As the work year draws to an end, I’m considering how to use the vacation days I have left. Obviously, I’d like to use a big chunk and go home for the holidays. But I don’t know what to do with what’s left.
Options thus far: Long weekend trips to New Orleans, Houston or NYC.
I just got finished the first day of a two-day video conference with people at Scripps corporate and other Scripps sites. It was nice to finally puts some faces to the names of people from the other sites, and meet new people. Talking with them left me pretty pumped about our current video initiative at knoxnews.com.
It seems that like the Big Dog, we’re running at the front of the pack. And if not, at least we’re on the right track.
Some sites said it’s hard getting videos from their newsroom and that their video RSS feeds sit with the same videos for days. At knoxnews.com, that’s definitely not the case. Almost all of our reporters have at least attempted to shoot their own video, with many doing it regularly. I can’t remember a day since reporters started doing video (Nov. 2006) that we haven’t had at least one new video per day.
I know the focus should be quality, not quantity. But at least we have a group of people who aren’t afraid to try!
In other news, GoVolsXtra.com, one of the sites I help maintain at work, was nominated today for an Online News Association award for small, specialty journalism. Woohoo! Now let’s see if the bossman let’s me go to Toronto to accept the award on behalf of the newsroom 
After many months of trying to think up a design for my site and then many attempts to execute those designs, I’ve decided to go the Wordpress route. I’ve had a lot on my plate recently, even though I don’t have much to show for it. Using a Wordpress template lets me get my site up and running for now.
The goal is to have a professional presence online. You can see what I’ve been up to at work by checking out my resume. Shortly, I’ll be creating a page for my projects to share more detail.