BrandonSmith.com

Ello, love!

Apparently I broke new ground at The Columbia Chronicle, because the paper’s being a tad slow in creating a way for freelancers to get bylines on its website. My iPad commentary was published in print Monday; now it’s Friday and still no web version…

Which is why I’m self-publishing my version—that is, unedited for space constraints—here for you. This one’s 700 words.

My audience? Students at my arts and media college in metro Chicago. Enjoy it after the jump!

P.S. — if you want the version written for an older demographic published in the Wilmington (Ohio) News Journal, see here.

Continue reading ‘iPad commentary’

Once upon a time, I was News Editor for Cedars, the bi-weekly student newspaper of Cedarville University. Times were fun, I learned how to manage people (and how not to manage them). I published a few grating opinions that didn’t receive much response because there wasn’t much participation in the newspaper.

But now I’m at Columbia College Chicago, and Cedars has been re-designed, re-staffed, and is rearing to go once again. I applaud their efforts to resist the anti-media culture that seeps from the school’s hallowed halls. (Or, rather, seeps from the schools trustees and donors, but I won’t get into that now.)

Still… surely they can do a better job than this.

Just now I inquired about whether they have separate websites for on-campus and off-campus viewers. Stooping that low for preemptive damage control is a sad possibility, but not the saddest part of the setup.

That’s just simply the journalism. (Update, 2:15 p.m. CT: Cedars staff confirmed, via a comment on their Facebook page, that only one version of the website exists. Hooray!)

I want to say something. Hmm…

I literally can’t find a way to contact them other than posting a message on their Facebook page, so I’ll have to post my open letter here for the time being. I wish I didn’t have to put it in the open, but them’s the breaks. I’ll take it down if I get a message from them saying they get the point. Here goes nothing, after the break…

Continue reading ‘Open letter to ‘Cedars’’

A prefab modular home with, if I remember right, LEED Platinum certification. (Flickr photo from Heather Lucille. CC.)

Before I left Cedarville University in May ‘09, I was one of the founding members—vice president—of the environmental organization on campus. One of the reasons I got that job was a campaign I had put together for greening our school. I was in talks with administration to begin implementing the plan when I transferred to Columbia College Chicago, to pursue a degree at a school more established in journalism.

Anyway, several times since then I’ve referred people back to the archives of this blog to search for this green campaign I created. This post will serve as a single portal for the eight long posts that comprised the details of the campaign.

It took into consideration what was feasible for the college’s budget at the time, as well as what was socially responsible. One thing I stressed for administrators was that once our campus learns how to weatherize buildings, we should go into our community and do it for lots of residents there, many of whom are poor. Why? Free labor from students, minimal expense from the college, savings that make a big difference for families, and massive PR.

We could even serve as a knowledge hub for the community about “green” choices, and as a pilot program for similar universities across the country, I demonstrated. Cedarville is a Christian university, and if we were to nail down the philosophical mandate for environmentalism, other Christian colleges could easily follow suit.

Anyway, here are the links to the blog posts. I called the campaign “CU/Green” — short and to the point, a hint of wordplay, includes a computer character.

Enjoy.

CU/Green on transportation

CU/Green on clothing and consumer goods

CU/Green on building upkeep and construction

CU/Green on water use and landscaping

CU/Green on good air and energy

CU/Green on our refuse

CU/Green on everyday stuff

P.S. — Here’s a link to an article on colleges who have voluntary student-funded offices of sustainability. Here’s a link to the only organization that evaluates colleges’ efforts toward sustainability and transparency, something the group considers essential to continuing sustainability.

The inside of my fridge, shot with my cell phone.

For Mobile Journalism class I’m embarking on a project to photograph my fridge at least 3 times a week. It was inspired by a similar project in Orion Magazine. Find my work at fridge.posterous.com.

Also, a warning: I don’t often update brandonsmith.com, as you know. But I do update my Facebook and Twitter feeds several times a day. If you want to keep closer tabs on me, I suggest you check there. (My Twitter’s overarching theme is the environment, but I also inject thoughts about journalism, food, and communications tech. Naturally, Facebook’s a bit more about my personal life.)

Arianna Huffington, right, has some mobile fun with a Columbia College Chicago student following her student-only conversation with us Wednesday, prior to her official speech. Huffington is the proprietor of Huffington Post, one of the biggest media brands on the Internet. (The photo’s by Columbia’s PR staff, but if they sue a student for the use of it, I’ll have something great to blog about)

Spring term finally started here at Columbia, and I’m back in the grind. When I have a lot of stuff to do, things mysteriously get done. I don’t know how it happens.

Two recent publishable items of mine: 1. I liveblogged Arianna Huffington’s conversation and Q&A with students Wednesday. It appeared on my Twitter feed, twitter.com/greenletters. (A transcript of it appears after the jump.) 2. I wrote tech commentaries on the iPad Thursday evening for two dailies in Ohio and The Columbia Chronicle.

Check the Chronicle’s Arts and Culture section to read my student-centric piece starting Monday morning. I’ll post a text version (and maybe PDFs) of what appeared in the dailies as soon as I can. I hear they were published Saturday.

Continue reading ‘Developments: Arianna and iPad’

Brandon I. Smith

I wrote my own obituary this evening. It’s a normal thing journalists do. I wrote it as if I were to die suddenly this year, while still an intern at Chicago Reader, for publication in the Reader.

Headline: Reader intern Brandon Smith, journalist and student, dies
Sub-headline: Smith dreamed of helping people, adventure

A man with unwavering passion died Tuesday, Brandon Smith would have wanted said of him. He was 23.

He left behind a few people who feel impacted by him, and a few who wish they would have known him more. He was a full-time journalism student at Columbia College, worked part-time for the U.S. Census bureau, and kept a blog at brandonsmith.com in addition to his duties at the Reader, which started this January.

Smith’s particular passions included stewardship of nature, social justice, cooking, bicycling, and—most of the time just in his head, he lamented—appreciating Jesus for what Smith felt the man had done for him and for the world.

Continue reading ‘RIP Brandon’

“Now what?” This group of people found themselves at the same semi-random location in the middle of the British countryside one afternoon. Maybe they went to a pub! (Creative commons photo from the Flickr account of Yang “yangman” Zhao)

Imagine it: You want to meet new people and see new places. Whereas before, you’d maybe look up something to do in your local travel guide, or read the newspaper, or visit a travel agency… now things are totally different.

Now, for all intents and purposes, you throw a dart at a map and go to that place. (We want REAL adventure!)

What’s insane is that, at this exact random location, other people are going to be there. And, because you share the same sense of adventure—and in this case, the same nerdiness—you’ve just found yourself a new best bud or two, or a new significant other.

Screw bars. This rocks.

It’s called geohashing, and it’s the wave of the future, my friends. The Internet has become our extended reality, and in this instance, we’re simply reversing the roles: we’re using computers as our “home base” and extending our entertainment and socialization into the real world from it. This was inevitable; now it’s here.

Continue reading ‘Geohashing’

Long live the nerd! Computer engineers played by actors fawn over Ajay Bhatt, co-inventor of USB, in this hilarious commercial for Intel.

T-minus 18 days until school starts again. Man, I need a job. Otherwise I spend all day, as I have the past few, reading. Thoreau usually tops my list, but this time it’s been shorter bursts of stuff like Orion magazine (cover to cover, of course).

What’s that, you say? Certainly Orion hasn’t taken up the 30 hours of free time I’ve had in the past five days? You’re right. I have a new obsession. (Journalists get paid to develop short-term obsessions and then tell everyone else about how cool this thing is. I love my career path.)

Last month it was underground dinners. This month I think I’ve fallen into the world of nerdiness. Enter xkcd.

Continue reading ‘xkcd faves’

The Chicago Tribune sports the largest newsroom in the midwest, according to its advertising campaign. I chuckle at that choice. I wonder how many other journalists do, too. (CC Flickr photo from Alex Barth)

When I turned to the journalism field for my career, the thought that most plagued me was this: generally, to make any money, one must join a very large corporation—likely a conglomerate with lots of power.

That just never sat right with me. With lots of power comes lots of responsibility, which isn’t usually handled properly. Not that I could do better. Just that I know people are human like me.

But in the past couple years and months, the larger news corporations have fared much worse than smaller ones. …Am I the only one who’s happy about this?

Continue reading ‘Industry turmoil’