interactive map with pins showing the upcoming garage sales
    • Get driving directions to sale
      • Help you plan your route/shopping day

KCRG

• Available for iPhone, Android and Blackberry
• Features

•  Latest News
  • Read local news and sports stories.
  • Weather
    • Get live weather conditions, view Pinpoint Doppler Radar and the 7-Day Forecast.
    • YouNews
      • View YouNews photos and videos. Send us your photos and videos right from your phone!
      • Sports
        • Read the latest sports updates from prep to college and Kernels to RoughRiders.

KCRG First Alert Weather App

• Available for iPhone and Android
• Features

•  
  • Pinpoint Doppler Radar
  • Pinpoint Interactive
  • Severe Weather Alerts
    • Receive notification when severe weather in your area (where you currently are located)
  • Lightning Tracker
  • Severe Weather Outlooks
  • CityCams
  • YouNews
  • Photo and Video submission

IowaPrepSports

• Available for iPhone, Android and Blackberry
• Features
  • Latest prep sports headlines and recruiting information
  • Score information
  • Sort by school (IC, Cedar Rapids, Solon, Prairie & Lin-Mar) for latest sports news, scores and game highlights
  • Weather updates
  • Can access Twitter feed from app
  • UGC: Submit story, scores, photo or video from the app

Newspapers in Education (NIE) Challenge

DID YOU KNOW?

NIE, or Newspaper in Education uses the newspaper to help bridge the gap between the subject of the classroom and the real world. It deals with reality, in what is happening here and now. Motivation for reading and discussion is built in. It is a valuable teaching tool for teachers of all grade levels. It is an influential and integral part of our free society.

• The Newspaper in Education program is a non-profit organization that serves students and teachers in Eastern Iowa. The program helps teachers educate students through the use of newspapers.
• Newspapers help develop students’ creative abilities, improve reading skills, writing skills, research and communication skills.
• The Gazette’s NIE program provides curriculum to classrooms throughout our distribution area at no charge.

HOW DO WE DO THIS?

• Every time the circulation team talks to the customer who is making a payment, temporarily stopping their paper or canceling their subscription, they ask for a donation to NIE.
• If the subscriber is interested in donating the value of their paper to NIE, it goes into a fund used by any school in our 16 county distribution area.
• The Gazette also matches the donation dollar for dollar.

THE CHALLENGE:

The circulation team has a goal to raise $16,000 by September 2011.

So far the team has done an amazing job of raising $4,456.00!

The Sales & Care teams have restructured in order to better gain and retain clients.  We are connecting our clients with their customers through our suite of advertising vehicles in much more pro-active fashion. 

Our New Business development team is aggressively targeting non-clients to introduce them to our new and improved products, then transition them to Account Management and Strategic teams to grow their business and keep up regular interaction and solicit feedback about how we can improve their experiences.  Our legacy teams are now working side by side in a unified effort to better serve our multi-platform clients externally while our Customer Care team improves and refines work processes to better interact and support our subscribers and internal clients.

All members of the Sales & Care group are vocal in submitting ideas for change and improvement, while actively participating with the product groups to both provide real world feedback and help support new initiatives.

We are thrilled to be on our way to HD! The HD project is approved and is moving forward. Hooray! Watch for regular “Destination HD” updates along the way.

We’ve renewed our commitment to be out in the community producing LIVE local newscasts on-air and online.

• You’ve likely noticed the KCRG-TV9 Saturday Morning News is broadcasting LIVE from the downtown Farmers’ Market all summer long!

Live broadcasting from Farmers Market

• We’ve also added LIVE newscasts back into the annual Our Town summer series to wrap up each week’s coverage.
• These two initiatives alone total 14 scheduled LIVE newscasts just this summer! (And a lot of hard work from many departments to pull them off – a BIG thanks to all!)

Bruce & Beth, coming at you live!

9.2 Update

We’ve had some BIG wins since kicking-off the LIVE local initiative on 9.2 at the beginning of the year. LIVE basketball, LIVE show choir, LIVE Roughriders and Dubuque Fighting Saints hockey and LIVE Kernels just to list a few.

• 3 of the main sponsorships for the LIVE local coverage on 9.2 are secured, 1 is available
• We’ve also been experimenting with some new business models and revenue streams
  • We successfully partnered with the Dubuque hockey organization on a revenue and expense sharing initiative to broadcast LIVE championship coverage
  • Advocated for and succeeded in gaining broadcast rights and approval for 2011 girls state soccer, girls state softball and state volleyball tournament coverage
  • Secured broadcast fees for providing statewide network coverage to the Des Moines market for state soccer, state softball and state volleyball, also secured broadcast fees to produce LIVE coverage of a 13U baseball tournament in Cedar Rapids
  • Just this week we’ve been granted approval to sell DVD copies of our LIVE coverage on 9.2, this is another new revenue stream for 9.2l
  • BIG upcoming coverage:
    • State softball championship game coverage all day on Friday, July 22^nd
    • LIVE coverage of the Zach Johnson Classic golf tournament all day on Monday, August 1^st
      • Special note: commercial inventory for this high profile event is selling well
• High school football coverage kicks-off on 9.2 on Thursday, August 25^th
• We continue to educate viewers on the KCRG 9.2 LIVE local initiative and how/where to find it:
  • Check out this ½ hour educational program that aired on KCRG-TV9:

http://www.kcrg.com/local9point2/specials

• Check out this 9.2 highlight video: http://www.youtube.com/kcrgdotcom#p/a/u/0/H8xauGpzfAQ
• More information in the 9.2 section on kcrg.com:

http://www.kcrg.com/local9point2/tv-schedule  

9.2 - LIVE from the Farmers Market

KCRG 9.3 Update (new name is TBD)

We are moving forward with plans to utilize our additional bandwidth and launch our 3^rd broadcast channel in late summer. We’ll continue to focus on “local” and “community” with this new channel. It will launch as a 24/7 local weather channel.

• Project update:
  • Much of the equipment to power this channel has arrived.
  • Training/buildout is scheduled for August 9^th.
  • See some of the research showing audience interest in weather :
  • While awaiting the launch of the new First Alert weather channel, people passionate about weather can download the new KCRG First Alert weather app available for iPhone, Android and iPad! Spread the word!

KCRG.com Update

• We have a team of multimedia producers trained, creating, posting and moderating
• We have new commenting guidelines posted on the site
• Homepage headline and site-wide YouNews enhancements are rolling out soon
• A site refresh/redesign is tentative as we revisit product focus, look at innovative ideas and research CMSs/platforms

Social Media SURGE!

A successful, 3-week KCRG Facebook iPad giveaway campaign in May helped boost our Facebook fan base by more than 55,000 fans company-wide. Take a look:

PAGE                     START #                FINAL #                FAN INCREASE #               FAN INCREASE %

KCRG-TV9             20,228                   32,426                +12,198                                 60.3%

KCRG Weather     9,567                     15,660                   +6,093                                   63.7%

KCRG 9.2               270                         5,685                     +5,405                                  2001%

Bruce                     447                         5,915                     +5,468                                   1223.2%

Beth                       1,340                      6,897                     +5,557                                  414.7%

Ashley                   863                         6,667                     +5,804                                   672.2%

Nicole                   1,228                      6,419                     +5,191                                   422.7%

The Gazette        7,983                      11,156                   +3,173                                   39.7%

IowaPrep             1,227                      3,929                     +2,702                                   183.2%

Here’s The Deal  751                         2,127                     +1,376                                   183.2%

Nadia                    0                              2,641                     +2,641                                   N/A

Chris                      N/A                        1,737                      N/A                                        N/A

TOTAL:                  43,904                   101,259                 +55,608                                126.65%

These are just a few of the great things going on at KCRG! There are so many more! Thanks to the KCRG team and folks company-wide for making all of this possible! Much more to come…