RSVP at www.facebook.com/TheIFProject - less than 2 weeks left!

We’re less than two weeks away from the 100th day – can’t believe it’s all gone by so quickly.

I’ve long forgotten the schedule I so painstakingly drew up when I started this project –  it didn’t take into account chance encounters with strangers, random acts of kindness, birthdays, meetings, public meltdowns or a personal life.

These days I do whatever I can, whenever I can with our final day drawing ever closer. I scribble out lists of things I need ‘to do’ first thing every morning, tasks that range from selecting photographs and poster designs to emailing contributors and confirming venue details with Thanhtu, and somehow I get around to them by the end of the week.  (To think I actually thought I’d have time to find financial sponsors on top of all this!)

I’ve let go of the massive control freak I can often be, the need to be on top of everything and the constant disappointment that comes with being that way. Managing journalists, designers and myself is stressful enough without all of that.  And you know what? – I am still absolutely certain it’s all going to get done on time, and done well.

You’ve all followed me this far, so you’re all invited to celebrate with me at our launch party on August 2. Speakers, live music, and young artists and activists galore. I can’t wait to meet you there.

Check us out on Facebook for more details.

July 21, 2010

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My local paper Hills Shire Times interviewed me some weeks ago about the IF project, and the story has now hit hundreds, maybe thousands of driveways in my neighbourhood.  I actually didn’t find the article myself, but heard the news from a friend of mine, whose parents live in the area and had recognised my name and scanned him a copy.

Article about The IF Project in Hills Shire Times, aka: 'what happens if you persist'.

My Dad, who in the past has been somewhat dubious of my efforts to start up my own online magazine, heard me looking around for it and went out into the pitch black, winter Sydney night to fish the newspaper out of the recycling bin so we could see the original article for ourselves.

After it had made the rounds in my family, he adjusted his glasses, placed the newspaper squarely under the lamp on his ‘reading table’, and hunched down close to read every word.  That’s love!

A big thank you to Thanhtu for arranging the interview.   As my PR manager she has relentlessly chased journalists from a range of mainstream media on the off chance they will write/talk/think about The IF Project over the past couple of months.

When we first met, all I had was an idea that I had to somehow convince everyone was actually going to become something really special in time.  And when you think about, that’s still all I have, and it may be all I’ll ever have.

As a great and wise friend of mine once told me: “The best thing about business is that it’s all made up.”  I didn’t see it at the time but she was totally right. What are some of the biggest corporations but a collection of symbols? Who were Larry Page and Sergey Brin before Google exploded into the Internet, but some interesting guys who gave themselves titles and maybe some business cards?

In starting your own business, and in anything in life I’ve found that IF you act as though you’ve already arrived at the destination, people will (consciously or otherwise) help get you there eventually.

Sure, some symbols (for example, those of investment banks and perhaps Australian mining companies) have more pull than others, but when you break them all down, they’re just rented space at the top of skyscrapers filled with people working to maintain whatever they say they represent.

The media makes meaning of these symbols day in and day out.  This is why getting IF mentioned in print is so important – because it means that more people can now have faith in those symbols, and trust that if the all-seeing, all-knowing ‘media’ (a symbol in and of itself) chose to tell them about it, then IF magazine must be more than just a collection of ideals, and begin to take it seriously as a legitimate business with some promise.

The plug is also quite timely, as we are now heading into the final weeks before IF magazine’s launch party on August 2.  Thanhtu and I met up today to start planning the event, and boy do we have a lot of work ahead of us.  More details to come!

–

Update: You can read the online version of the article here.

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July 8, 2010

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Hellooo out there! It’s been a while between posts, and this time it’s because I’m working harder than ever before to pull this thing together.  We now have almost all the content for IF Magazine’s first issue finalised and are planning a massive launch party of about 300 people in partnership with a number of different organisations for young creatives like Vibwire. After a long hiatus, we’ve also reached the 400 fan-mark on Facebook!

Photo: James Kozianski

I have so much to do this week (meetings about the launch, preparing for the second issue) and very little time to blog, but I post much more regular (albeit very short) updates on the IF Project Facebook page, so check us out there for more information on our progress!

It’s been almost three months since I started this blog and invited you to see if I really could create my dream job and a new magazine in 100 days, so here’s a nice snapshot of my journey so far, and where it all began in a nutshell:

The If Project: a magazine on a mission to make a difference.

How exactly would you describe the IF project to listeners who may not be familiar with the concept?

The IF Project’s aim is to launch a weekly online magazine called ‘IF’ from scratch in 100 days and to document my progress in a blog-slash-social-media-campaign:http://ifprojectblog.com. The IF Project is a response to the limitations of both our fast-paced lifestyles and an often celebrity-ridden mainstream news cycle.  How often can we go a whole week without picking up a newspaper, or getting through an entire article because we’re too busy or tired or stressed?

IF will be an interactive online magazine that breaks down the world’s seemingly insurmountable social environmental and humanitarian problems, and with its audience, finds real ways we can make a real difference to them.  The magazine will keep readers up to date but also make them want to slow down and take the time to at the very least think seriously about the world around them.

…

I’m not aiming to rile anyone up.  The world has more than enough hothead political bloggers and talkback radio stations to meet that need.  I’m trying to create a magazine that will inspire people to figure out how to better lead themselves. We still have about 27 days to go before our first issue goes live, but the IF Project has already created an online community of people from five different continents, all interested in figuring out how the world works and how to make it work better.

We’ve sparked numerous controversial discussions about political and social issues and really gotten people thinking about ideas that don’t necessarily make headline news, but are still important to the decisions we make in everyday life. The challenge once the 100 days is over will be to maintain this readership for every single issue of the magazine.

How did it all start?

I’m a journalist by trade and earlier this year the publishing firm I was working for collapsed and I was made redundant.  I was tired of being rejected for jobs I didn’t really want and of constantly waiting for my ‘dream job’ to arrive on a silver platter.  I was also really frustrated with people around me who had no interest in what to me were issues far more important than all of our petty first world problems.  Yet I was most frustrated with myself because there I was sanctimoniously whingeing about it all and doing nothing about any of it.

So I decided (in the shower, where all the best ideas are born) to create my own dream job (minus the massive dream salary) of being an editor of a magazine that I would really like to read, one which somehow taught me and others about stories that weren’t so easily accessible via mainstream news, but were still important to our understanding of our personal impact on the world we live in.

Once I started telling people about it, I felt more of a responsibility to actually get off my ass and do something about it.  So starting the IF Project blog in order to tell potentially ‘everyone’ about it made this a reality for me, and after a while, my full-time job between the hours of about 9am to midnight.

Read more of my interview with Jo from The Cameron and Jo Exchange on 90.3FM here.

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The wait is over! The theme for the first issue of IF magazine is:

for love or money

I tried long and hard to come up with a single word that could bring together amazing stories about themes as diverse as human rights, social conflict and climate change.  But I found myself drawn instead to phrases that describe a paradox, a grey area between two apparent absolutes.

IF Magazine

IF will be a weekly online magazine that empowers young adults who want to learn more about the world around them and are looking for ways they can make a real difference to its problems.  It will inform and inspire anyone sitting at their desks feeling overwhelmed, wishing they understood or could do more, and eventually become the ‘go-to’ youth source of independent, unbiased journalism.

I want humanitarian, environmental and social stories that explore this paradox.

–

UPDATE:

I don’t want opinion pieces or stories that champion love over money or vice versa; I’m interested in what happens when both are in play.

What effect does this ‘false dichotomy’ have on our judgements of particular social groups?  How does the battle ‘for love or money’ effect the progress of human rights in developing countries?  What decisions are politicians, companies, NGOs and environmental causes confronted with when money or love are lacking, or when both are unavoidable?

–

Think outside the box…

The magazine will use non-conventional storytelling methods to help its audience engage with and better understand the issues discussed – though they should be based under the broad heading of current affairs, they should shed light on stories that are important to our understanding of the world’s biggest humanitarian, social and environmental challenges, though they are not in the headlines.

Ways you could tell the story:

Gonzo/Literary journalism (Narrative non-fiction)

Short film

Podcast

Street art

Photo essay

I’m looking for 5 ideas for the first issue

The most creative, interesting stories will be published in the first issue following a sub-editing/production period. (If I get a sufficient number of amazing submissions, I’ll try to start up a print magazine to house the extra content.)

Send me your:

• Best contact details

• Brief biographical note

• Brief pitch of your idea, including the basic premise of the story, the angle you will take, the medium/format you want to use, and the people you will interview/ involve in creating it

Send your pitches to theIFprojecteditor [at] gmail [dot] com by 5pm Monday 21 June.

I will send submission guidelines and further details to the shortlisted artists/authors/journalists some time next week.

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June 18, 2010

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My meeting with Vibewire went really well last night, thanks in no small part to all your ‘good luck’ messages and well wishes!

I was scheduled to speak right at the end of the meeting about the group’s quarterly anthology, and as I listened in, I got to thinking how much I’d love to have a production team just like theirs in the future for IF – they’re such a talented and together group of designers, writers and PR reps so focused on the task at hand. It was like looking into the future of IF magazine

We had a fairly informal brainstorm of ideas for collaboration, which included some cross-promotional opportunities and a co-launch of our respective publications!

I still need to approve all of these with the relevant committee members so nothing’s set in stone yet, but everyone was on board with the long-term vision for IF, which is to inspire and engage young people in international news and current affairs like never before.

First Interview

If you live in the Hills area, look out for IF in your local paper in the next few weeks!

Image: hills-shire-times.whereilive.com.au

A journalist from the Hills Shire Times interviewed me on the phone on my bus ride home the other night. It was definitely disconcerting to be on the ‘answering’ end for a change, particularly when surrounded by peak hour commuters. I read into every objective ‘uhuh’ and ‘mhmm’ that ensued throughout.

The post-interview nerves kicked in as soon as I hung up the phone. But I told myself what I have (in not so many words) had to tell my own interviewees – “You had your chance to explain yourself as clearly as possible. Now, you just have to take the leap of faith needed to trust that the faceless journalist on the other end of the line will also try to represent you as accurately as possible because the obligation to do so is part of the job description”.

This afternoon, a photographer came to my house to hurriedly take a series of shadowy photos of my face smushed up against my laptop monitor (which, of course, was lit up by this blog), which will accompany the article.

I’m excited to see the final piece – it should be an interesting read and an even more interesting photo! Let me know if you see it before me, and what you think of it.

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June 17, 2010

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Image: elitechoice.org/

Can you guess? What do you think is the theme of IF’s first issue?

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June 16, 2010

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Last week, I met Vibewire’s outgoing editor Julia Stepowska for the first time to talk about The IF Project over lunch.

I was so excited that I greeting-hugged her, which surprisingly didn’t freak her out enough to make her leave immediately.

Vibewire is a not-for-profit that supports young media creatives and entrepreneurs in a number of ways, including providing mentors, office space for rent and platforms through which young people can be published and have a voice, e.g. Reelife Short Film Festival, electionTracker and quarterly writers’ anthologies.

The group works with the kind of people that would read IF Magazine: socially aware, deep thinkers, entrepreneurs interested in learning more about the world and looking for ways to make a difference to its problems. I really believe IF could give Vibewire’s young creative collective new opportunities to be published and inspired.

Julia actually seemed really interested at the prospect of some sort of partnership between IF and Vibewire, and she confirmed my suspicions by inviting me to present my ideas at the next editorial meeting for its upcoming quarterly Anthology.

Well folks, today is the day, and I hope I don’t choke.  I’ve been given a slot at the end of the meeting agenda to convince them IF is something worth supporting.  I’ve got to pull out all the stops.  Wish me luck!

What are your best tips for getting rid of last-minute nerves?

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It’s hard to believe we’re already halfway through what I now know is a crazy quest to launch a brand new online magazine in 100 days.  Over the last couple of months you’ve read all about my mixed feelings but for fear of being called ’self-indulgent’ (again), I’ll just stick to summing up the IF Project’s tangible achievements in that time:

Fans: 342 people (the vast majority of whom I have never met) ‘like’ what we’re doing on IF’s Facebook page.

Page views: 377

Comments: 89 legitimate comments, plenty more spam messages than I care to count

Team: Though I’ve consulted with too many advisers to count in my research, I now have two official reps to help me with the promotion of and editorial content for IF.

Press: Thanks to Thanhtu, my local paper Hills Shire Times is now interested in writing an article about the IF Project in the coming weeks. We’ve also scored some blog love, most recently from travel blog SheGoes, Journalisn’t and Collin Van Uden’s public debate blog Prometheus Ink.

Websites: One built and designed from scratch and one in-the-making which will house IF’s first issue.

Conversations: We’ve started and maintained a number of conversations about social issues that seldom warrant headline news coverage but spark thoughts that continue to linger unspoken e.g. on ‘acceptable’ bullying, how we should/do treat the homeless and the trustworthiness of news sources.

There will be loads more to come in the next 50 days as we go into overdrive to launch the magazine.

Only two more days’ wait till I release the theme for the #1 issue of IF Magazine and open up the lines for your chance to get published, so get excited, and keep reading!

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Update: Sorry guys, I can’t keep my days straight! We’re just past the halfway point now, on our 53rd day.

June 15, 2010

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I’m sure you’ve noticed that I really let the ball drop for the past couple of weeks on IF.

I didn’t realise how much working 9 to 5 would sap my energy and enthusiasm and instead of taking charge, I let myself get overwhelmed by a series of seemingly unavoidable social and professional commitments.

Even my morning coffee cup was mocking my efforts.

And the further behind I got on my IF schedule, the more unmotivated I felt to get back on track.  I got really discouraged when people who once seemed super enthusiastic to help me couldn’t for one reason or another and for a time, took every such conversation ridiculously personally.

The truth is, I felt ‘the dream’ slipping away from me, that I’d sold out by taking up this job.  I was terrified of how humiliated I’d feel if I admitted to myself I might not make the 100-day deadline after all, and ironically, this was the very thing holding me back from just getting it done.

Last weekend I spent about 39 hours at a self-development course called ‘the Landmark Forum’.  I’d signed up for the course when I first started the IF project to help me get motivated, but was blown away by the new perspective it gave me on not only IF, but myself, and life in general.  I won’t go into too much detail but suffice it to say, it was a serious wake up call for me, and has helped me regain the resolve I started out with for the IF Project.

Let’s conclude the whole ‘meltdown’ saga with the following note I sent to my business development advisers Dev and Wenee recently:

I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch about my plans – I was seriously backing out of all the hard work for two weeks and pretending I was working hard on IF the whole time, when all I was doing was stressing out. I was faking it. Only now do I believe in the true meaning of the word ‘if’. I don’t care if all of this sounds corny – what I’m trying to tell you is that only now am I prepared to do it, and I’m not scared to fail.

There will definitely be future meltdowns in the lead-up to the deadline, but I feel much more able to handle them without freaking out at the first sign of danger now. In any case, I’m trying to approach this task with a bit less fear, a bit more excitement, and a lot more honesty about what I’m capable of by myself.

On the advice of the very wise Dev and Wenee, I’m going to ‘keeps it real’ and focus on what’s important – producing an amazing first issue worthy of future readers and sponsorship.  I simply don’t have time to do much else. And, whilst working full-time, I can’t do it all by myself, as much as I would like to.

Image: creoleindc.typepad.com

To that end, I’d like to introduce you to the new IF team:

Jennifer Duke: IF's first journalist!

Me, the founder of IF, in saner times.

Thanhtu Nguyen - IF's press hound

Both girls are communications students at the best university for communications in Sydney , UTS (disregard my personal bias, folks) and are helping me promote the IF project to our future readers, contributors and (later on) sponsors.

Thanhtu has already been a huge help to me over the past few months as my right hand man…er, person, and manager of my PR campaign.  Jennifer (who we met for the first time yesterday) will be producing the news section of IF’s first issue.

Our first meeting together was awesome – genuine enthusiasm is an infectious force!!

Also this week we’ve opened up the discussion forum on IF’s Facebook page.  From now on we will be posting our take on controversial social, environmental and humanitarian topics and inviting you to have your say.

You can read Geoff’s first blog on the rise in female violence in the schoolyard in the ‘Discussions’ tab here.  Look out for more discussion topics by Jennifer and myself in the coming weeks.

Until next time folks!

PO

- Jane

What are your best tips for coping with the stress from your 9 to 5?

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June 9, 2010

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My friend Wyatt (who has started his own independent media revolution at Journalisnt.net) sent me what can only be described as a frantic message of despair the other day:

Sucks that New Matilda has gone down.

What’s the lesson there?? Is it possible to keep a viable alternative afloat and not be bought out, ala Beecher’s Crikey? Answers, Jane, I want answers!!

He was reacting to the sad and unexpected announcement that one of Australia’s most respected and fiercely independent sources of news and commentary, NewMatilda.com, will cease to exist from 25 June because it can no longer be financed “in large part due to the sheer difficulty of selling online advertising in the current media environment”.

Ironically Crikey, oft-considered New Matilda’s leading indie rival, beat me to the punch by providing Wyatt his  (and all of us who will miss it) answers through a very respectful column devoted to the site’s demise here.

Crikey’s Margaret Simons summed up what we can ‘learn’ best:

The truth is that opinion-based sites can be trusted to either survive, or be quickly replaced by others.

Opinion is cheap in every sense of the word, which is why News Ltd’s The Punch and Fairfax’s National Times can continue to pay nothing — that’s right, nothing for contributions, and the ABC’s The Drum pays just $200 a piece. It is not a lack of independent opinion and analysis that we need to worry about.

News reporting is a different matter. It involves some of the hard and dirty work of journalism — the hanging around, the developing of contacts, the cold-call telephoning of people who do not want to talk to you, and who are often angry and rude.

While some people may do some of this work for free some of the time, if you want it done consistently and well, then ultimately it has to be paid for.

The media industry is in the thick of the biggest identity crisis it’s ever experienced.

Spoilt for choice of content, the failings of individual content makers are becoming more pronounced, making it increasingly difficult, particularly for traditional media, to keep up with all the things people want to know and all the ways they want to find it out.

It’s in this competitive environment that I believe IF will thrive.

This is a really exciting time in which anything is possible; traditional and new media outlets alike are scrambling to experiment to find out what will work best.  I honestly believe that IF will be just one of many small specialist alternative magazines that will rise up now to fill the void, funded by the very people most personally invested in their survival.

The Journalist-Entrepreneurs

There are already number of journalist-cum-entrepreneurs who have recently gained mainstream notoriety (I have yet to join their ranks but I’ll get there!).

They’ve all seen a gap in the market and left the glitz and glamour of mainstream titles to create something new upon revenue models that make their contributors’ salary proportionate to market value.  I’m particularly inspired by the genius of 48 Hour Magazine, the first issue of which was recently published in – you guessed it – two days in the United States.

Journalist-entrepreneurship is by no means a new phenomenon. For every quirky feature billing a new generation of media moguls there are a dozen little known bloggers who have maintained independent news sites for years purely out of civic duty.

One example is Anup Shah, who has been running news aggregator Global Issues since 1998 in his spare time, i.e. for FREE.  Shah avoided accepting donations and revenue from affiliates such as Google and Amazon.com until recently because he was afraid it would taint the integrity of the site.

But I think that pandering to this notion that readers are somehow ‘entitled’ to free information because its online could actually be the thing killing independent media.  If we journalists don’t value our own craft, how do we expect to go on doing it?

Even if Shah had started advertising on the site years ago, the fact that he’d received compensation for his hard work would not have undermined the quality of his content, nor does it now diminish the level of personal accountability Shah has to his audience.

It’s not as though he’s rolling in obscene amounts of cash obtained from Google Adsense. And he’s fairly transparent about the way the money is spent: “If ad revenue is significant this could open up a lot of opportunities for the site…it may allow me to afford more complex services and subscriptions that might help me provide better content on the site.”

The death of New Matilda is as sure a sign as any that the funding model for independent media and particularly new media, must change. The freedom of information will never be reduced to a bidding war between elitists, but we (both journalists and readers) now have to stop defining the word ‘independent’ as ‘free’, rely less on corporate advertising and more on consumer benevolence.

Contrary to popular opinion, journalists can’t survive on booze and cigarettes alone – we need to eat just like everyone else.

So it IS viable to keep a valuable alternative media afloat, but not by the ways we are used to.  Sponsorship deals and subscription fees can no longer be seen as tempting vices of ‘lesser’ journalists, but as tools for survival that don’t necessarily compromise editorial integrity.

The death of New Matilda doesn’t signal the end of independent media, only the end of independent media as we know it. It teaches us that if we don’t want the art of independent news to die out entirely, we – all of us – have to show that we truly value it.

Got a bone to pick about the media industry? Email me at theIFprojecteditor [at] gmail [dot] com and I’ll post my answers on the IF blog.

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June 6, 2010

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