By Ed Stannard, Community Engagement Editor

estannard@nhregister.com 

Twitter: @edstannardnhr, @nhrvoices 

Facebook: Ed Stannard-Register, Your Open Newsroom 

Have you seen Moe, the dog with the camera on his back? He’s the star of photographer Melanie Stengel’s new blog, Ruff Cuts.

Melanie has recruited Moe, her Basenji mix housemate, as collaborator and camera-pooch. Their “Tales of Greater New Haven” seen from a dog’s-eye view, is just one of the new blogs launched by New Haven Register staffers recently.

The blogs are pretty diverse. Moe, webcam attached to his back, will portray the New Haven area’s world of dogs “and maybe a few cats,” according to Stengel.

Jesse Haight, a waitress at The Place in Guilford, takes a photo of Moe, who is is also filming her. (Melanie Stengel, New Haven Register)

Another new blog is much more serious in tone.

Michelle Tuccitto Sullo, the Register’s investigations editor, has launched A Voice for Victims, which offers support and resources to those who have been victimized by crime or in some other way. Michelle, who recently reported about how convicts may apply for pardons without the knowledge of their victims, also runs the NHR Investigations blog.

There have been other blogs launched recently by our staff. There’s New Haven Eats by multimedia journalist Mara Lavitt, which focuses in pictures, video and text on a different city restaurant each week. East Haven and Branford reporter Jennifer Swift also recently started a blog, The East Haven & Branford Notebook, intended to increase conversation about the issues and events in those two shoreline towns.

Our staff-produced blogs, along with the dozens in our Community Media Lab, total more than 100 on subjects ranging from sports to family issues to politics. You can find them at www.nhregister.com/blogs.

If you have a blog you’d like to include in our media lab, or if you’d like to start one on a topic you’re passionate about, let me know. Email me at estannard@nhregister.com or call me at 203-789-5743.

And, as Stengel says in her introductory Ruff Cuts video, “If you want a camera dog with his paw on the pulse of the pet community, just say Moe.”

WEST HAVEN – Simone E. Quartey is a registered Democrat and grew up in a liberal family. The University of New Haven junior, however, will be spending the last two weeks of August in Tampa, Fla., attending the Republican National Convention. Simone Quartey's blog will be published at nhregsiter.com. A political science major from  Highland Mills, N.Y., Quartey was selected for a UNH scholarship to attend the Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars, an independent, nonprofit organization serving hundreds of colleges and universities in the United States and other countries by providing selected students challenging opportunities to work and learn in Washington, D.C., for academic credit. She will participate in a two-week course examining the role of national political conventions in the process of nominating and electing a party’s candidates for president and vice president for the United States. The Washington Center program provides students not only with seminars but also places them in volunteer fieldwork positions with the party, convention committee, host committee, media and others. The Republican National Convention takes place from Aug. 27-30. Quartey had her choice of going either to the GOP convention or to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. Sept. 3-6. “I’ve been around progressive politics all my life and now I wanted to be involved with something new,” she says. “I think the Democratic convention is just going to be a formality naming the incumbent. When I chose the Republican convention, I thought it might be fractious but even though there is a preferred candidate, I think it will be interesting. I’m thrilled to be going.” While she is there, Quartey will be blogging about her observations and the New Haven Register will link to her blog. Quartey says she has never worked for a candidate but has avidly watched conventions and follows election news.  She hopes to eventually become an attorney and perhaps become a political consultant. “I don’t really want to run for office myself,” Quartey says. “But I’d like to cultivate and tutor people who are talented and have solution-based goals.” Quartey, who is working closely with Gary Fetzer, a lecturer in political science at UNH, is receiving support to take part in the program from Academic Affairs, Student Affairs and Enrollment Management. Additional funding came from a stipend given to President Steven H. Kaplan when he received the William M. Burke Presidential Award for Experiential Education by the National Society for Experiential Education (NSEE) earlier this year.

By Ed Stannard, Community Engagement Editor
estannard@nhregister.com / Twitter: @edstannardnhr, @nhrvoices

It’s time to pay a visit to our Community Media Lab. You might be surprised at who you’ll find.

Do have a loved one with autism? Do you care about increasing literacy among our youth? Are you interested in sustainable farming? Our newest bloggers are passionate about those topics.

Shirley Blaier-Stein has a son with autism. She left her career as a lawyer to care for him, wrote a book called “Autism Mother,” and writes a blog called Autism Parents Community. We’re thrilled to add her blog to our media lab, offering those who love people with autism support and information.

It’s well known that literacy is vital to success in school and the job market. The Literacy Coalition of Greater New Haven is a group of volunteers aiming to increase the ability of both children and adults to read. If you’ve considered volunteering to be a tutor, the Literacy Coalition is the place to call. And to stay abreast of what the organization is doing, bookmark Literacy, Every Day.

Melissa Waldron runs the blog Fertile Ground USA, whose motto is “Farming is a Transformative Act.” The site is chock full of information about the sustainable-agriculture movement, including urban farming.

Some of our other bloggers are promoting a cause. Actually, one, Christopher Zurcher promotes several causes in three different blogs he maintains: PeaceNews, the Progress Action Roundtable and Connecticut Environmental Headlines.

And Zurcher is not the only environmental blogger. Others on our site include Green Cities, Blue Waters from the Connecticut Fund for the Environment and Yale Environment 360 by the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, as well as nature-oriented blogs such as Matthew Houskeeper’s Soundbounder and Nick Bonomo’s Shorebirder.

In politics, our bloggers read from left to right: Aldon Hynes’ Orient Lodge and Andrew Rose’s Political Insomniac, to name two.

Our bloggers’ coverage enhances the news and features the Register’s reporters bring you every day, and we’re always interested in adding local bloggers — or helping you start a blog — who have a passion to share.

Sports. The Arts. Even a blog about Charles Dickens movies. You’ll be surprised at what you’ll find at www.nhregister.com/blogs.

Let me or Angi Carter know if you’re interested in joining the Community Media Lab by emailing voices@nhregister.com. You can call me at 203-789-5743 and Angi at 203-789-5752. And check out OUR blog, Your Open Newsroom, and let us know what you think!

We’re pleased to welcome two people who are well-known in their fields in Connecticut to the Register’s Community Media Lab.

Dr. Andrea Silber is an oncologist who specializes in treatment of breast cancer specialist and is co-director of the Hospital of Saint Raphael Women's Center for Breast Health. In Get Healthy CT, she will answer general questions, even those that you might consider silly or embarrassing.

Christopher Zurcher, a former journalist and environmental communications director, edits CT Environmental Headlines, where he gathers environmental news stories and links about local and regional events.

One of our tasks as community engagement editors is to seek out those of you who have a passion for a topic, an issue or a hobby and help you start a blog to share your thoughts and ideas with the world. We’re also looking for existing blogs to link to. If you would like to join our Community Media Lab, let us know. Email Angi or Ed or call us (Ed’s at 203-789-5743; Angi is at 203-789-5752).

By Angi Carter |Community Engagement Editor

acarter@nhregister.com

Twitter: @ReachAngi

Facebook: Angi Carter or New Haven Register Community Media Lab

Sooo, Ed and I have discovered a great resource for thecommunity, businesses and bloggers – all in one spot.

It’s called The Grove on Orange Street in New Haven. Every2nd Monday of each month, bloggers and folks with social media or marketingexpertise get together there for a “Bloggers and Beer” networking event.

We got turned onto it by Giulia Gouge, a master Twitter useryou should follow: @giuliag.

#thankyou.

Ed and I got a chance to meet other folks who are startingblogs or looking for ways to improve their blogs. We also encouraged them tobecome part of the Register’s online blogging hub the Community Media Lab.

Even though we are full-time journalists, we don’t know itall when it comes to writing or blogging skills and we don’t pretend to.

As Ed and I figure out the offerings of this blog and growthe Community Media Lab, we’ll be offering weekly tidbits that we pick up alongthe way. So here are some tips we lucked out on hearing at The Grove. I hopeyou find this first edition of “Get Your Blog On” as helpful as it was for us:

Know your mission and purpose for blogging:

Start your blog and create each post with a clear sense ofthe message you want to convey, who you are trying to reach and what you aretrying to achieve with the content you provide for that audience.

Content is Queen:

Content is the most important tool we have as bloggers toengage our audiences. Spruce it up with links to previous posts or to websitesthat can help provide context; videos or maps; and photographs.

Give people an idea of what they can expect in a future postand issue a call to action. Ask them to comment or hit your Google+ and Likebuttons.

We will definitely be returning to The Grove – with someother bloggers alongside us.

By Ed Stannard, Community Engagement Editor
estannard@nhregister.com
Twitter: @edstannardnhr, @nhrvoices
Facebook: Ed Stannard-Register, Community Media Lab

It’s a big new digital world we live in, and we’re all at different places on the path. So it’s great to meet up with others and trade ideas.

That’s the idea behind “Bloggers and Beer,” a monthly event at The Grove, a kind of social-entrepreneurial incubator and nice place to hang out. I went there today with Angi to find out what was happening. We had an ulterior motive too—to spread the word about our Community Media Lab of bloggers. We’re always looking for new writers to add to our stable.

I don’t know if it was the blogging or the beer, but more than 15 people were there: everyone from a guy who’s running multiple blogs, to someone getting ready to launch, to a hat designer. Some had no clue how to get a blog going. Most had something they weren’t sure about. (I include myself in the category of “have a clue, but not a big one.”)

The topic of the day was content—how to make a blog interesting to draw traffic. There was talk about having bright, interesting headers, photos, graphics, and how people sharing on social media makes the audience bigger.

Someone said something like, “Once someone tells me how to do something, I feel like I should have known that already.” I’ve felt that many times. Here’s my take on it: This digital medium is like going to a new country. Even when you know what’s going on, it can feel foreign and strange. We should assume we know everything there is to know, even if we knew it when we put out a newspaper or a newsletter. That’s why we need to get together, share ideas. The bottom line: There are no stupid questions, and if anyone asks me something that’s obvious to me, I need to remember that I have asked others things that were obvious to them.

That was the tone at today’s gathering at the Grove: People helping each other, bringing them along. It was exciting and fun. Join us next time!