That’s right, we now have a Hacks/Hackers store. If you’re looking for gifts this holiday season for that special journo-hacker in your life, check it out. Holiday season is almost here and i am already looking for good christmas gifts for men that i can buy for my family.There are T-shirts, bags, clocks, hats, teddy bears and even shirts for dogs — you suggested it and we thought it was a great idea.
Today we’re releasing the Hacks/Hackers style guide. As our organization continues to grow rapidly with chapters across the world (five countries and counting), it’s become clear we need visual brand consistency. We wanted to make it easier for our members to access and create high-quality logos for everything from events to websites to Hacks/Hackers gear. As our brand continues to grow, we also wanted to explain how we ended up with our logo design in the first place.
We’re trying to spur ideas/collaboration among Hacks/Hackers members for the Knight News Challenge, a grant program that supports news innovation that has a Dec. 1 deadline. So far more than $20 million has been granted to dozens of projects, including Spot.us, DocumentCloud, Ushahidi and MediaBugs. Who knows? Yours could be next. The News Challenge gave support to our series of hackathons across the country. Inspired by the collaboration and the people we met, we’ve created a cross-chapter Google doc where you can leave thoughts/contact information/skills.
An MIT research project is looking for beta testers for its Knight News Challenge proposal for a WordPress data visualization plugin. Sign up on their blog. As Professor David Karger writes, his team has created a WordPress plugin called Datapress that lets folks WYSIWYG author interactive visualizations of any data without any programming. Using the tool, users can drop maps, timelines, tables, charts, lists, thumbnail grids, and graphs into your article the same way images drop in an image.
To attend Demo Day, RSVP on Meetup.com.
We’re delighted to announce that freelance journalist Corey Takahashi is the winner of the Hacks/Hackers scholarship to Poynter’s workshop on programming for journalists / journalism for programming. Based in Los Angeles, Corey is planning to apply the digital skills from the Poynter workshop to revisit demographic trends that he wrote about during the 2000 Census through a data-focused lens. As part of his trip, Corey also will create a video reflecting on what he learns at the workshop and lessons from bringing together the cultures of journalism and programming — and we’ll be sure to post that here.
Hacks/Hackers goes to the heartland with its new Chicago chapter. This will be spearheaded by Rich Gordon, a Northwestern prof who is one of the original founders of Hacks/Hackers, and Tracy Schmidt of ChicagoNow. We have high expectations for our Chicago chapter with Tracy’s organizing prowess and Rich’s Northwestern connections. We’re still looking for organizers for other chapters: Austin? Seattle? DC? Email burt@hackshackers.com if you’re eager.
Hacks/Hackers and The Poynter Institute are offering one full scholarship (a $795 value!) to attend the institute’s three-day seminar in St. Petersburg, Florida: Programming for Journalists / Journalism for Programmers (More info at http://hckhc.kr/doUlhi). The seminar takes place from August 25-27, 2010. Faculty includes Hacks/Hackers co-founder Aron Pilhofer of The New York Times; Matt Waite, who designed the Pulitzer Prize-winning Politifact at the St. Petersburg Times; and other industry leaders. It’s designed to help hacks and hackers better understand each other ‘s thinking through hands-on training.
Hacks/Hackers is teaming up with Mozilla, the open-source-oriented nonprofit, to creating a course through Peer-to-Peer University, with the aim of collective eduction: the hackers teaching the journos, and vice versa. The idea won a $1,000 seed prize at MIT’s Future of News and Civic Media conference in June. That contest gave the $2,000 seed money for Hacks/Hackers in 2009. The class will be a six-week commitment, with one hour a week of lectures and one project.