On Friday May 8 2009 I’ll be hosting JEEcamp09 – an unconference (or barcamp) for journalism experimenters.

Last year’s JEEcamp was great. This year we’re doing it all again, but with some cute ideas to stir things up.

These include: 

• Open mic for business models for news: Attendees are invited to explain how they think news can support itself online. 5 min limit.
• Speed networking: attendees get a minute each with a random other attendee to swap cards and explain what they do.
  
• Musical chairs panel discussion: Begins as a standard panel discussion – but once a panel member has responded to a question, they are replaced by someone else in the ‘audience’, raffle-style.

And there will be other ideas as we go along. If you have any other ideas for stirring up the traditional format, I’d love to hear them.

The day will be opened by Kyle Macrae, the man behind one of the original new media journalism startups, Scoopt. That was sold to Getty in 2007, who closed it down last month. Kyle will be talking about his experiences of getting Scoopt off the ground, and why he thinks Getty failed to make it viable.

After that, the really interesting stuff is in the heads of the attendees, how we – and you – get it out. 

You can get tickets at http://jeecamp09.eventbrite.com/ - and add your comments below as to how you’d like this to pan out.

PHP Freelancer

Friday will see over 40 of the UK’s innovators in online journalism (plus some from other countries) gather for JEEcamp – the Journalism Enterprise and Entrepreneurship unconference. They include people who have launched journalism startups like Scoopt and Yoosk; local journalists who oversee hyperlocal and blogger projects; freelancers with an eye on the digital future; and national journalists who have built online communities around their brands (for a full list – or to sign up to attend yourself, see the JEEcamp wiki).

The unconference will, broadly, discuss five areas. These are:

1. Business models (including advertising)
2. Audience development (including communities)
3. Funding
4. Legals
5. Online news models

But that’s just the start. Within those areas, what questions do you think we should be discussing? What questions would you ask?

PHP Freelancer