As I step away from the keyboard to spend the next four days on feasting and football, family and friends, I’ve been thinking about how much I have to be grateful for.

It’s true 2009 will go down as one of the most godawful years the modern media business has ever seen.

Even so, for me it could have been a lot worse. And as 2009 shinnies up to 2010, things are definitely looking up.

So, here are the 10 things I’m grateful for this Thanksgiving:

1. The editors I work with on a regular basis – Carroll, Elizabeth and Jonathan especially – for being good role models as I discover whether the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence.

2. The editors who took a chance on me – There were more than a few of them this year, as I hustled to make up for work lost when regular clients cut their budgets by pitching magazines, online news outlets and other publications I hadn’t written for before. Some new assignments worked out beautifully, others not so much. But I learned from all of them.

3. The media community in the city where I live - As the ongoing commentary in the wake of last weekend’s WeMaketheMedia conference proves, media people in Portland are earnest and passionate about what they do, and where and how they’ll do it in the future. It’s not just me. Ask Bill Lascher – coming up from Los Angeles for the conference sealed his decision to move here. Welcome Bill.

4. The Online News Association – If you hadn’t held your annual conference in San Francisco, I couldn’t have afforded the time or $$$ to go. But you did, and I did, and got to spend three days learning new stuff and meeting old friends, a winning combination of ever there was one.

5. My family – You tease nag me over the time I spend on Twitter, LinkedIn and my blog. But you’ve been behind me 100 percent as I’ve jumped into this or that new venture, even if it’s meant more work around the old homestead on your part (next year, maybe you’ll even do that part without grumbling – then I’ll really have something to be thankful for).

6. Ron Doyle, my website designer – The inspired mind behind WordCount’s facelift – making me just as proud of the blog’s design as the words I stuff into it.

7. Old Faithful – You give me a few scares this year, and you’re slowing down in your old age, but you still boot up every morning and haven’t crashed in who knows how long. Hang in there, we’ll get a new hard drive in you yet.

8. Twitter - I fulfilled one of my 2009 New Year’s Resolutions to do more public speaking thanks to the Twitter follower who broadcast about a friend of a friend needing a speaker for an upcoming event, then retweeting my reply that I was ready, willing and available. Since then once’s thing’s led to another and I’ve given talks to groups big and small on writing, hyperlocal news, digital journalism and social media – and had a blast doing it.

9. My writer friends – Even though I some of you I know only virtually, you’ve there whenever I need another writer’s perspective on something, or just to hang out with when I’m avoiding a rewrite.

10. You – the readers of this blog. You’ve prodded me to write about things I never would have thought of on my own and in the process helped make this endeavor bigger and more successful than I’d ever dreamed.

This Thanksgiving, what are you grateful for?

Have you ever been so busy, so overloaded with things that have to get done right now you didn’t know where to start?

I’ve been feeling like that as I wrap up some assignments I’ve had on the books for a while, take on a gigantic new one, and at the same time, juggle a stream of requests to do presentations, take part in panel discussions or give interviews.

It would be easy to turn down the latter because it’s not all paid work. But I’ve spent a lot of time in the last year immersing myself in all things social media and talking about the future of journalism, so I don’t want to pass up those opportunities just when my marketing efforts are starting to pay off.

So how do I prioritize what’s becoming a longer and crazier work week?

It’s not just me. As the economy picks up more freelancers are getting offers of new projects, and after what the recession did to our business this year, nobody has the heart to say no to work. So we’re all in the same busy boat.

Some writers set a timer and concentrate on one thing until it goes off. Others segment every day into specific parts devoted to different tasks. Freelance writer, author and blogger Leah Ingram is the master of this. Even if you read the Q&A I did with her some months back, it’s worth taking a second look just to see again how she’s able to produce magazine articles, books and a busy blog with aplomb.

I was thinking about all this when I walked into Starbucks recently. I was browsing through the store’s bookshelf waiting for my hot spiced cider when I saw a guide to getting accepted into the Air Force Academy. My high school-aged son is interested in the Air Force Academy, so when my drink arrived I sat down and started reading.

A few chapters in there was a section on what first year cadets can expect – lots of classes, little free time. In fact, according to the guidebook, first years are given too much to do on purpose, so they learn to figure out what’s most important. The thinking is that when they’re in combat situations they’ll always have too much to do and will have to be able to prioritize in an instant.

I couldn’t help draw parallels to how freelance writers and other self-employed people operate. We always have too much to do. The trick is to figure out which things demand your attention right now and do those first.

That’s sometimes easier said than done, especially when you have conflicting high priority tasks.

Lately I’ve put all my work and non-work to-dos into one big weekly list and picked off the stuff that’s feels most important first and let the rest sit there. Some things roll over week to week because they’re not that critical. I almost always have 10 to 15 low-priority items waiting to get taken care of (we will replace the ugly green couch in the family room some day, right after I file the piles of papers sitting in my office and hang the pictures we took down when we painted last February). When it’s the end of the day or a weekend and I’ve finished a big project but still have work time to burn, I try to knock a few off the list.

I’m also a firm believer in outsourcing household or work-related tasks to clear the decks for work. I use a travel agent to book business trips. I pay for house cleaners, a yard crew and to have groceries delivered.  I minimize routine chores by grouping them together once a day or once a week.

Still, there are times when even the best time-saving tricks aren’t enough.

So I’m asking: if your schedule’s gotten busier, how do you handle it? How do you prioritize?

Newspapers like the Oregonian may never reach the same level of readers or advertising they once had. But that doesn’t mean the news is going away.

Around Portland and the state, hyperlocal news sites, blogs, and other fledgling news efforts are popping up to take over where traditional media outlets have left off.

That’s the message that came through from journalists – including me – who discussed about the local media scene on this morning’s installment, Rebirth of Local Journalism, on Think Outloud, Oregon Public Broadcasting’s morning public affairs show.

In case you missed it, here’s a stream of the complete, 60 minute broadcast. Yours truly comes on at about minute 37 (give or take a minute or two).

The Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, is operating under federal bankruptcy protection. So is the parent company of the Orange County Register. Ditto for the holding company that owns the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Daily News and Philly.com.

When it comes to the newspaper industry, everybody’s a nonprofit. even if they never intended to be – because everybody’s losing money.

In the wake of the disastrous effect the economy has had on the newspaper business and public’s changing appetite for how they consume news, more groups are popping up around the country to offer news on a nonprofit basis.

One of the most well-known to date is the VoiceofSanDiego.org, started four years ago and today 11 journalists strong. Minneapolis-based MinnPost is another. There’s also ProPublica, the investigative outfit headed by former Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul Steiger. Ann Imse, a former OC Register colleague of mine who was a casualty of the Rocky Mountain News’ closing earlier this year, is working on putting together a nonprofit news venture in Denver. The staff at VoiceofSanDiego says they field calls from journalists wanting to know how to put a nonprofit newsroom together on an almost weekly basis.

That brings us to Portland, where thriving tech, creative and media communities have already spawned lots of local online and hyperlocal news publications, as well as a budding digital journalism community.

Now it looks like the Rose City could be the next metropolis to host a nonprofit news experiment. A group of media veterans have combined forces on a master plan to establish a nonprofit investigative news agency that would cover the greater metro area. The group, which registered the domain name WeMaketheNews.com and put up a website at that address this week, hopes to kick off its efforts with a day-long conference on Saturday, Nov. 21, at the University of Oregon’s Turnbull Center in the Old Town neighborhood in downtown Portland. The event’s being backed by Oregon Public Broadcasting and The City Club of Portland.

Among the minds behind the venture: Ron Buell, the founding editor and publisher of Willamette Week; Oregonian arts columnist Barry Johnson; Digital Journalism Portland conference organizer Abraham Hyatt; OPB news vice president Morgan Holm, and others.

Full disclosure: I’ve met with Buell, and agreed to participate as a panelist at the conference (I guess as a female independent writer who gets the tech stuff and recently attended the Online News Association’s annual confab, I’m a lot of interest groups rolled into one). That’s the extent of my involvement so far.

Does Portland need another news agency to compete against, or work with established organizations including the Oregonian, OPB, Oregon Business, Portland Monthly, the Portland Business Journal and Daily Journal of Commerce, Pamplin’s Portland Tribune and its various suburban weeklies, Portland Mercury, the Portland Sentinel and other print and online papers and blogs that cover the area’s neighborhoods and interest groups? I don’t know. But I’m willing to listen.

The WeMaketheNews.com conference is limited to 200. Tickets are $25. Sign up here.

Hyperlocal news is hot.

As newspapers shrink, more people turn to the Internet for information and easy-to-use online content management tools flourish, hyperlocal news ventures are popping up everywhere.

In advance of my presentation on hyperlocal news at Digital Journalism Camp tomorrow in Portland, I’m putting together a list of resources that might be helpful if you’re contemplating writing for one of these ventures, or starting one yourself.

What is hyperlocal news? It’s coverage of current events happening in a community written and published entirely online. How you define coverage, events and community varies. Right off the bat I can think of hyperlocal news ventures that cover:

• A city or town
• Individual neighborhoods within a city or town
• A specific industry, topic or subculture within a given city or community
• A multi-state region

The “news” part of hyperlocal news also varies. Some hyperlocal ventures operate like newspapers, covering local government as a civic watchdog, as well as publishing other news, features, entertainment and sports. Other hyperlocal ventures zero in on a specific topic, like biking or books.

Some hyperlocal ventures are hybrids, like The Portland Sentinel, which will be represented on the Digital Journalism Camp panel. The Sentinel publishes news about North and NE Portland daily online and puts out a print edition once a month.

Some hyperlocal news sites are one-person operations that look, read and act more like blogs than newspapers, with stories and posts that with a strong opinion and point of view. Others adopt a more neutral tone and look more like traditional newspaper Websites.

Here are some resources for starting a hyperlocal news site:

• GrowthSpur – A just-announced venture started by journalist, entrepreneur and WashingtonPost.com co-founder Mark Potts. The start up will provide tools and services to “that will take a lot of the guesswork out of starting or running local sites and turn them into successful, sustainable businesses,” according to Potts’ July 30 announcement.
• Outside.in – Another start-up, with a tool called Outside.in for Publishers that creates “an out-of-the-box hyperlocal news section for your website.”
• EveryBlock – Hyperlocal news blog operating in 11 major cities, with four more in beta tests.
• Placeblogger – Blog platform and directory.
• Patch – Hyperlocal blog platform builder created by team of media industry veterans.

Here are some resources for keeping tabs on hyperlocal news ventures. If you know of others let me know and I’ll add them.

• Knight Citizen News Network Directory of Citizen Media Sites – Listing of 800 hyperlocal news sites in the United States, with an interactive map and downloadable Excel spreadsheet. (This is not up to date because there’s nothing listed in Oregon.)
• HyperlocalBlogger.com – Covers developments in the hyperlocal news business. Check out their series, Starting a hyperlocal blog.
• Hyperlocal news sites listing – From Hyperlocal World, British-based blog that tracks all things hyperlocal.
• WikiCity – The city wiki project hopes to create a location-based blogroll directory to will serve as a list of hyperlocal news sites.
• BlogCatalog – Lists about two dozen hyperlocal blogs.

You can follow the hyperlocal news panel discussion and other sessions at Digital Journalism Camp on this conference feed.

I’m teaching a class on journalism basics at Digital Journalism Camp here in Portland this Saturday, Aug. 1.

To get ready, I’m asking writers going to the camp, as well as WordCount readers and my crews on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to help me decide what topics to cover in the presentation.

I talk up the benefits of crowdsourcing in other aspects of freelance work, so I figured this is a good opportunity to practice what I preach.

The class is geared to entry-level reporters, writers and bloggers who’d like to learn some tricks of the trade from a old fart veteran. The class could also be helpful to freelancers or citizen journalists who’ve come to writing or blogging from a different career and need a better mastery of the basics, including doing research, finding sources, making corrections and prepping for interviews.

If you’re coming to Digital Journalism Camp, or will be reading the live blogs or tweets from conference sessions, what should I cover? Use this poll to tell me what you’d like to see. Feel free to provide additional feedback using the comments section.

If you can’t make it to the conference and don’t follow the tweets, I’ll be sharing some of my tips and tricks here in coming weeks.

I’m putting in one more plug for Digital Journalism Camp, a free, one-day conference covering a variety of writing and new media topics that will take place Saturday, Aug. 1, at the offices of the Oregonian here in Portland.

What is Digital Journalism Camp? According to Abraham Hyatt, a friend and fellow Portland freelancer who’s organizing it:

This isn’t about bloggers vs. reporters, or old media vs. new media. We’re all on the same team. And this conference is about how we, as journalists, are innovating right now — what’s working, what’s not, and how we can get better at what we do.

As of this afternoon, close to 120 reporters, writers and other media types were registered – good for networking!

I’m will be moderating a 10 a.m. panel on hyperlocal news with panelists from The Portland Sentinel, NeighborhoodNotes.com and CapitolHillSeattle. Then at 11 a.m., I’ll be teaching a class on journalism basics, including finding sources, fact checking and making corrections.

Because this is a camp style conference, and because it’s Portland and even the journalists here are tech geeks, there’ll be an unconference going on in one of the rooms all day – which means in the morning, everyone who’s there will collectively decide what topics will be covered in that space.

• Here’s the complete schedule.
• Here’s a list of speakers, panelists and moderators.
• Here’s where to sign up.

If you can’t be there, you can follow along on Twitter using the hashtag #journpdx – I’ll be tweeting from the conference, though not during my own presentations.

You can follow @journopdx now for updates in advance of the conference.

See you there.

A while back, I urged freelance writers who were thinking of working for content sites like Helium.com or Demand Studios to take a stab at hyperlocal news instead.

Hyperlocal news is a catch-all phrase that describes websites or blogs devoted to covering a city, town or neighborhood, or a specific beat within a city or neighborhood like biking, books or tech start ups. Think of them as the 21st century equivalent of the neighborhood paper you used to pick up on the street corner, or the weekly paper your parents subscribed to so they could read about your high school sports teams.

Hyperlocal news ventures have popped up around the country, and I’ve mentioned several successful ones here before, including SealBeachDaily.com and NewzJunky.

If you’re interested in learning more about hyperlocal news, and you live within driving distance of Portland, plan now to attend a panel discussion on hyperlocal news I’m moderating at Portland’s Digital Journalism Camp on Saturday, Aug. 1.

Digital Journalism Camp PDX is a free one-day conference on the future of journalism and what it means to media practitioners. To date, close to 85 journalists, bloggers and freelance writers have signed up to attend.

Camp-style conferences - very popular right now in tech circles – are less formal than traditional conferences and normally include a mix of sessions on pre-determined topics along with sessions conference goers choose once they get there.

Organizer and Portland freelance writer Abraham Hyatt is still putting the finishing touches on the Digital Journalism Camp agenda. But the day is likely to include discussions of digital storytelling, podcasting, SEO for journalists, new media revenue models and more.

The hyperlocal news panel I’m moderating will feature proprietors of three ventures in Portland and Seattle:

• Cornelius Swart, publisher and managing editor, Portland Sentinel, a neighborhood newspaper in North Portland with a strong online component.
• Ken Aaron, co-founder, Neighborhood Notes, a news and entertainment site that covers Portland’s four quadrants.
• Justin Carder, Neighborlogs, a Seattle hyperlocal news site.

For a little preview of what we’ll be talking about, here’s Justin Carder’s analysis of how much money he thinks he’ll make this year at Neighborlogs, roughly $14,000.

Digital Journalism Camp takes place Saturday, Aug. 1, 9:30 a.m. to mid-afternoon and will be held at The Oregonian (yes, we get the irony too), 1320 SW Broadway, Portland, Oregon 97201.

Even though it’s free, space is limited, so sign up early.

I’ll be posting more information about the camp as it’s available. You can also follow camp news on Twitter at @journopdx.

I spent Monday afternoon talking to small business owners at the ShopSymposium/09 conference here in Portland. The subject of the panel discussion I participated in: how small business owners can use social media without having it take over their lives.

That’s not all the panel discussion covered – to track everything that was mentioned do a Twitter Search of #ss09. But productivity is definitely one of the main things small business owners worry about. That and creating a social media strategy in the first place, which can be intimidating. The key, according to the dozens of small business owners, consultants and industry experts I’ve interviewed, is to take it one step at a time.

As promised, I’ve compiled a resource guide to stories and blog posts I’ve written on social media basics and how small business owners can use it in various aspects of running their companies.

If you were at Shop/09, be sure to say hi or leave a comment. If you weren’t, I’d love to hear what social networking issues you’re grappling with. And don’t forget to find me on Twitter at @michellerafter and on LinkedIn at michellerafter.

The tools

• The secret to my LinkedIn success – Advice on using the business network aimed primarily at writers but applicable to any solo entrepreneur.
• There is no such thing as a dumb Twitter question – After avoiding the Twitter phenomena for a long time, I figured out how to start making it work for me.
• A writer’s guide to getting the most from Twitter – More basics applicable to any small business or sole practitioner.
• How to start a business podcast – 10 rules to create an podcast that will attract listeners and boost business. From IncTechnology.com

The strategies

• Michelle’s social media maxims – Compiled for a recent Willamette University MBA Program First Thursday presentation. No. 1 – Everybody’s doing it, but not everybody knows what they’re doing.
• My TwiTip guest post: When one Twitter account isn’t enough – Use different accounts for different aspects of your business, work and life.
• LinkedIn’s corporate play takes aim at recruiters – A new suite of prospecting tools LinkedIn hopes will appeal to the recruiters and HR professionals among its 35 million members. From Workforce Management
• Turn social networks into your recruiter – If corporate headhunters can mine Facebook for job candidates, small businesses can too. From IncTechnology.com
• Sex sells, and other blogging lessons learned – Good headlines attract attention, especially on blogs. That’s just one of the things I learned in my first year as a blogger.

The problems

• Taming Twitter: Did they really just say that? – Forward-thinking companies are mitigating the risks of social networks by designating Twitter reps and updating electronic communication guidelines. From Workforce Management
• Tech security forecast for 2009 – Experts predict more malware and attacks from mobile devices and social networks. From IncTechnology.com
• Social network scams – Welcome to the latest online hustle. From YourSecurityResource.com

Whether you’re ready for it or not, social media is changing the way people do business. That was more than apparent at Willamette University MBA program’s First Thursday lecture series last night where I talked about how companies are using social media.

A full house of close to 60 people packed the Living Room Theaters space to learn about LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media tools companies are using to do product research, reach out to customers and recruit employees. We shared lots of examples of how companies are putting social media into action, and what can happen when tools like Twitter get misused.

As promised, I’m providing some of the resources I used during our discussion. If you were at our meetup, thanks for coming – I’d love to continue our conversation on LinkedIn or Twitter. If you weren’t there, reading some of following will give you a taste of what we talked about.

Resources: I compiled a list of Websites and stories about how companies are using social media on Delicious, the social bookmarking service. To see them you need an account, which you can get by signing up here. Then do the following:

• Go to Network
• Go to Add a user to Network.
• Type in my user name, “michellerafter”. Click on my user name to see my bookmarks.
• Do a keyword search for “WillametteMBA” to see Websites I bookmarked especially for the First Thursday meetup. Happy reading.

Follow me: If you’d like to keep the conversation going, feel free to follow me on Twitter at @michellerafter. On LinkedIn, I’m Michelle Vranizan Rafter. Watch for my stories about social media in Workforce Management, an HR industry trade magazine; Inc.’s tech website, IncTechnology.com; and on two websites for consumers, YourSecurityResource.com and TheGeekWeekly.com.

Here are a few things I’ve learned over the years of covering this topic:

Michelle’s Social Media Maxims

1. Everybody’s doing it, but not everybody knows what they’re doing. There’s no right way or wrong way to use social media, only the best way for what you or your company wants to accomplish.

2. You don’t need to know everything, but it helps to know people who do or who know at least a little more than you. The great thing about social media is you can find experts or resources on just about everything, and add to the giant pool of knowledge as you learn.

3. It’s all about the conversation – Business today is a two-way street. The one-to-many broadcast model is outdated – just ask newspapers about that. Customers and suppliers want to have conversations with you. Figure how the best way to make that happen.

4. It’s not about the tools, it’s how you use them. You don’t need the fastest, newest, zippiest stuff, despite what the IT department tells you. Use what works for you. Twitter is great but it’s also gotten people in trouble.

5. Have a plan – and make sure everybody knows what it is. If you’re blogging, podcasting or tweeting on the company’s behalf, know what you can and can’t talk about. Companies should revise guidelines to include social media and make sure employees know the drill.

6. You don’t have to be 25 to get it, or to get a job doing it. Let people who don’t know life without the Internet do what they know. Let people who’ve been around since before there was an Internet lend perspective.

7. Teach your boss what you learn, you’ll be a hero.

8. When in doubt, ask your ‘friends’ – but first make sure you have some. Create a profile on LinkedIn, sign up for Twitter. Invite colleagues, former colleagues, suppliers, people you know from associations or trade groups join you. When you have a problem, throw it out to the crowd. Make sure you don’t give away company secrets or initiatives that’ll get you in trouble.

9. Borrow from the best – why reinvent the wheel when you can learn from others who’ve already done it.

10. If I can do it, you can too.