The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard did two great pieces about the philosophy, workflow and tools that digital journalists, usually a one man show out on the field. If you are suckers of neat kits that allow you to basically do everything on your own, as well as interested in learning more about the best way to be a one man gang kind of producer, check these videos out:

NBC's Mara Schiavocampo: Her digital workflow from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

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NBC's Mara Schiavocampo: Inside her digital toolkit from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

Schiavocampo is a digital journalist with NBC News.

According to this great post her kit includes:

— A Sony HVR-V1U HDV camcorder (about $4,000). This camcorder is standard-issue at NBC; she describes it as “halfway between DV and HD” and capable of producing visuals suitable for broadcast as well as the web. The camcorder has two add-ons: A Rode AA-battery-powered shotgun microphone ($250), and a Sony wide-angle conversion lens (about $500) that threads on the front of the camcorder.

— A lightweight Libec video tripod (7 pounds), as well as a monopod ($300 total).

— A Litepanels MiniPlus camera-mountable LED light, daylight balanced ($800).

— An Apple MacBook Pro laptop with Final Cut Pro, and an extra charged MacBook battery ($3,000).

— An external hard drive for the laptop ($200).

— Apple earbuds.

— A Fujipoint-and-shoot camera (”I almost never use it anymore”) as a backup ($300).

— XLR cables, and XLR adapters that can input into a small audio jack on her laptop for voice-over (”I always have spares”).

— Two wireless lavalier microphone sets (about $500).

— An array of white-balance cards in blues and green, to either heighten the warmth of skin tones or adjust for fluorescent light.

— Bags of spare connectors and cables.

— Lots of spare tapes, in HD Mini-DV format.

— Plug converters (”You need them if you’re in another country on assignment”).

— And, though every ounce matters, the manual for every piece of equipment she has in the bag (”Never leave them at home”).

Pretty cool isn't it?

As you might know, I am the VP of Marketing of IMTC, an international consortium in the video and UC area, which includes heavy weights such as Cisco, Radvision, Sony, Tandberg, Polycom, RealNetworks and others.

We are holding our annual Forum in November - please find below our official call for speakers:

OFFICIAL CALL FOR SPEAKERS

2008 Fall Forum

Submission Deadline: August 15

Acceptance Notification: August 22

Technology Meets Customer Needs - Unified Communications Supporting Business

After a very successful 2007 IMTC Fall Forum Event, the IMTC is pleased to announce the 2008 Fall Forum Event taking place November 12-13, 2008 at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco, CA near VoiceCON (which will be held November 10-13 at Moscone).

The audience will be comprised of C, VP and Director level business and technical execs as well as technical management. Attendees and speakers will represent small, medium and enterprise size companies.

The IMTC

The International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC) includes more than 50 market leaders in unified communications and multimedia content delivery fields working together to create interoperable, standards based products in a non-competitive environment.

IMTC’s mission is to improve customer experience and accelerate market adoption of content delivery and unified communications solutions through interoperability of products and services based on open standards.

The EVENT PROGRAM

The 2008 IMTC Fall Forum Event will feature a combination of keynote presentations, interactive panel discussions, and individual presentations on new and exciting technologies relevant to multimedia communications.

Topics to include but not limited to the following:

• Health care Industry Unified Communications Requirements
• Financial Industry Unified Communications Requirements
• Conformance Testing & Methodology
• Online Collaboration

IMTC has launched an industry wide effort in the unified communications area, focused around creating a blueprint for unified communications implementations.

The forum will provide a venue for vendors, customers and analysts to come together to define the industry’s needs in the area of unified communications, and to create common and agreed upon implementation blueprints. The event will also provide the opportunity for the financial services and healthcare sectors to discuss their challenges and issues around the implementation of unified communications.

The program will combine business and technical sessions in multimedia telecommunications and Unified Communications. Submissions are currently being accepted for both business and technical subjects. All presentations will be given in English.

• Presentations - Presentations will be 30 minutes in length, including 5-10 minutes for Q&A. We are looking for presentations about business use cases where unified communications, video conferencing and collaboration play a significant role, the advantages of using standard technologies from a business perspective or the technical aspects of unified communications projects and protocols.

• Panel Sessions- Panels can take between 45 to 60 minutes. Unlike presentations, panel are a place of debate between different views and approaches to video conferencing and unified communications issues in addition to the topics above, panels will also cover the role of online collaboration in unified communications market.

SUBMITTING YOUR ABSTRACT

IMTC is accepting session proposals via the email to cfp08@imtc.org. Please include the following:

1. Name, title, company name & contact information

2. Brief biography

3. Presentation proposal with information on the vertical industry upon which your presentation will focus, and whether your presentation is more technical or business in nature. You are welcome to submit several distinct proposals.

We will be accepting proposals for consideration through August 15, 2008 and notifications of acceptance will begin the week of August 22, 2008.

SELECTION PROCESS

The program committee will receive all valid proposals and will review them. The choice of a session will be based on the presentation of the session and its value to the audience. Submitters will be contacted individually about their session. All decisions taken by the program committee are final.

The quality of the proposal is very important and preference will be given to business related content for November 12 and technically focused content for November 13.

Questions can be directed to the IMTC planning committee at cfp08@imtc.org

We look forward to receiving your submission!

Sincerely,

The IMTC Fall Forum 2008 Planning Committee