Almost too intense

Oh my God, that was one of the most interesting, stimulating things I've ever seen.

Last night I attended the launch event for the City University of New York (CUNY) graduate school of entrepreneurial journalism. Because my family foundation was the leading funder, it's partly named for us, and first my dad and then a guy from another foundation gave little speeches. This was followed by maybe the most interesting panel discussion I've ever seen, led by the head of the school and featuring the first female computer nerd hired by Google and the CEO of AOL (who used to work for her). To call this a panel discussion does it an injustice. Both of these people (and the head of the school) were brilliant and talked so fast you could hardly keep up. It was like being in The Social Network and inspiring just being in a room with people like that.

They were talking about how the model for journalism is changing to meet consumer demand in an age where not only do people no longer get their information from newspapers, but because everyone's walking around with a computer in their pocket or bag, everything can be based on where that person is at that moment in time. I haven't done much with that kind of stuff. Last time I was in New York I used Yelp to find good pizza near where I was standing on the street- not a big deal but pretty damned nice and impossible even a couple of years ago.

What does this mean for journalism? Nobody knows, and that's the really cool thing.