Scenes from DUXcamp; photos by Mike Beacom, Mallory Benedict, and Cristina Fletes.
Coming to DUXcamp!
The ‘collector of awesome from around the web’, journalist and user engagement strategist Chrys Wu!
Chrys has worked with LATimes.com, NYTimes.com, KCRW.com, Hacks/Hackers, ONA, and WNYC.org; helping them all maximize their use of the interwebs.
From the shameless plug department -
Join NPR staff photographer and recent Emmy winner John Poole at DUXcamp and find out about the challenges of making audio storytelling visually compelling!
“Right now, publishers are trying to transition to the mobile web in a number of ways…building traditional web sites, mobile sites and native APPs tied to a specific device for a specific operating system…..How do we keep up with the ever-growing number of mobile devices and capabilities of operating systems? How can we shift with the market and/or respond to the needs of our users faster? How can we get a handle on the sheer volume of work on our web devs and digital designers?”
- Miranda Mulligan, Digital Design Director - BostonGlobe.com
Miranda just unveiled the new, responsively designed BostonGlobe.com. Join her at DUXcamp and together we’ll explore other new ways to report, design, and tell our stories!
Charles Darwin did this, slowly and painfully, and so can you.
Every day we walk through the world. We look around. We think we see what’s going on, but it is hard to remember how routinized we are as we look, how we automatically see things from our accustomed angle, never thinking of alternate possibilities.
I mean, who goes to Mount Rushmore and thinks about this? - Robert Krulwich, Radiolab
Ever wonder what it takes to create the unique, multi-platform storytelling that is Radiolab? So did we which is why we invited Robert Krulwich to DUXcamp!
Come hear what Robert has to say about the creative process; how it works when things go right, and how it can get even better when things go wrong. See you at DUXcamp!
DUXcamp sponsorship opportunities
As DUXcamp nears, many of our partners and attendees have inquired about sponsorship opportunities. Yes! Of course, we would love to hear from you. DUXcamp has been a tremendous undertaking and, though the event is free to all attendees, we’re hoping to cover some of our costs related to the hotel, receptions, and materials.
With DUXcamp in its first year, this is a great opportunity for our partners and longtime friends to show their support while providing unparalleled visibility for their organization, as well as their products and services.
For more information on DUXcamp sponsorship opportunities, please contact Chris Howie at 202.513.3992 or chowie@npr.org.
Best,
Chris
Tumblr; the new publishing paradigm? Discuss @DUXcamp!
Another design goal for Tumblr is the idea of taking away the intimidation of blogging — you know, the dreaded confrontation of an empty page. This is achieved with with smaller text fields and even a range of non-text options. “We don’t want to make you feel like you need to write three paragraphs and post a photo,” he says. “You can just post a photo.” The reason the “Create Post” button to publish a post is so big and shiny? They want you to feel good about pushing posts out in the world, as often as possible.
It's All About The Story!
If you look on the DUXcamp about page, you’ll see that of our 3 areas of focus, storytelling is number 1. That’s because we believe everything is about getting a conversation started with our audience around the events that mean something to their lives. They tell us stuff, we tell them stuff - everyone shares, everyone learns.
Visuals, however, are the primary partner in today’s screen-centric culture. Smartphones, tablets, laptops, televisions - all share the need for design, navigation, photos, and videos to lead the way in making everyone’s content accessible, consumable, and, of course, enjoyable!
NPR’s DUXcamp is about storytelling, design, and the technology that makes the magic happen. How about RadioLab, The New York Times, Tumblr, YouTube and all of you in a conversation about moving beyond the bleeding edge and connecting with the world in all new ways?
A sample of the conversations we’d love to have; Aaron Swartz via Andrew DeVigal, lead multimedia editor at The New York Times and DUXcamp attendee, courtesy Tumblr;
Here’s how Apple products are created: a team of designers decide exactly what a product should do and how it should look and feel, their work is ruthlessly edited by Steve until he approves, and then the entire rest of the company is given the task of moving mountains to make that dream real.
Can you imagine? Design first? This reminds me of that story by John Sculley in regards to a friend who went to meetings at Apple & Microsoft the same day.
… he went into the meeting at Apple. As soon as the designers walked in the room, everyone stopped talking because the designers are the most respected people in the organization… When he went into the Microsoft meeting, everybody was talking and then the meeting starts and no designers ever walk into the room. All the technical people are sitting there trying to add their ideas of what ought to be in the design. That’s a recipe for disaster.
Send us your thoughts or post them to Twitter using #duxcamp. Let’s chat!
Welcome to NPR DUXcamp! Oct. 22, 2011 in Washington, D.C.
NPR is rapidly transforming itself from a broadcast organization into a true multimedia, multiplatform information source. At the heart of this transformation is NPR’s embrace and development of visual forms of storytelling; stories that are designed to complement the quality audio storytelling NPR has pioneered for more than 40 years.
We are not alone in the quest to understand this new, visual and interactive community storytelling space. However, that’s where DUXcamp 2011 comes in. DUXcamp is NPR’s contribution to building a community of storytellers who can experiment, share and gain knowledge from each other as we transform our prehistoric cave drawings into tales that have meaning around our new, digital campfires.
This tumblr will be where we share our notes and thoughts as we prepare for DUXcamp. Please check back often and send us your ideas about what we can do to make DUXcamp a success for you! duxcamp@npr.org
