Sex & Startups

Mara Zapeda and I are friends with eerily similar paths in life: art kids becoming radio journalists turning into CEOs of tech companies. We're observing a lot of room for improvement in this startup world when it comes to measuring value. W e wrote about it in this Medium post.

In Conversation: Miranda July & Jennifer Brandel

Transom is a fantastic site for audio storytellers. They asked me if I'd like to interview someone I admired for their site. Miranda July was my #1 pick, and through the grace of awkward Tweets and her generosity, it happened. Read / hear the brilliant things she had to say, summed up in 9 key points, here.

HEARKEN

Helping journalists better serve their communities

Hearken is an audience-driven framework and platform enabling journalists to partner with the public throughout the reporting process, resulting in relevant and high performing content.

Hearken is supported by Matter VC, The Association of Independents in Radio, WBEZ Chicago, The Wyncote Foundation and The Ford Foundation.

Brandel is Co-founder and CEO of Hearken.

Questions are the new comments

An article and an argument for bringing the public in at the beginning of the story cycle, rather than the end. Hearken is a tool built for the cultivation and scalable management of audience curiosity.

Press on Hearken

Curious City creator Jennifer Brandel goes national

Brandel is featured on episode 22 of The Pub podcast from Current. She kicks it off, and then appears again at minute 20:30.

Back in 2012, Jennifer Brandel had the best new idea in local news that anyone has had in a long time. Rather than report the same old stories, ask the audience: What have you always been curious about? Use democratic online tools to pick the best questions, then go out and answer them as best you can. That was Curious City, a Localore project based at WBEZ in Chicago. It has since been imitated and replicated dozens of times over. In January, Brandel started Curious Nation, a spin-off company designed to help franchise the Curious City model to other cities. Last week, Curious Nation became Hearken, and with the new name comes a new and broader mission: to help journalists do work that better reflects the information needs and desires of their audience. Also this week: - We conclude last week’s investigation into why some national program producers are opting to self-distribute their shows - WHYY Vice President for News and Civic Dialogue Chris Satullo argues that stations shouldn’t just do journalism — they should support good community journalism, whoever is doing it