I wrote about navigating this monster of a conference last year and, in the spirit of recycle, reuse, I thought I would dust off the highlights and offer them again. This will be my third SXSWi, and I’m fortunate to be speaking again, this year on a panel with some very smart people. We will discuss “The Hyperlocal Hoax: What happened to the holy grail” on Monday, March 12 at 9:30 a.m. (I will also be doing a book-signing of my recent book, Entrepreneurial Journalism, on Monday at 11:15 a.m. at the Bookstore on the fourth floor of the convention center.)

Shameless self-promotions aside, here are some suggestions for getting the most out of SXSW Interactive:

DO: Take advantage of the fact that there will be a ton of great content for journalists interested in interactive. There’s an entire track focused on journalism and online content so you could fill up your schedule with nothing else.

In an attempt to capture some of the intimate feel of the earlier iterations of SXSWi, the conference will feature “campuses,” meaning similar programming will be scheduled in one location to gather those “birds of a feather.” All the journalism sessions will be held at the Sheraton again this year and this will be a great opportunity for like-minded digital journalists to network. There are also a few parties scheduled for journalists, including the second annual Awesomest Journalism Party.

DON’T: Limit yourself to just the journalism content. Expand your horizons and drink from the firehose of SXSWi by attending sessions that have nothing to do with journalism, too. Some of my favorite sessions the past couples years were focused on seemingly obscure topics. The wealth of different perspectives on interactive at this conference means you will enrich your experience if you force yourself out of your comfort zone.

DO: Get some fresh air. The forecast calls for temps in the mid to upper 70s so if you’re coming from a northern climate, you’ll do yourself a favor by getting some Vitamin D. The Lady Bird Lake Trail near the convention center is a great place for a walk or jog. You can also walk the grounds of the state capitol or University of Texas.

DON’T: Be a wallflower. The people attending this conference are interesting and willing to chat, so introduce yourself and start conversations. You’re a journalist, after all. This is what you do. The first person I introduced myself to the first year I attended SXSW worked for Google. The second person worked for Facebook. I also met people from Israel and Australia and found myself at breakfast the first day with Jeff Pulver and his crew.

DO: Attend the parties, whether that’s your thing or not. Austin is one of the best cities in the U.S. for nightlife. Plus, this is where some of the best “networking” happens and where you’ll meet even more interesting people (thanks to that great social lubricant: alcohol.) And unlike most of the journalism conferences we all attend, the parties are a part of the official schedule. This is Spring Break for Geeks, after all.

DON’T: Stress out over the fact that there are too many good sessions to attend and you can’t possibly be in all of them at the same time. The opening slot on Friday has at least six sessions I wish I could hit, but there’s only one of me. If you’re not 100% sure on a session, pick one that is near one of your second choices. The sessions area spread out all over Austin so if the one you pick is lame and you want to duck out (totally acceptable at SXSWi), you’ll want Plan B to be nearby or you’ll spend too much time walking back and forth between venues.

If you are not attending the conference, you can follow along on Twitter. Or you might want to take a Twitter holiday if the flood of conference tweets coming your way will be annoying. Either way, look for some good summaries of the best new ideas to come out of SXSW in another week or so.

See you in Austin.

Build a large, engaged community of readers, and advertisers who want to reach those readers will come to you. And stick with you, too.

In addition to advertising, Niles suggests eBooks, videos, merchandise and events. In my book and various talks, I have focused more on advertising, events, professional services and premium content, but I like Niles’ approach with eBooks. It’s a form of premium content that continues to grow in popularity with users – and former newspaper digital folks. Dan Pacheco has been operating BookBrewer for a couple of years now and Michelle Nicolosi recently left SeattlePI.com to start her own eBook business.

Premium video is a market I would love to see materialize. Until it does, video is still a worthwhile investment for news sites since the CPMs on video content are so much higher than regular banner ads (and way higher than network and remnant ads).

If you are interested in diving in deep on this topic, consider attending Revenue Camp for Journalists at The Poynter Institute in May. We are assembling a killer lineup of speakers, including Rafat Ali (paidContent), Mike Orren (Pegasus News) and Rebecca Lovell (GeekWire). More information here: www.poynter.org/revenuecamp

Here’s what you will learn:

The content for this presentation is new and based on a session I recently led for Dan Gillmor at Arizona State during a week-long bootcamp for journalism professors learning about teaching entrepreneurial endeavors. I think they were pleasantly surprised at how many of the traits of successful journo-entrepreneurs are similar to the traits that successful journalists would share.

I hope you can join us next Thursday.

On display were GeekWire and Xconomy, two startups I have written about before, which are thriving using different approaches to the seemingly same problem/opportunity. Xconomy is a local/national, operating with small staffs in a handful of cities covering technology with an emphasis on biotech, clean tech and other more “industrial” segments. GeekWire is only operating in Seattle with two journalists, one biz dev person and a handful of part-timers and freelancers. Its focus is driven by the journo-founders, Todd Bishop and John Cook, and their proven track record for covering  consumer technology topics that are important to Seattle: Microsoft, Amazon and the vibrant venture-funded and increasingly mobile startup companies that dot the landscape here. (Full disclosure: In my role at KING 5-TV, I brokered a content partnership with GeekWire.)

Frank Catalano, a digital consultant and former broadcast journalist, moderated, drawing salient observations from Curt Woodward, a writer for Xconomy, and Rebecca Lovell, Chief Business Officer for GeekWire. Among the best insights:

• 30% of GeekWire traffic is international. Traffic growth has been “stunning,” according to Lovell.
• The top two revenue sources at Xconomy are sponsorships/underwriting and events. It is not a CPM-based business model, which according to Woodward, allows journalists to feel they have to chase “clickbait.”
• Lovell, who has an MBA and is the former executive director of the Northwest Entrepreneur Network, said she worries about feeding John’s and Todd’s families and is constantly aware of the company’s burn rate. One piece of advice she offered other startups: “Hire slow and fire fast.”
• Both startups are thinking beyond content in searching for ways to serve their communities – and make money. Events are the top example, here. As Lovell tweeted later, “there’s a big difference between creating value and making $. focus on the 1st, the 2nd follows.”

Catalano  ended the session perfectly, drawing on an essay he wrote some 20 years ago, titled: “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Airwaves.”

Basically, thinking about the issues in 1992 and comparing them to the issues of 2012 … even though the form may change, there will always be people driven by curiosity who will want to know more about what’s going on, and have a passion for explaining it to others.

And people who want to receive that explanation, creating a market that can support innovative startups like Xconomy and GeekWire (among many others).

Resist starting: “Just get going.” It’s a piece of advice I’ve heard and personally doled out at conferences and training sessions for would-be entrepreneurs.  Heck, I probably said this to the audience in Portland just last week. It seems so simple that in order to create something, one must first get started on the creation process. Not so, according to Cal Newport, whose post on Lifehacker this weekend sparked an interesting conversation on Quora and forced many entrepreneurs to consider whether they started too soon (or not soon enough).

I think an instinct for getting started cripples your chance at long-term success. And I suggest that, on the contrary, you should develop rigorous thresholds that any pursuit must overcome before it can induce action.

Newport’s point is really that aspiring entrepreneurs should be careful to not start too soon, not that they shouldn’t ever start. His advice: “Spend lots of time learning about different pursuits, but put off action until an idea begins to haunt your daydreams and refuses to be dislodged from your aspirational psyche. Then, and only then, should you reluctantly take that first step, one of what’s sure to be many, many more before you get to where you want.”

Fail early, fail often: The notion of failure is often discussed in entrepreneurial circles and the acceptance of failure, even the pursuit of it, has become de rigeur. ““Failure is inevitable; 
it happens all the time 
in a complex economy,” says Tim Harford, author of Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure.

But just how comfortable should one be with the possibility of failure? During a discussion about entrepreneurial journalism a couple of weeks ago at Arizona State University, Dan Gillmor suggested that being too comfortable with failure might actually be a liability, not a strength. Citing a blog post by Dave Winer, Embracing failure is a good way to fail, Gillmor said that having a full-force faith in one’s idea is a powerful agent and one that should be cultivated.

Believing that your idea will succeed, no matter the odds, is certainly how many entrepreneurs have succeeded. But it’s also how many failed. I think what’s most important is to learn from failure, and try to “fail forward” if at all possible. Embracing failure is only necessary once you’ve actually failed since you’ll have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get on with your next idea. Just don’t start too soon.

Becky Dickerson is the editor and publisher of The Community Current in tiny St. John, Wash. We “met” when Dickerson spoke up in the first of two sessions I did about entrepreneurial journalism at the conference and offered a quick version of her story: She started a community newspaper 17 years ago and serves 1,000 homes with a 24-page tabloid that prints every six weeks. (She was kind enough to include a copy of the paper with her letter.)

The town had been without a newspaper for 20 years when Dickerson decided to go into the business of news armed with a journalism degree and an affection for the town of St. John, which she calls “amazing.” (Her husband Todd runs the family farm.) She started the business with a simple letter to businesses asking them to advertise and a credit card to charge her printing expenses.

I spend most of my time talking about shiny new digital startups and the transformation of news in the digital age. But the basic principles that decide whether those businesses work or not are the same that Dickerson used. She met a need in the market and has been rewarded with a career as editor and publisher. While I’ve never visited St. John, I have to believe the community is stronger and much better informed because of her efforts. I wish I had met her in time to include her story in my new book.

Congratulations, Becky. And thanks for the letter.

I need to thank many people for helping me turn this book into reality. Jane Harrigan, my editor, and Charisse Kiino, my publisher, helped drive this project and make it great. Jeff Jarvis wrote a fantastic introduction and Mike Orren  supplied and annotated the original business plan for Pegasus News. An invaluable resource.

The book is available at the CQPress website where, if you are a college professor, you can request a review copy. It is also available on Amazon.com (where the shipping is cheaper than buying from CQPress) and will be available on Kindle and other e-book forms soon.

I’m fortunate that my boss, Ray Heacox, is fully digital, a former tech entrepreneur and as forward-thinking as they come in the rarefied air of the big office. You’ve never heard of him because he doesn’t care about making the industry blogs and trade publications. But I can attest that he is on par with any of those CEOs making headlines these days for “digital first” thinking. He was on board with the hackathon from the beginning and even offered the idea of making it into a TV show; we’re a TV station, he reasoned, that’s what we do. Cool, I said.

With his support and the assistance of several key people in the Seattle tech community and at KING 5, we staged a very successful event over 48 hours last weekend called Hacking Seattle News. Adobe provided an excellent space, power, wifi and whiteboards, Amazon provided AWS gift accounts and food, and KING 5 filled in the rest. It was a small event by Seattle standards with only 30-some people, which was surprising to me given the fact we were offering $10,000 as first prize. But quality trumped quantity in this case: 10 teams pitched ideas on Sunday and almost all of them were substantial and included working prototypes. One team traveled from San Francisco and several other people came to simply assist the teams with knowledge, dropping in when they could to help shape the ideas that were in development.

The winner, Team Dimensions, produced an HTML 5 website and mobile experience that allows customized news feeds based on location, interest and time (presentation slides here). (In the spirit of hackfests, most of the team had never met one one another before the weekend.) We have already met with the team and are working on developing the prototype into something the public can use and enjoy. Our vision is to launch it as that “homepage for Seattle.”

Selecting one project was a difficult decision, but thankfully we had an all-star cast of judges to make the final call. (Team photo here including my son as “honorary judge.”)

The goal of the hackathon was to solve the thorny problem of producing one-stop shopping for local news and information in a way that other cities could use. It is an open-source project and the code will reside on Github, as will the bug and feature requests as we move forward.

We presented the “problem” on Friday: I showed a quick deck (and a metaphor for touring NYC with my niece and how, unless you know someone who lives there, you never see the real NYC) and Ben Huh chimed in with his Moby Dick Project. Then Shauna Causey, who came up with the original idea for this hackathon, brought it all together with her amazing command of social media and a compelling story of a shooting down the street from her beach volleyball game.

The event offers several lessons, including:

1. How tech folks can teach – and learn from – news professionals about the persistent problem of filtering the fire hose of news and information in a community.
2. How a big media company can harness the knowledge and talent of the local community to help solve a problem. Yes, crowdsourcing at its best!
3. How news organizations can shape their view of technology by interfacing personally with smart and talented people in the local tech community.

It’s the last lesson that my boss was most interested in. Whether the project we launch with Team Dimensions is a big hit with the public or not, KING 5 gained valuable knowledge and relationships by hosting this event. It is likely that the true payoff – the ROI on our $10,000 prize money – will come in some unexpected manner, even if the project that Dimensions built doesn’t work quite as well as we hope. That is the spirit that so many tech companies thrive on, yet it’s something that media companies struggle with.

We need to live in an agile world. Agile, as in the software and startup methodology, and in our daily priorities. Hosting a hackathon helped expose others at KING 5 to a new way of thinking and adaptation and problem-solving. It’s hard to put a price on that.

As my boss had recommended, KING 5 documented the weekend for an upcoming TV special. When we were cleaning up Sunday night I asked one of the photographers what he thought of the event. He just shook his head and said to me, “Man, I learned A LOT this weekend.”

Priceless.

I will be taking part in two sessions tomorrow: Ethics for Entrepreneurs, a panel discussion, at 10:45 a.m. and How to Build What’s Next for News, a solo presentation, at 2:30 p.m.

Fresh of another amazing experience at the Online News Association’s annual conference, it will interesting to compare the content and the experience of the two conferences. Several ONAers are doing the double and are here in New Orleans this week, including Andy Carvin, who will be kicking the day off with a super session tomorrow at 9 a.m.

I’m also happy that Jane Harrigan, the awesome editor of my new book, will be there, too. After reading about many of the people on the agenda through draft, first edit, second edit, and on and on, she’s excited to see some of them in real life.

And, after working with Jane on two books over the past few years, I’m excited to meet her for the first time IRL, too!

10:00 a.m. Welcome / Introductions
An overview of how local news startups are expanding
Jan Schaffer, J-Lab director

10:10 – 10:45 a.m. Long-Livers Live to Tell
Secrets of surviving more than 5 years.
Melissa Bailey, Managing Editor, NewHavenIndependent.org
Debbie Galant, Founder, BaristaNet.com

10:45 to 11 a..m. Break

11 – 11:45 a.m. Expanding to Nearby Communities
When do you expand to satellite site?
Cory Bergman, Founder, Next Door Media
David Boraks, Founder, DavidsonNews.net

11:45 – 12:15 p.m. Creating Formal Networks
Making smaller efforts have a larger impact
Debbie Galant, Authentically Local network
Ross Catrow, Publisher, RVANews.com and Richmond Ad Network
Mark Briggs, Director, Digital Media, KING 5, Author, Entrepreneurial Journalism

12:30 – 1:30 p.m. Luncheon Speaker
Is the Vermont Journalism Trust a national model?
William Schubart, Founder, Vermont Journalism Trust, parent of VtDigger.org

Schubart was founder and president of Philo Records recording company, and later Resolution, a media-manufacturing facility and e-commerce services partner for major media companies including the BBC, The New York Times, NPR, National Geographic, USNews, The History Channel, Bloomberg, The Nature Conservancy and Sesame Street. He is also a commentator for Vermont Public Radio.

1:30-2:15 p.m. New Twists in Collaboration
Topic collaboration: Erich Schwartzel, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette business reporter, project leader of Pipeline
Public Media Collaboration: Chris Satullo, Executive Director, News and Civic Dialogue WHYY’s Newsworks.org

2:15 – 3:15 p.m. Emerging Revenue Stream
Developing revenues from training, events, consulting, syndication
Joe Bergantino, New England Center for Investigative Reporting – Syndicating       Content
Nicole Hollway, General Manager, St. Louis Beacon – “Spadvertising,” Events
Mark Miller, Editor, Texas Tribune – Events, Corporate Sponsorships

3:15  p.m. Break

3:30 –  4 p.m. Rules of the Road: Emerging Ethics for Entrepreneurial News Startups

Scott Rosenberg, founder, Media Bugs, Author of new J-Lab publication:      ”Rules of the Road: Navigating the New    Ethics of Local Journalism.”