Writing, talks, and appearances.
Service Desk Book Club: Welcome, and how it works — Nov 6, 2026
The kickoff post for the Service Desk book club: this week's reading and how to join the Tuesday sessions.
How to measure whether your journalism is useful — Nov 3, 2026
Most newsroom metrics track attention, like pageviews and time on site, rather than whether the work actually changed anything for the people reading it. This column lays out a five-step guide to defining and tracking outcome-based metrics instead, so a newsroom can show funders and readers what…
Panel: AI and influence in elections — Oct 30, 2026
On the "Reporting on Digital Influence Methods" panel at Columbia Journalism School's Tow Center, on AI and digital influence in elections.
Spontaneous & Unorganized Drinks: Taipei — Oct 8, 2026
An informal gathering in Taipei for journalists, researchers, product and tech people who think about information services.
Re:noted #5: What we learned building tbd/con — Sep 25, 2026
The fifth Re:noted newsletter, on what we learned running tbd/con as a fully virtual conference.
How audience interviews surface opportunities for service-oriented journalism — Aug 27, 2026
Traffic dashboards can show what people clicked, but not why. This piece makes the case for direct audience interviews as a way to surface the motivations and unmet needs analytics alone will never reveal, and how those insights point toward more service-oriented journalism.
Touchpoints: The frontstage we controlled collapsed — Jun 18, 2026
Lessons from newsrooms, our article in Vol. 17, No. 2 of the service design magazine
How should we tax internet countries? — Jun 17, 2026
Here's what we can learn from Japan, Germany, and DAOs.
Q&A on industry opportunities and setbacks with young news product leaders — May 7, 2026
In an evolving industry, we asked early-career news product managers what’s going well and where we can improve
Nobody hired you — Apr 14, 2026
Existing in a community is not the same as serving it, but funding models often treat the two as equivalent. This piece argues that support and grants should be tied to evidence of actual service to a community, not just a newsroom's presence in it.
More is not always better: Lessons from our Philadelphia media service design sprint — Apr 7, 2026
Eight Philadelphia media organizations spent a day testing new service ideas against their audiences' real needs. The sprint's biggest lesson: a narrower, clearer offer beat the more ambitious concepts almost every time.
We asked where journalism gatherings go wrong: Here’s what we heard — Mar 23, 2026
Responses from our conversation to develop a baseline for evaluating conference success.
Spontaneous & Unorganized Drinks: Philadelphia — Mar 18, 2026
A casual meetup for journalism, product and tech people in Philadelphia, after a day of Service Desk workshopping.
Plumia Fellowship — Mar 16, 2026
Service Desk — Mar 16, 2026
Product Notes: Noticias Para Inmigrantes's lean approach to WhatsApp experimentation — Mar 12, 2026
How NPI built a highly engaged WhatsApp channel with a limited team and analytics
OpenNews: Our gatherings could be so much better — Feb 4, 2026
We say we welcome innovation, but our spaces preserve power
Service Desk: Moving journalism from content creation to concrete outcomes — Jan 29, 2026
How we're growing The Service Desk this year
Spontaneous & Unorganized Drinks: Buenos Aires — Oct 4, 2025
The first Spontaneous & Unorganized Drinks, in Buenos Aires: a casual meetup for media and technology people.
Lenfest Institute: Service-oriented journalism: Moving from idealism to utility — Sep 20, 2025
Insights from conversations with over 70 journalists, funders, and audience experts
Product Notes: How and when to integrate product into news organizations — Sep 5, 2025
Lessons from introducing new product teams to publishers
New_Public: 🗣️➡️👯♀️ Come for the language skills, stay for the friendship — Jul 28, 2025
Exploring peer-driven language-learning apps like HelloTalk, Tandem and Italki
Product Notes: Transitioning between news product and tech roles — Jul 24, 2025
I spoke with three NPA community members who have transitioned in and out of product roles within journalism and other industries to find out what they’ve noticed in both environments and what advice they’d give others considering a transition.
Lenfest Institute: Start with service: A practical reset for media impact — Jul 18, 2025
Reflections from the Lenfest News Philanthropy Summit
Product Notes: How to create opportunities for career growth in news product — Jun 12, 2025
As news organizations begin to incorporate product practices, support for professional development still isn’t always available. This means emerging product talent must often create their own growth opportunities.
Hacks/Hackers AI x Journalism Summit Takeaways — May 10, 2025
Many of the conversations I heard shifted from "what ifs" to "what can" and "what mights," which I found refreshing in contrast to the vendor fatigue and AI slop we've all been navigating the past couple of years.
A very cute wedding newspaper tabloid for my good friends — Apr 30, 2025
I edited, designed and produced a print wedding newspaper for my friends' wedding in Philadelphia, which added to vintage-ness of the event's theme.
TNC: Helping small news, indie publishers track growth and impact together is vital for journalism — Apr 30, 2025
Earlier last year, Tiny News Collective announced the development of a data and metrics program, now called Tiny Vitals Metrics Lab, for early-stage news publishers.
A corner store sign and my thoughts on simple, ongoing newsroom user research — Apr 22, 2025
Scrappy media orgs can experiment with clear, easy ways to prompt audience feedback as a lo-fi strategy for surfacing reader needs
Editor & Publisher: No one-size-fits-all: New study offers real ad solutions for tiny newsrooms — Apr 11, 2025
The authors of an in-depth study hope their research spawns more conversations and solutions for pocket-sized publishers nationwide.
Personalized News Communication and Media Trust in the Modern Era — Apr 1, 2025
I was recently quoted in Dr. Kirsten Johnson and Dr. Burton St. John III's newly published book, Personalized News Communication and Media Trust in the Modern Era.
TNC: Measuring Impact at UNC's Local Journalism Researchers Workshop — Apr 1, 2025
Alongside Nora Hertel of Project Optimist, I had the opportunity to present on the Newsroom Impact Measurement panel, sharing Tiny News Collective's early learnings from piloting our data and metrics program.
Retro Rewind Vintage & Thrift Newsletters — Mar 13, 2025
TNC: What we learned about the advertising needs of small publishers — Jan 25, 2025
Art + Politics Community Conversation — Nov 6, 2024 — Nov 6, 2024
OpenNews: Product manager diary: What I learned taking an intro course in web development — Sep 9, 2024
I'm a published comic artist now! — Sep 2, 2024
SRCCON 2024: Early Career Panel: Where do we go from here? — Aug 16, 2024
TNC: What we are learning from studying key metrics for tiny newsrooms — Jul 22, 2024
OpenNews: Product manager diary: Learning to work with vendors and development teams outside of your organization — Sep 19, 2023
Resolve Philly: Can student journalists and local media collaborations work together? Here’s what we learned — Aug 12, 2021
Just for Fun: Rescue Party — May 2020 — May 1, 2020