Today, I am joined by
Julia Hildebrand. As part of the award-winning
Correctiv team, Julia leads a project called
beabee. It is a tool that helps newsrooms turn audiences into engaged communities. Before that, Julia had worked for the social startup
ChangeX in Dublin where she developed community-software that allows people to start their own local projects. I met Julia while we both worked for Germany's international broadcaster Deutsche Welle. During that time, she was developing new social media strategies, guidelines and workflows for more user participation.
Julia's expectations of community-journalism is high: “There is so much more potential for civic participation. Community-Journalism for me is a way, to unleash that potential and empower people to improve their own environment.”
I am very happy that she agreed to do this interview. We discussed civic participation and in how far journalism can or should foster that.
Some key takeaways:
- beabee is about allowing more people to start local organizations that have journalistic practices and organizing communities at their focus
- it is all about supporting the smallest newsrooms
- building a community means having to have patience.
- building a community is hard and hands-on work: it goes beyond just providing stories. It encompasses working together, organizing workshops and being open to co-creation
- journalism can help increase engagement in local communities and tracking impact can be done by looking at voting turnouts
- it is about creating safe public digital spaces and owning the infrastructure, owning the data
- we need more players that are not driven by profit
- team-building and motivation techniques include
- taking time - it is imperative that everyone knows what the goals are - making sure that everyone know what's going on
- stand-ups in the morning - having that little connection in the morning including a ritual "reasons to be cheerful" - sharing sth more personal, sth positive
- invest in bringing people together
More links:
Rheinhausen Community Project
Welcome to the international edition of my podcast Rath Up. I am your host Linda Rath and I interview entrepreneurs who I admire and look up to. I want to know more about their business AND .... What drives them? What inspires them? I believe you need so much more than just talent and skills to be successful in business. So, let's find out what secrets our entrepreneurs will reveal to us.
If you have any questions or want to share some thoughts, feel free to contact me via Twitter @Lynda420. I am your host Linda Rath and I am looking forward to connecting with you in my next episode.
This episode is brought to you by
Media Tech Hub Potsdam. It is one of 12 digital hubs in Germany, initiated by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy – and the only one with a focus on MediaTech. it encompasses a working space, an accelerator and an annual conference and i highly recommend you check it out if you want to start a business and look for networking opportunities. I am an entrepreneur myself and our startup Vragments used to be located at the media tech lab in Potsdam.
Credits:
- Produced by Linda Rath
- Photo by Julia Hildebrand
- Photo Linda Rath by Stefan Walter for Causalux Fotos
- Podcast Cover by Nicole Koppe
- Episode Cover Art by Stephan Gensch
- Music/Jingles by Mara Niese
