Xerox Project

The idea of this project is great.
If I'm not at work, who does my job? It happens from time to time that I get a day off (sometimes only half of one), and we have a bunch of people who take on the tasks that normally fall to me.
Obviously, they have their own jobs to do, so doing my stuff is on top of their already full plates.
This is the case at all of the newspapers in our company, and probably every other company.
If we have a newsroom full of people who are offered the proper training and support, they can all do every job in the place, so picking up the slack when someone is out sick or on vacation can be less burdensome since everyone can do a little bit of everything.
A well-rounded newsroom seems like a dream, since everyone in this industry is used to the curmudgeons who are really good at one thing, but won't even listen to talk about doing things outside of that one special skill.
But with more people having the ability to do more and have more input into the final product, we end up with a staff that is more invested in what the outcome of any given day's news coverage looks like.
It will be tough bringing a whole staff up to speed, but it will surely be an interesting journey.

Not a starter, but I'm in the game.

I was pretty psyched to be tapped for the ideaLab after not making the first group.
The first team were all good choices, so my feelings weren't hurt not being accepted initially.
Being asked to fill a vacancy on this team though, I considered it quite an honor.
Then I realized how much work it was going to be.
That's when it got a little bit scary.
But it still seems like a lot of fun, so I'm going to make the best of it.
To the rest of the ideaLabbers, I love what I've seen so far out of everyone, and thanks for letting me on the team.
First up, I'm going to try to make an idiot-proof guide to shooting video, both live and recorded, from mobile devices. My goal is to make it so even our most technophobic members of the newsroom can grab an iPhone or Android device and get out in the field and send us back some video.