Author: Adam Schweigert

Adam Schweigert was the founding director of the product and technology team at INN from 2012 to 2017.

Welcome The Newest Member Of Our Team: Kaeti Hinck

Posted on by Adam Schweigert

INN's news applications and technology team has been growing steadily over the past few months to allow us to better serve our members.

june2013kaetismallToday we're very pleased to announce another addition to the team, our new Design Director, Kaeti Hinck.

Kaeti joins INN from MinnPost where she was most recently Director of News Technology. In that role she managed MinnPost's web development and strategic digital projects

In 2011, she successfully led a redesign and platform migration for minnpost.com, which launched as one of the first responsive news sites in the country.

She also created MinnPost's data team, leading news application design and interactive reporting. All of MinnPost's data projects are open source and available for other journalism organizations to use and learn from: www.github.com/minnpost.

Before joining MinnPost, Kaeti spent time as a magazine editor, video producer, graphic designer, and photojournalist. Much of her work has been focused on visual journalism, design, and making things for the web.

At INN she will be responsible for improving the design of our current products (including our Largo WordPress platform) and will work with the rest of the news applications and technology team to develop interactive features and news apps to support our members' editorial work.

Kaeti also brings a lot of strength in building team culture, process and design thinking and we're excited to get to work with her on tackling the thorniest problems facing nonprofit news organizations.

Kaeti's first day at INN will be September 22 and she'll be with us in Chicago next week for the Online News Association Conference. Please make her feel welcome!

Join Our Team: We’re Hiring A Contract Support Specialist

Posted on by Adam Schweigert

We have an opening on the team for a role focused on customer support, training and documentation with a bit of project management thrown in.

This will be a contract position (at least to start) and we're looking for someone who can work about 20-30 hours/week. We're flexible on schedule and location so this is great opportunity for someone looking to work with a great team, make an impact and help nonprofit news organizations but maybe not able to commit to a full-time position or regular 9 to 5 schedule. There is the possibility that we'll turn this into a full-time position in the near future depending on your job performance and our needs.

The full posting is right over here but here's an excerpt that covers the sorts of things we're hoping this person will help us out with:

  • Provide front-line support to INN member organizations and our paid consulting clients, including responding to member/client questions, troubleshooting issues, etc.
  • In the process of managing the support queue, identify and communicate bug fixes, new feature requests and assist in the prioritization and development of new features for the Largo platform
  • Occasionally perform minor bug fixes, design/theme changes, etc. in response to member/client support requests
  • Create documentation to assist publishers in the adoption and use of the platform such as step-by-step walkthroughs of key features, new feature announcements, FAQs, case studies, screencasts, etc.
  • Assist in the planning and implementation of group and/or individualized training (mostly virtual via webinars or asynchronous online courses but also possibly in-person) to help publishers maximize the use of the Largo platform and other tools/apps we build
  • Assist in the revamp and ongoing maintenance of the Largo project website; write and edit content for newsletters, blog posts, social media, etc. to promote the project and help organizations maximize their use of the platform
  • Manage and continuously improve our support workflow and project management process

Feel free to email me with any questions (adam@inn.org) and please pass the posting on to anyone you think might be a good fit.

Announcing Our New Intern: Welcome Will Haynes!

Posted on by Adam Schweigert

This week we're excited to welcome Will Haynes to the team as our new News Apps and Technology Intern.

will-haynesWill is a student studying computer science and economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He developed a passion for media, and the technology that drives it, after getting involved with UW’s independent student newspaper,The Badger Herald. There he served as web director before transitioning into the role of digital managing editor. This year, he will still serve as chairman of the Herald’s board of directors.

In addition to the paper, Will also spent a semester as a fellow for UW’s Center for Journalism Ethics. There he worked with the Center’s staff to design and develop a new WordPress presence for the organization. For INN, he will be working on Project Largo improvements and documentation, as well as helping member organizations with other projects.

He'll be with us through the academic year and you can reach him on Twitter @willhaynes.

Welcome to the team, Will!

Hire Us! Announcing New Consulting Services From INN’s Technology Team

Posted on by Adam Schweigert

INN's technology team is focused on helping our now 100+ member organizations any way we can.

We now provide free hosting and support to over 30 member websites on our Largo platform and a significant portion of what we do involves improving the platform and supporting members so they can take maximum advantage of the tools we build.

We've made a lot of headway in the past couple of years reducing costs for members, eliminating duplication of effort and getting members onto a stable platform that looks great and works well across devices.

But it's hard for us to help every member individually and there are many member (and non-member) organizations who would like us to do more and have expressed the willingness to pay for our services.

Specifically, we’ve heard from a number of INN members that they:

  • Have a hard time finding vendors/contractors who “get” what they’re trying to do and often wind up working with local agencies or freelancers who focus mostly on internet marketing or building small business sites so they don’t understand the other considerations unique to news and content sites or nonprofits
  • Are often unhappy with the vendors/contractors they do have and/or are overpaying for subpar services
  • Would, in a number of cases, rather work with INN's tech team directly rather than with an outside vendor. Given our current staffing and workload we typically haven't been able to do this if the request goes above and beyond what we’re able to do for "free" as a benefit of INN membership.

We also frequently hear from non-members that they:

  • Want to use the tools we have built (particularly Largo) but may require some help setting them up or customizing them to suit their needs
  • In some case may require additional custom development to add functionality that we have not yet built
  • Would be willing to pay (provided our rates are competitive) for our services and even (potentially) pay us to host their sites in the same way we host sites for members.

Until now we’ve just been referring people to outside contractors and freelancers but as we continue to grow our technology team we now have the capability to take on some of this work ourselves.

For INN members we will subsidize the cost of these services to keep them very affordable (see the rates section below for details), but we will also, from time to time, take on work from non-members as well (at regular market rates).

Some examples of the services we may offer include:

  • Content migration, design customization and custom development for members using our Largo platform beyond what we're able to do for "free" as a benefit of INN membership
  • Assistance with editorial design and development for news apps, data projects or special series
  • Ongoing or project-based support, training and assistance with story production
  • Design and development of microsites or other special projects

Taking on this additional paid work will allow us to:

  • Offset a portion of our costs and make our team more sustainable for the long-term by being less reliant on grants and other less-predictable sources of funding
  • Expand our technology team faster than would otherwise be possible and offer competitive compensation packages to help us recruit the best talent
  • Provide better service to members at lower rates than what they’re often getting now
  • Assist non-members with the adoption of tools we build (particularly our Largo platform)

We hope that this new program will be a win-win for members and for INN and that we'll now be able to provide an even higher level of support at very reasonable cost.

If you're interested in working with us, we'd love to discuss your needs and how we can help. Get in touch with us here to learn more.

We've also assembled an FAQ to provide more detail on the program.

FAQs

For INN members, what is free and what do we have to pay for?

As a benefit of your INN membership you receive free hosting for your main website if you use our Largo platform (if you have more complex needs, multiple sites, etc. we may need to pass some of our infrastructure costs through to you). In addition, we will provide a reasonable amount of support to help you migrate to the platform and customize the look and feel of your site.

If you require more assistance, extensive design customization, custom functionality, etc. or ongoing support then this is typically what we would ask you to pay for.

Weren't you doing this for free? Why do we have to pay now?

This new program does not affect any of the benefits we currently offer to members as part of their regular INN membership.

We will continue, for the foreseeable future, to cover hosting costs for members using our Largo WordPress platform and will continue our work to improve the platform itself as well as help members where possible with migration, on-boarding and basic customization.

The reason we're starting to do paid work is that we now have a lot of requests that are very specific to one particular member that we don't believe would necessarily benefit others in the network.

Our team is focused on tackling problems we believe can best be solved at a network level and given our size and funding level we will never be a complete replacement for investment in technology at the member level.

We also hope that by reducing duplication of effort, building common platforms and tools, etc. we free up resources that members can (and should!) re-invest in technology at their organization to best serve their audience, try new things and innovate further faster.

Why should we pay you instead of a local freelancer/agency?

In short, our aim is provide better services at a lower cost.

In the past when members came to us with one-off needs we would refer them to outside contractor or in some cases helped them recruit and hire a full-time tech staff.

Sometimes this works out well but many members have told us they have had bad experiences with contractors or had a hard time finding good help at all that was reasonably priced and understood what they were trying to do.

Other members may want to eventually hire a full-time staff member focused on technology but aren't quite at that point yet and have a need for ongoing help in the meantime.

The way we're hoping to solve this problem is to form a sort of "co-op" comprised of the best news technologists, designers and support staff we can possibly find who will be focused full-time on meeting the needs of nonprofit news organizations. Members will then be able to tap into this team as needed on a project-by-project basis and/or use us for ongoing support, training, etc.

What are the rates? How do you structure your contracts?

As of January 2015 our rates are as follows*:

  • For INN member organizations we offer a further discounted hourly rate of $85 per hour. This is actually slightly below our cost and is subsidized by the other consulting work we do for non-members and by INN's general operating funds (grants we receive from foundations, member dues, etc.)
  • For non-member non-profit organizations we offer a substantially reduced hourly rate of $125 per hour.
  • For non-member, for-profit organizations our regular hourly rate is $175 per hour.

*rates are subject to change but once we agree to an hourly rate we will honor it per the terms of your contract.

Contracts will typically be project-based and we will bill twice monthly for the actual hours worked during the preceding two week period. Under certain circumstances we may agree to do fixed bid contracts but we believe it's typically more fair for both parties to charge for actual hours worked.

I have ongoing tech needs but we're not ready to hire a full-time staff member yet, can you help?

If you have ongoing needs, we've talked to a few members about doing a retainer-based support agreements where you would essentially be sharing a full-time headcount on our team with a number of other INN members. The advantage would be that you would be guaranteed a certain percentage of that person's time without having to recruit and manage them.

If this is something that you would be interested in, contact us and we can discuss your particular needs and how we might best help you.

Be Our Paid Fall/Spring News Applications Intern

Posted on by Adam Schweigert

UPDATE: Applications for the fall have now closed but if you're interested in interning with us in the spring or summer next year, you can send your resume/portfolio to adam@inn.org and we'll reach back out to you when those applications open.

The Investigative News Network (INN), a network of 100+ nonprofit news organizations, is looking for one or more good interns to join our news applications and technology team.

A bit about us: as a team, we exist to support the work of our member organizations, many of which are small nonprofits with limited technology resources. We focus primarily on problems that we are uniquely suited to tackle at a network level, for example:

  • Hosting and supporting about 30 member websites using a WordPress-powered platform/framework we've built and maintain - http://largoproject.org
  • Building open source tools to support members' editorial work and presentation needs with the goal of making their work look as great as any of the largest for-profit newsrooms
  • Supporting editorial collaborations between member organizations, facilitated by INN's data and collaborations editor
  • Providing general technology consulting, training and developing resources to help increase the overall level of tech knowledge and ability across the network

You can read more about us on our team blog and check out our projects on github.

Our interns work closely with our full-time team members and, in some cases, with members directly on all of the above. You will not be making coffee and running errands. You will however build stuff, work on real projects, ship code and write about your experience on our team blog.

Some skills/technologies/attributes that would be helpful for this position include:

  • Some familiarity/experience with user-centered design and standards-driven web development (HTML/CSS, JavaScript, one or more server-side languages such as PHP, Python or Ruby)
  • Able to work independently (particularly important for remote candidates) and communicate effectively with other team members and (where applicable) with member organizations directly
  • Some experience with version control systems such as git(hub) and WordPress (particularly theme design/development)
  • Ideas for what you'd like to learn/make/accomplish during your time with us

We'd prefer a 6 month commitment working about 20 hours a week but the schedule and length of the internship is flexible.

This is a paid (hourly) position and remote candidates are fine.

INN is an equal opportunity employer and we are committed to creating a workplace where diversity is valued. In addition to federal law requirements, INN complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities.

To apply: send resume/portfolio, brief cover letter (email is fine) explaining what you'd like to get out of your internship with us and links to recent projects you're proud of to adam@inn.org.

Open until filled, but for priority consideration please apply by Friday, August 15, 2014 at 5pm ET.

We’re Hiring! Be Our Next News Apps Designer/Developer

Posted on by Adam Schweigert

UPDATE: Applications for this position are now closed. If you'd like, you can still submit a resume for consideration for future FT positions and we do occasionally work with freelancers/contractors. Email: adam@inn.org.

Come help us build the future of nonprofit news!

We're looking for a full-time designer/developer to join our team. Abbreviated job description follows, full description is right over here.

INN's tech team is a small (but growing!) team of makers (presently two, soon to be three full-time employees with a handful of contractors and interns) and this position would be our de facto "design lead" although everyone pitches in and does a little bit of everything.

The ideal candidate is passionate about news and information design and looking to put her/his skills to use tackling design and technology problems facing nonprofit news organizations.

We have a fair amount of flexibility on exactly what this role will be and how it will fit in with the rest of the team. That said, here are some desired skills and attributes (we understand you might not meet all of these but if this roughly sounds like you, we'd love to hear more):

  • 3-5+ years professional experience in design and technology (degree in a related field would be nice but is not strictly necessary), previous experience working in the news/media/nonprofit space would be extremely helpful, passion for nonprofit news is required
  • Expert level knowledge of front-end web design/development, particularly HTML and CSS (use of CSS preprocessors such as LESS or SASS is a nice to have), some experience with JavaScript programming would also be helpful
  • Strong visual design sense (our team is not currently geeked out enough about typography, this needs to change) and relentless focus on improving overall user-experience
  • Experience with rapid prototyping and an understanding of the right level of fidelity needed to clearly communicate an idea
  • Some exposure to and/or experience with one or more modern server-side programming language such as PHP, Python or Ruby (or at least the willingness to learn)
  • We use WordPress (a lot) so some experience creating WordPress themes, plugins, etc. would be very useful
  • Experience with various project management tools (we use Atlassian programs, mostly) and version control (we use Git(hub), mostly)
  • Experience working with data visualization and mapping tools; photo, video, illustration and other visual/graphic design skills would also be great to have
  • Strong communication skills including the ability to explain complex things simply
  • Commitment to openness and showing/writing/talking about your work. We open source and write about nearly every project we do and encourage our team members to speak at industry conferences, local tech meetups, etc. about their work
  • Curiosity and the willingness to learn, adapt and teach

This is a full-time salaried position with benefits. Our compensation package is commensurate with experience and extremely competitive. We are also committed to giving our employees the tools they need to do their job and supporting their professional growth so you'll get an allowance for hardware, software, travel to conferences, etc.

Our team is presently distributed so remote candidates are fine as long as you're comfortable with that. Previous experience working remotely would be helpful. If you'd rather work with us (in the same room) Columbus, OH or Chicago, IL would be the preferred locations for this position.

INN is an equal opportunity employer and we are committed to creating a workplace where diversity is valued. In addition to federal law requirements, INN complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities.

To apply, please send the following to adam@inn.org:

  • Brief resume/cv
  • Cover letter (an email is fine) explaining why this is the perfect position for you
  • A few projects you're particular proud of (links to projects in the wild, your github repo, design portfolio, etc.)
  • Salary expectations (ballpark is fine)

Welcome Jacki Keys To The Team

Posted on by Adam Schweigert

Today I'm excited to announce the addition of another vegetarian former oboist from northeastern Ohio currently residing in Columbus, Ohio to the INN technology team.

jacki_keysJacki Keys is joining us to focus on training, documentation and support particularly for our Largo Project sites but also to help us better serve INN members' general technology needs, answer questions and provide general technology support.

Jacki brings with her extensive experience working in technical support in many forms at different types and sizes of organizations ranging from large companies with 50,000+ employees to small non-profits, though she prefers the personally rewarding experience of working with the latter. You can read her full bio on our team page.

Jacki is joining us as a contractor to start and says she's excited to use all her powers for good at INN and would love to help you in any way she can. And we're happy to have her.

You can also follow her on Twitter: @jacki890

20+ Free And Discounted Tech Tools And Services For Nonprofits

Posted on by Adam Schweigert

INN has recently compiled a list of tech tools and services that offer special deals to nonprofit organizations. Here are a few of the tools and services from the list that our team uses:

Balsamiq is a tool for creating mockups and wireframes for websites that has some really nice collaborative features to allow you to share your designs and get feedback from your team. They offer free desktop licenses for their software to nonprofit organizations and open source projects or you can get a free year of their cloud-based wireframing tool. Learn more.

Buffer is a tool for scheduling social media posts that is very handy if you want to load up a bunch of posts all at once but have them trickle out over the course of the day. They have a free basic plan but offer nonprofit organizations 50% off of their paid plans which have a number of more advanced features. Learn more.

GitHub is a popular place to share and collaborate on code that is widely used in the open source and journalism community. The service is free to use unless you need to keep repositories private but they also provide free bronze plans (up to 10 private repositories, normally $25/month) for use by non‑profit organizations and charities. To take advantage of this program you must provide proof of 501(c)(3) status. Learn more.

Google offers nonprofits free Google Apps for Business accounts (email, calendar and cloud storage) through their nonprofit program. They also offer a free monthly allowance of search ads (called AdWords) through their Google Grants program and special functionality tailored to nonprofits on YouTube. Learn more.

Hipchat is a simple, but very powerful group chat application that allows you to create private or public chatrooms and also video chat, audio chat and screen share with your team members. It also has a bunch of add-ons that allow you to connect other services to your chat and receive notifications (we like to use it to keep tabs on our github repos. They offer free licenses to charitable organizations. Learn more.

MailChimp is a popular email list management tool that INN and many of our members use for email newsletters. They have a pretty generous free tier (12,000 emails to 2,000 subscribers monthly) but once you outgrow that they also offer nonprofits a 15% discount. Learn more.

Those are a few of our favorites, but be sure to check out the complete list and if you know of any others we should add, get in touch and let us know or drop a comment below with the details.

Welcome Ryan Nagle And Ben Keith To The Team

Posted on by Adam Schweigert

INN was founded in 2009 so we're still a pretty young organization but we've been growing rapidly and demand for our technology services has never been higher. The network now has over 100 members and of those over a quarter are using our hosting Project Largo WordPress platform. We're also starting to dip our toe into the news apps world by supporting member collaborations and soon also working directly with members on projects.

I've been really fortunate over the past year and a half I've been at INN to work with some great contractors and part-time help but today I'm really excited to welcome two new members to our team. Ryan Nagle is our first full-time hire on the team and he starts today as a news apps developer and Ben Keith joins later in the week as our summer technology intern.

ryan_nagle_originalRyan Nagle joins INN this week as a news applications developer. Ryan comes to INN from the Chicago Tribune where since 2008 he participated in the development of news products like the Chicago Tribune, Vivelohoy and ChicagoNow. In addition, he contributed to news applications and story features like the Chicago Tribune’s Election Center, the Chicago Bond Debt series and others.

At INN, Ryan’s responsibilities include developing, deploying and supporting software for network members. His efforts focus on Project Largo — a responsive WordPress theme tailored for news organizations — and other open source tools to help members better present their journalism.

Before joining the Tribune, he attended the College of Media at the University of Illinois where earned a degree in advertising. You can find Ryan on Twitter and on Github.

senior_photoBen Keith also joins the INN technology team this week as a summer intern after graduating from Ohio State University with a degree in agricultural communications and plant pathology. He'll also be pitching in on member projects, helping us improve our documentation and contributing to Largo. He joins INN after working as a reporter and associate webmaster for The Lantern, the student-run newspaper of The Ohio State University where he helped them with a redesign and migration to WordPress and also built tools to improve publishing workflow. You can find Ben on Twitter or on GitHub.