Here goes:

1 Developer
The developer should be a PHP Harry Potter, with a mastery of Wordpress and/or Drupal. It’d also be nice if this person had some Python chops and had some experience building web applications on Django. They should also have some experience using and managing databases. Some JavaScript skills wouldn’t hurt either. You won’t need a server administrator starting off, but the developer should also have some experience managing a hosting environment. Taped glasses would be optional, but some sort of geeky paraphernalia would be preferred.

1 Bad-Mother Designer
Far too many non-profit and community news startups suck in terms of presenting their content. You need to have a brand and it needs to look professional or hip or both. This person understands web usability and how to build a Web site that’s easy to navigate. This person is also experienced in theming in Wordpress and/or Drupal, having a scary-deep knowledge of XTHML and CSS. The designer should have a lot of experience with the Adobe Creative Suite and be able to produce graphics and ads for print and web. Experience using Flash services and plugins is a big plus.

3 Reporters
Each reporter should first and foremost be a solid journalist and have a hunger for practicing the craft. Second, they should be obsessive compulsive about learning. Part of being an inquisitive journalist is learning new techniques for documenting a story. I would worry more about getting extremely motivated people than candidates with specific technical skills. At the same time, I would try and get a least one candidate who has a really solid base taking video, photos and audio.

1 Editor/Customer Service Representative/Accountant/Evangelist/Cheerleader
The editor will work the most and set a high morale for the organization on a daily basis. It would not be an easy job, but it would sure be one hell of an exciting challenge.

This person would:

• Listen and respond to customer questions, problems and suggestions
• Edit and fact-check stories
• Serve as the spokesperson for the organization
• Organize coverage of planned events and stories
• Update and manage social networking sites
• Track expenses and revenues
• Keep an eye on the web/newswires
• What else??

The First Two Weeks
I would spend the first two weeks running a team and skill-building boot camp. Each person would lead sessions in their area of expertise. This would help build solidarity on the team and a good understanding of roles and workflow. How can we compliment each other? What are our strengths and weaknesses?

And I would do what every good solider does before heading into battle: field exercises. Take your team out on photo-walks, video-walks, audio-walks and get them familiar with how the equipment operates in the field. Better they make mistakes when the cost of screwing up is negligible.

I’d also incorporate social events (e.g. share a brewskie or two) and print team t-shirts. Do not underestimate the power of the t-shirt.

I would take at least one entire day a month to schedule a day for training, brainstorming and relaxing.

Why Start So Small?
It’s easier to find 6 really talented people than it is to find 12 right off the bat. Come on, you don’t even have a reputation to help attract people yet.

Start small and farm out what you can. There are a lot of free or cheap web services that can help boost your team’s productivity and save valuable hours. Start with a big staff (10 or more) and you’ve essentially tied yourself to the tracks already. There’s no need to accumulate that kind of debt and it’s important to keep your overhead low. All you really need is cheap office space with reliable Internet service.

A large media organization could easily adopt this model to form an internal startup. In fact, I wish they would do this more often. Generally, big news organizations that rely on centralized IT fail to utilize emerging technologies fast enough. The “guys at HQ” tend to be barriers, not an empowering force.

It’s extremely difficult to deploy and troubleshoot technologies across multiple TV stations or newspapers. Not only that, but it’s nearly impossible to keep up with the dozens, if not hundreds, of differing feature requests coming from each market. “We need this to do that.” The response sure as hell better not be “Get in line.” There’s simply no time to wait.

Questions I Have
One thing I’m unsure about is whether it makes sense to establish the focus/niche of the startup before making the first hires, or involving them in the process? Does anyone have any thoughts?

What would you do to build momentum in the first 6 months?

Would you pay everyone equally? I would tend to pay the developer and designer more, but I’m definitely biased.

What about creating a rotating Editorship between 4 reporters (e.g. a 1-week term)? This might help prevent people from burning out and also spread power and responsibility.

Bob Collins of Minnesota Public Radio had an interesting blog post yesterday in advance of the National Conference for Media Reform being held in the Twin Cities.

Collins interviewed Josh Silver, executive director and co-founder of Free Press. Silver seems to share some similar thoughts I recently blogged about.

Newspaper profits are going down, but there are profits nonetheless. There is a bright future for quality journalism. Monetization is not the big hurdle. The real challenge is developing business models that frame and support journalism as a public service, not as a share of stock.

“What we’re seeing is a direct connection between the corporatization of the media and the failure of the media to provide the kind of journalism that democracy requires,” Silver said.

Josh Silver. You are my new hero.

Listen to some excerpts from MPR (mp3s):

• Fed up with “what is posing as journalism.”
• Three areas of the media need reforming.
• Why shouldn’t reporters be cut if people aren’t buying newspapers?

Stay tuned for my post on my ideal staff for a metro news startup.

Metro daily newspapers like the Minneapolis Star-Tribune (Strib) might consider taking a day off from the news and try printing some cash. Avista Capital Partners, a private equity company that owns the Strib, recently wrote down its investment in the paper by 75 percent. Now, the Strib is looking to trim its budget by $20 million. Ouch.

As a journalist and someone who cares about the future of the profession I’m conflicted about the news. I mean that in both senses of the word. Part of me mourns as deteriorating financial conditions continue to strip newspapers of hard-working staff.

The other part wonders if we need to ask a hard question. Are big newspapers worth saving?

Asking that question does not mean we shouldn’t care about journalists working at those papers. Most of them are doing their job and doing it as best they can with limited resources. There’s nothing wrong with saving the journalists. It’s the sinking institutions I’m worried about.

So, why are big media gurgling and why am I sounding the horn to abandon ship? Newspapers (and television and radio, for that matter) no longer have a monopoly on information. They can no longer simply push out information and expect to be useful or sustainable. In many cases, out-of-whack profit margins are falling and circulation/viewership is in a nosedive. It’s time for a rebirth and new expectations.

Journalists provide a great public service and while the news business can certainly be profitable, I would like to see more non-profit ventures or at least journalism-centric businesses focused on financial sustainability. Journalists should worry about serving their community, not corporate overlords and their inflated valuations.

So, what can we do? I’ll tell you what I’d do.

(I’ll speak of the situation in the Twin Cities because it’s what I know best. I grew up in Minnesota and was a six-year resident of Minneapolis. I also had the chance to work at two mainstream media outlets while I was there. It’s a place I care about a lot.)

First and foremost, enable social networking. Place still matters, as do shared interests. People with similar interests can use social networking to communicate and form loose relationships with others in their community. It helps establish trust and can make it easier to meet in person and forge “real-world” friendships.

I joined the Twin Cities Flickr group in its infancy, attending the first meetup at a bar a little over two years ago. A few of us shared a few beers and took a photo or two, thinking it fun to see our photos of each other up on the site the next day. Now, the group has 1370 members, with many showing up for frequently-held photowalks.

A local news site should support and sponsor these interest groups or at the very least aggregate them (Meetup, Flickr, etc.).

A local news organization should also:

• Allow comments (video and text) on all of its stories
• Host online forums/bulliten boards for local issues
• Make it easy for members to post story ideas or contribute first-hand accounts
• Make it easy for people and organizations to post events
• Organize events so they are easy to browse/search and feature the best submissions
• Not refer to itself as a newspaper
• Adopt a web-first mentality
• Aggregate sites and resources that are valuable to your users, including the competition
• Do technology training and outreach within the community (especially with high school and college students)
• Hold regular public meetings to encourage participation and feedback
• Provide multimedia reporting
• Encourage user feedback on content
• Encourage user feedback on usability, design and usefulness
• Promote, encourage and reward active users

No media in the Twin Cities are realizing the full potential of the web and mobile communications. There is a lot of great multimedia work and good breaking news coverage, but few have made a very good effort to engage the community.

There are a few exceptions, including MNSpeak and Jason DeRusha. We need these people and efforts a hundred times over.

“But wait!” you say. “This is all fine and dandy, but how do you actually make money?”

Text and image display advertising is certainly still a substantial piece of the revenue pie, but we need to be more creative and more specific:

• Get companies to sponsor social or interest-based groups that would actually find their products or services relevant and useful
• Create places/spaces/opportunities where companies can have meaningful conversations with customers
• Do some fundraising (events/drives/5ks) and offer badges or other ways for people to promote their donation
• Seek grants
• Sell clever t-shirts (it works for bands, right?)

Lastly, profits should be invested to ensure stability during tough times.

If someone did these things really well, I am confident they would be able to make a comfortable living. They might not get rich, but they’d be able to provide a useful service for years to come.

It’s time for a mutiny of sorts. Facebook and Wikipedia are not abbirations. They are evidence that people thrive on conversations and sharing knowledge and experiences.

We need a few brave journalists who understand the need to engage their community. We need a few brave entrepreneurs, dedicated to creating a sustainable business model. We need these people now.

In my next post, I will talk about what my ideal staff would look like for a meto news start-up.

Twitter is taking flight with some crowds. There are now all kinds of mashups, squatdowns and resources for this great platform. Let’s take a look at a few.

1. What IS Twitter?
2. View your Twitter heartbeat visually (you are sleeping, right?)
3. Crowd Status (organize your twitter peeps into groups)
4. Tempo (tracking time with Twitter - now that’s productive)
5. TwitterSnooze (for that brother or sister you really love, but just need a break from)
6. TwitPic (sharing photos with the help of Google Maps)
7. twistori (love, hate, think, believe, feel wish)
8. twittervision (like TwitPic on roids)
9. (awesome flash visualization of your network)
10. snitter (Adobe AIR desktop app)
11. Color Wars 2008 (nothing like a friendly competition
12. twhirl (another AIR-powered app)
13. “quotably” (your conversations, threaderized)
14. StrawPoll (answering the important questions, like who’s funnier? Dave Chappelle or Dane Cook?)
15. CUNY Graduate School of Journalism (shameless plug)
16. There are lots of news organizations using Twitter
17. Twitteriffic (for Mac OS X)
18. MoodBlast (nifty desktop alerts that fade away - integrates nicely with Twitteriffic)
19. Foamee (don’t you owe me a drink?)
20. HelloTxt (update Twitter, Facebook, Pownce, MySpace, bebo, Jaiku and more in one fell swoop)

I’m sure I’ve left out a ton of stuff, including how Twitter is used to cover breaking news events. If you have something to add, send me a note: @coolgates and I’ll put it up.