Screenshot from Aarti Shahani's NPR piece

Aarti Shahani has a great radio piece about Zynga Inc., the company behind apps and online games including FarmVille and Words with Friends. The segment features CEO Mark Pincus, who declares at one point “I’m not the best speller” while playing Scramble with Friends.

Aside from great quotes and audio from inside the company, Aarti also offers analogies to help readers comprehend information. For instance, she notes that the 15 terabytes of data a day that company collects equals the 5 million copies of “War and Peace.” For that, she says, she had to call her technological literate brother.

Today’s Tip: Radio requires listening for moments when the voice is memorable, Aarti says.

Radio is a new medium for Aarti, who recently finished her graduate studies at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Unlike print, you have to listen for tonal language and write a script around it versus just looking for great quotes, she says.

“It forces you to listen to your sources more richly,” Aarti says. “In radio, the voice of the source is more powerful.”

She also says radio requires conveying information quickly. Her segment, which ran on NPR’s Morning Edition, is five minutes long. The introduction to her segment gives listeners some perspective. For instance, we learn that Pincus is worth $1.3 billion.

To provide more factoids, she wrote a separate web version, she says.

By Flickr user Blatant World

President Obama will address Congress and the nation Tuesday, Jan. 24, in the annual State of the Union speech.

It’s tempting, especially in an election year, to dismiss this staged event – and the many state-of-the-state addresses the nation’s governor’s are making this month and next – as pomp, theater and empty rhetoric.  But like all ‘watercooler talkers’ it’s a decent peg for a variety of angles for business journalists:

Past performance.  It’s a good time to interview business leaders, from small firms to large corporations, about the effects and efficacy of some of the major initiatives President Obama has launched during State of the Union speeches.

In 2009, fresh into office, the president discussed the just-signed $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, as the stimulus bill is formally known.  You can investigate local recipients at Recovery.gov using an interactive state map to find recipients of loans, grants and federal contracts tied to the stimulus bill.  You can even do a ZIP code search to find projects in your immediate neighborhoods.

In 2010 the president focused on jobs and health care reform, and in last year’s speech he proposed corporate tax cuts, federal investment in emerging sectors and eliminating subsidies to oil companies.

You can find the full text of previous State of the Union speeches at WhiteHouse.gov; you might comb through prior ones to find nuggets and proposals relevant to the companies and sectors you cover, and then ask a sampling of managers and executives if they saw any fruition from the proposals or subsequent new federal acts like the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010.

Business outlook.   Obviously this is a great opportunity to check in with area business leaders, trade groups, professional associations, unions, regional economists, turnaround consultants and the myriad other entities you interview throughout the year for their take on what the president needs to do (or indeed, if a president can even be a ‘jobs creator’ in the first place) to continue to grow the economy.   The next few days are ripe for alternative storytelling like Q&A, executive quotes, panel discussions, text and video blogs and any other format in which the above stakeholders can convey their top priorities for 2012 legislation and government spending.  Try to force them to go beyond the usual ‘lower taxes and less regulation’ rhetoric and point to specific rules, laws and aid that would make  a material difference in jobs, revenue and profits.

State addresses.   Some state of the state speeches are in the can already, but you still can apply some of the above reporting strategies to ferret out details about business priorities in your region.  Here’s a handy chart of dates (and links to speeches already made) by Stateline.org.   Don’t forget to take a good look at state spending plans for 2012 too; organizations like the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Pew Center for the States are good go-to sources for analysis and round-ups of state revenue and spending issues.

By Flickr user Brad.L.Owens

It’s the start of a new year but it appears the same stories will dominate financial journalism in 2012:  the jobs market (or lack thereof), prices and inflation, financial industry regulation, health care, overseas economic crisis and the U.S. securities markets.

All worthy and interesting, but sometimes you just want to exercise your creativity, reporting skills and writing flair with some substantive yet fun business features that will entertain you and your readers but provide useful or thought-provoking information.

I’m all about quirky, so here to kick off the week are a few ideas that have been idling on my desktop lately:

Girl Scout cookie season.   According to this Girl Scouts blog, the cookie enterprise – with some $700 million in annual sales — is the nation’s largest female-run enterprise.  So even if you aren’t into stories about baked goods, this month’s kick-off of the annual sweets sale is an excellent peg for looking at the business and financial clout of women in your community.  You can check proxy statements of your state’s publicly owned companies for the presence of high-paid women execs, or go through the Small Business Administration to find women-owned government contractors, or go through professional groups like the National Association of Women Business Owners to find success stories in your area.  Maybe your area supplies some of the ingredients for Girl Scout cookies, which are baked by two major companies, according to this Girl Scout Cookie FAQ.

Many readers would enjoy a state-of-the-pastry report, though – I saw a TV report recently that said the cupcake is out and the layer cake is in; what are your local bakeries, patisseries, food distributors, grocery stores and other outlets or manufacturers seeing in terms of demand for baked goods?   What variations, like gluten-free, sugar-free, nut-free etc. are growing in popularity and how do these niches affect bakery business models, costs, etc?

It’s also the 100th anniversary of Girl Scout Cookies; a timely reminder to look for other anniversary pegs about businesses in your area.

Kodak nears bankruptcy?   This NPR report does a good job of summarizing the digital downfall of Kodak, once the cutting-edge imaging technology firm.  The notion that this former Dow Industrial stalwart is passe will be stunning to a lot of readers who once aspired to its Instamatics.  And it made me think about the myriad obsolete products that not only have experienced their own demise but have made unnecessary the niche retailers that sold and serviced them.  Camera shops or watch and clock shops, for example, were common entities on every Main Street along with typewriter repair outlets and vaccuum cleaner/sewing machine emporiums.  All of the above, if they haven’t been replaced by multi-function cell phones, are readily available at Target and Kmart.  Not a new story, of course, but if you have a decaying business district or other small-business crisis in your community, a look at the contrast between dying and growing technologies might be interesting.

Another angle:  Where has all that photo processing equipment gone?  Are there places that recycle the chemical-heavy baths and conveyors that produced prints before digital imaging?  What happened to all of the machines formerly in drug stores, discount stores and other fast-foto enterprises?

Friday the 13th.   I’ve addressed this before – it’s not a major story but there’s enough financial and stock market superstition – not to mention shadow over local bingo halls, casinos and other games of chance – to make a look at this previous blog post worth  your while for idea nuggets.

Atlas Van Lines migration trends survey.  Just had to include this in case you missed it, and as fodder for thinking beyond the immediate headlines; the moving firm recently published is annual migration trends survey - and there’s nothing to stop you from interviewing other local or franchised moving companies about what activity in your region portends.   One story I’ve yearned to do:  Visit the areas that are meccas for ex-patriots of my state – North Carolina, for example, is a magnet for despairing Michiganians – and find out how people are faring a year or two after pulling up stakes.  If your region is either a draw for disgruntled workers or a sieve leaking talent to other areas, try following up with migrants to find out if their moves ended up making financial sense.

By Flickr user henofthewood

Only a few days until the 2012 International CES kicks off – the annual consumer electronics show in Las Vegas – and that’s plenty of time to find a local tie or two to this annual gadgetry extravanganza which runs Jan. 10-13.

Even if your turf isn’t home to an electronics maker, you still may be able to develop consumer technology stories or profiles of local small businesses that play a role in the tech conference.  To help you find exhibitors from your region, the CES’s exhibitor directly is seachable by geographic terms as well as product category.  Don’t forget to check the speaker directory and conference session agenda to see if execs from your area play any out-front roles.

An extensive media resource channel might also lead you to local connections.  The enGadget blog also has extensive advance coverage that may help you with ideas, and if you’re curious about the show ambience, the Spike cable network promises live coverage.

Barring anything else, this mother of all trade shows is a good reminder to check out the show calenders for venues in your region or for events important to the firms you cover.  From big-ticket durable goods shows — autos, RVs, boats — to expos for pet products to professional get-togethers, watching the conference and convention scene can lead to opportunities for networking and sourcing with suppliers and other players you might ordinarily not encounter.  Attendance and sales figures from consumer-goods shows like boating expos reflect consumer spending and the health of manufacturing sectors.  The agendas of trade group meetings can help you understand the concerns, priorities, lobbying efforts and other behind-the-scenes business of just about any line of business or occupation.  EventsInAmerica.com bills itself as the top online trade show directory; it’s searchable by state, city and keyword to help you narrow your focus.

Don’t forget about vendors to exhibition halls and trade-show participants, too.  This Trade Show Blog by a motivational products company is a good reminder that the conference circuit is an industry unto itself.  I once talked with a man who followed auto shows all around the country, working as a detailer to keep the rolling iron polished and glitzy from L.A. to Detroit.  Union tradespersons, trucking companies, carpet providers, audio-visual experts, caterers, cleaning companies, hotels, even florists and performing artists are just some of the types of businesses that depend on conferences and conventions for a good chunk of their annual revenue.  With creativity you can turn up quirky stories about hot giveaways or trends in expo hall food or security concerns in these little temporary villages that materialize, perform their annual rites and then vanish for another 51 weeks. 

Laurie Segall’s article for CNNMoney gets right to the point with its headline: “What’s really behind Twitter’s staff exodus?” She reports:

“The speed and depth of Twitter’s staff purge caught many by surprise — including some of the company’s own employees.”

Laurie’s story relies on “those with an eye on the changes.” You can’t get to them without good sourcing.

Today’s Tip: “There’s a big tech community – my advice is get inside of it,” Laurie says.

Laurie Segall

“Go to dinners, events, and keep in touch with people you’ve covered.”

She also suggests using common connections to meet people, not just through sites such as LinkedIn. For more tips on finding sources inside companies, check out:

• A quick video demo on how to find sources on Twitter, LinkedIn and Quora.
• My previous post about how Reuters reporters got inside the Federal Reserve.
• New York Times reporter Diana B. Henriques’ tips on getting beyond flacks and developing sources inside companies.
• Three-time Pulitzer winner Walt Bogdanich’s tips on how to get people to talk to you.

Effective in January, interstate truck and bus drivers will be prohibited from using hand-held cell phones while operating their vehicle. Credit: Truckers News

I’ve been surprised, though, at how most journalists are seeking commentary from private individual and getting little input from truck drivers, small businesses and other commercial concerns whose traveling workers might use cell phones for more than ordinary yakking and info on what to pick up at the grocery store.

As you know, the NTSB recommendation is just a suggestion; the U.S. Department of Transportation or the states themselves would have to enact it.  And in fact,  35 states already ban texting for all drivers, and many ban cell phone use by school bus pilots and beginning motorists; see this handy chart from the National Conference of State legislatures, which also has other distracted driving material in its website’s transportation channel.   Editorials like this one from the Palm Beach Post already are calling a full-out ban “unlikely.”

But one ban you may not have heard of is about to take effect Jan. 3:  Interstate truck drivers no longer will be allowed to use hand-held devices, on pain of fines of $2,750 per violation.  This is a story worth looking into as workplace issue, a regulatory and compliance issue and an expense or liability issue for drivers and their employers.  Driver associations, for example, already are saying that enforcement of the new rule promulgated by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will be enforced.

Here’s a list of major U.S. trucking firms from Yahoo! Finance; chances are some are in your backyard and if they handle interstate business, a business feature about how they plan to handle compliance, disciplinary action, driver education and other factors related to the ban could be quite interesting; the DOT has said that some 4 million drivers will be affected.  Your state transportation department can probably also direct you to local firms and driver associations.  Unions like the International Brotherhood of Teamsters may also be helpful on both the local and intrastate cell phone issues. If you have satellite radio, check out the trucking network; call-in program participants often divulge interesting behind-the-scenes info about the industry and you might hear some nuggets to follow up on.

Many third-party firms sell gadgets like on-board cameras, monitors that track driver behavior, driver education services and other safety-related consulting or hardware needs of the trucking industry; you might seek out some of these companies in your area for a fresh angle on how changes in laws ripple through the industry to create work and jobs for consultants.  And here’s an interesting column from TodaysTrucking.com that cites surveys which purport to show no significant risk for crash involvement by cell-phone using drivers.

This Seattle Times article gave a nod to the effect of a local ban on contractors and small businesses; you could enlarge upon that for a more detailed reaction story about the ways area businesses and commercial drivers use cell phones these days, and what a ban on all on-the-road communication might cost them in terms of time and money.

“Every day, China, Russia, Iran and others are blatantly stealing reams of information from U.S.-owned computers.  This unprecedented heist, at an estimated cost of $1 trillion per year worldwide, includes the theft of the crown jewels of our economy: intellectual property created by American ingenuity and housed on corporate computer networks across our nation.” (Reps. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., writing in Politico)

Is the $1 trillion figure Rogers and Ruppersberger cite just another big number, or is it something more?

It might be something less.

This $1 trillion loss can’t be nailed down. We can’t even be sure what it represents.  “Gen. Keith Alexander, head of Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, has estimated that the U.S. has lost $1 trillion in intellectual property,”  Colin Clark writes at AOL Defense. Wait. The congressmen said “worldwide.”

“Recent studies indicate that the federal government and U.S. companies lose about $1 trillion a year in intellectual property and other proprietary information taken by cyberthieves,” writes Matthew Hansen at the Omaha World-Herald. He cites no such studies.

The photo in the Department of Homeland Security is from an op-ed piece on Politico that cites $1 trillion in cyberthievery.

If there is such a study, I can’t find it, and I’m pretty good at finding stuff. FTI Forensic and Litigation Consulting, in an advertising flier, cites a Federal Reserve report when it says “United States businesses today invest as much in intellectual property and other intangible assets, about $1 trillion, as they do in equipment, factories and other physical investments.” The report, by Leonard I. Nakamura for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, does say that, but it’s 10 years old. So today, we are expected to believe that the U.S. (or worldwide; who knows?) loss from intellectual-property theft is as much as the total U.S. investment. That seems unlikely in the absence of documentation.

Keep following the number. Eventually it will lead you to a post by Robert Richardson, director of the Computer Security Institute, who apparently was as curious as I was about where the $1 trillion came from. He thinks the source is a report from the computer security firm McAfee, even though the figure can’t be found there, either. The McAfee CEO came up with it in interviews about the report.

So, when a couple of congressmen write an opinion piece for you that includes an unsubstantiated number, do you let it slide?  Politico did. You shouldn’t.

This Oregonian video takes viewers on a walk-through of Facebook’s new data center in Prineville, Ore.

Mike Rogoway of The Oregonian put together a three-part series looking at the proliferation in Oregon of server farms or data centers, which, as he writes, are the “physical manifestations of the cloud that hosts your free Gmail, movie streams and Facebook friends.” He writes:

They’re here for the cheap power — a big data center can gobble up more electricity than a small town — and the mild climate that keeps their hard-working computers cool. Above all, they’re here for tax breaks that make Oregon a relative bargain for companies that can spend $1 billion or more on a single facility.

Mike Rogoway

Mike reports that the companies were very secretive about their Oregon facilities to gain a competitive advantage and to avoid negative publicity over their energy use. In part two of the series, he tells of the lengths that Google went through six years ago to keep its center a secret. Aside from a lack of signage, the company also obscured its buildings from Google Maps’ aerial view of the property, the story says.

Today’s Tip: Finding data centers may not be as hard as you think.

Mike says many dedicated data-hosting companies make locations public. For instance:

• Facebook has a Facebook page for its sites in Oregon, North Carolina and Sweden.

• Google lists big locations on its website.

• Other companies announce locations as part of tax deals with local governments, which is what Apple did in announcing its North Carolina data center, he says.

• Job listings also can provide clues. He says data-hosting company Rackspace lists data-center jobs at six sites around the world. For tips on using LinkedIn to discern hiring at new locations, see this self-guided training led by Sean Campbell, a competitive-intelligence expert who specializes in the technology industry.

President Obama has signed into law a major overhaul of the nation's patent system

President Obama signed the America Invents Act, a sort of patent-approval reform, on Friday — which makes now a good time for ferreting out some interesting innovation, inventing and technology stories on your beat.

The bill – reportedly the first major patent overhaul since 1952, which is sort of mind-boggling when you consider the technology changes and explosion humankind has experienced in the past 60 years — aims to reduce the backlog of 1.2 million applications currently languishing in Washington, D.C.     Currently, reports say, it now takes an average of three years for an application to be approved, with some 700,000 still awaiting a first review.

Here’s a Q&A on the act from the Washington Post with even more factoids.

Clearly this is a topic ripe for discussion with the companies and entrepreneurs on your beat.  From incremental tweaks of existing systems and devices to completely new ideas, what is sitting idle on local drawing boards due to a stagnant approvals process, and what do companies say the delay is costing your local economy?  (Clearly there’s room for bias if not outright ranting in whatever answers you get, but the questions will get a discussion going.)

How do you find would-be patent holders, or those who have navigated the process?  Start with the federal database.
The search facilities on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website aren’t the easiest to use but I was able to find local companies through the Patent Application Full Text and Image Database.  Use advanced search; I typed in IS/MI in the query box (Inventor state/state abbreviation code) and got more than 60,000 hits on items ranging from software that analyzes “social writing” to refined versions of auto components to a headless sprinkler system and a “lavatory dispensing device.”    Individuals and companies seeking patents are listed; you may have to sift through some stale or tangential hits in response to your search (only one of several co-applicants may be in your state, for example) but it’s worth a shot.

At a more grass roots level, try organizations like the United Inventors Association, which includes a list of inventors clubs on its website. Here’s an About.com list of state or regional inventors’ groups.

And obviously, business incubators, often associated with tech corridors or universities, are another good place to find would-be inventors.  The National Business Incubation Association may be able to put you in touch with member groups in your market; check its news feed as well for story nuggets related to industries you cover.

Wired's David Kravets wrote about limits to patent reform. Click to see his story.

Find patent attorneys and consultants through your state bar association; they can lead you to clients affected pro or con by the new law, which includes a controversial change in who gets ‘dibs’ on the right to file a patent in the first place and a possible expedited-service fee that some say is unfair to entrepreneurs who can’t afford it.  The online IPWatchdog publication offers many articles and opinions about the America Invents Act and intellectual property issues in general; I don’t vouch for the site’s objectivity but it certainly is a window into current matters of concern and can help you develop questions for local interviews.

The annual meeting of the Association of Intellectual Property Firms takes place this week as well; check out the agenda for firms representing your region (they’re mostly legal advisers) and topics that relate to your subjects.

Alan Deutschman, Reynolds Chair of Business Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, is interviewed about Steve Jobs’ resignation on Bloomberg Television.

Alan Deutschman

What has set Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs apart from other business leaders? It’s not his charisma or his genius but his willingness to take risks, according to Alan Deutschman, Reynolds Chair of Business Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Jobs announced his resignation as Apple’s CEO yesterday; he will remain as chairman. Deutschman is the author of  “The Second Coming of Steve Jobs” and is working on a new book about Silicon Valley.

Deutschman told Bloomberg Television that “One-to-one, no one is as compelling, as charismatic, as seductive as Steve Jobs.”

“The issue is,” Deutschman said, “who is going to take the kind of extraordinary risks that only Steve Jobs in American business could take?”

In a New York Times story yesterday, Deutschman said of Jobs: “He doesn’t market-test anything. It’s all his own judgment and perfectionism and gut.”

Deutschman is one of four chairs in business journalism funded by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, which also finances the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism.