Prompted by the Third Coast & Everyblock ShortDocs challenge, I made this radio story about my neighbors in the Village Trailer Park. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment!

Check out other great stories that were made for the festival here.

Once you’ve set up the Facebook, the Twitter, etc. what are you going to say with them? Social media requires a constant diet of fresh content. What’s the most effective and easiest for your organization to make? Our esteemed panelists will argue why their media of choice is the best for building support for your organization.

• Audio: Sara Harris, Hear in the City
• Blogging: Barbara Osborn, Liberty Hill 
• Photos: Jung Hee Choi, Community Coalition
• Video: Reanne Estrada, Public Matters

Here at TechSoup, we’re big on empowering nonprofits and libraries to make smart do-it-yourself technology choices since we know time, staff, and money are all limited resources.

This month, we’re examining the landscape of DIY blogging. Join us for this very exciting Nonprofits Live on March 21 at 11:00am PST, where we will feature nonprofit technology guests sharing their unique perspectives on everything from blog set up and effective strategies, to maintenance and growth best practices over time.

In this live, interactive event, experts and peers will answer your questions and share tips in a talk-show format. No high tech skills are necessary to participate: just a decent internet connection and your curiosity! RSVP to join the live show

I’m “curating” a panel on content creation at this great event that lasts from 8:30 – 4:30pm.

Location: Antioch University, 400 Corporate Pointe Culver City, CA 90230

Read more about the program and/or register at bit.ly/CNMSocialMediaDay2012

Registration includes free parking and lunch.

Immigration authorities held Antonio Montejano in jail for days even though he is a US citizen. Learn more about how Secure Communities affects U.S. citizens at http://www.aclu-sc.org

Videography by Loris Guzzetta. Production and editing by me.

Here’s more on the experience of making the segment (reposted from Transom.org):

After playing this piece at the Listening Event in Woods Hole, the first question I got was “Are you a reporter?” I said no but I did have concerns that the piece had become “newsy”. It wasn’t an intimate first person story but I do see it as the story of a government agency (New Bedford’s police) trying to build a relationship with a community of Central American immigrants.

From the outset, I was interested in doing something about immigration in Southeast Massachusetts. I have worked for immigrant rights nonprofits for most of my career but I didn’t want to make something that was straight up/in your face advocacy. Initially I wanted to focus on larger political implications around the federal “Secure Communities” program. But my teacher Rob and my classmates helped me refocus on interesting scenes I found, like the police officers’ Spanish class.

In fact, I considered making the Spanish class the overall focus of the piece but realized that I needed to bring in more voices. At the same time, I also have this tendency to gather more tape as a way to put off editing. I lucked out by attending the community meeting at Our Lady of Guadalupe and then stumbling on the band practice in the church basement. It was so interesting to me that these two isolated meetings where happening on the same day. Truthfully, if I had had more time, I would have liked to get into more stories like Diego’s or the other instances of violent crime I had heard about.

Due to the subject, juggling two languages was part of the production. Even so, I wondered why I chose something that added complexity. Plus here I was showcasing how much work my own Spanish pronunciation needs!

At the end of the day, the project really taught me a lot about boiling down complex issues to comprehensible stories. There was much more information to add but there just wasn’t time to gather or include it. While I could have mentioned the “Secure Communities” by name, I liked the way the story mentions the uncomfortable “love triangle” that the federal government plans to create in New Bedford and in other cities around the US. My hope is that the listener wants to know more.

• Read more from my teacher and classmates here.
• Apply to attend the Workshop in the spring here.

Transom Story Workshop participants on Halloween (that's me with the ear)

For the month of October and most of November, I’m participating in Transom.org‘s first-ever Radio Story Workshop. I’ve learned so much from the Transom website; it’s an even greater privilege to learn in person from these visionary radio producers.

“Why radio?” you may ask. Well, throughout my online work, I’m continually reminded that “content is king.” Nonprofits and foundations can set up all the blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts we want, but we still need to have something worthwhile and compelling to say with these tools. I figure that organizations can learn from radio producers about what it takes to craft stories that pull the audience in and create those “driveway moments” (when you can’t get out of the car for fear of missing the end of a great story). I’ve also been struck by the ways in which audio is such a fundamental element to digital media (i.e. videos without good audio are much harder to watch). And finally, I’m also curious about how to teach better storytelling to others.

The course is seven weeks long but it’s flying by. I’m learning lots. This week, my classmates and I took time to reflect on what we’ve learned so far. Here’s what I wrote:

One thing that struck me early on about the workshop (and radio in general) it’s a great excuse to talk to strangers.

I came to the Transom Story Workshop after years of working for various nonprofits that focus on large social and political issues. So the challenge for me has been boiling larger issues down to a story with one main idea (“that a seventh grader could grasp”). It’s so much more than pointing a mic (or a video camera) at someone and collecting their testimony. It’s about crafting something that gets at the heart of their story and pulls the listener in. That ain’t easy… but Rob Rosentahal is making it much easier to tackle.

Read comments from my classmates here.

Stay tuned for updates! In the meantime, you can follow our live tweets with #radiostory on Twitter and check out our photos below.