Paradigm shift in visual communication
In particular, bloggers provided a list of 10 things all journalists need to know today, according to Robin Sloan of Current TV and Matt Thomson of the Star Tribune (accompanying a showing of their movie Epic 2015).  

Every item on the list, posted by both Mindy McAdams (Teaching Online Journalism) and William Couch on Flickr, refers to a new way of prioritizing content when structuring a story, or as the SND blog says in their summary of the address: “the coming paradigm shift in visual communication.”

Telling stories with Flash
For any journalists working in teams with artists and designers on Flash graphics, there are several postings giving nuts and bolts advice on multi-media story telling.

Both McAdams and the SND’s own blog summarize a presentation by Alberto Cairo, of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who talks about how to execute Flash graphics and provides a workflow chart for integration in the newsroom.

And, Danny Sanchez at Journalistopia provides a description of what exactly are the components of a complete story in visual multi-media, according to Scott Horner of the Sun-Sentinel.

Future of infographics
For newspapers in particular, SND blogger Sergio Goldenberg summarizes a vision for the future of infographics, according to Javier Errea, director of the Malofiej awards (a Spanish-based news graphics contest).  Errea’s vision includes hybrid genres and new languages.  Goldenberg also provides Errea’s detailed list of problems with infographics today, based on Malofiej entries, such as:

1.    Size matters – knowing how to fill a graphics pages properly
2.    Too much text - learning how to exploit the language of graphics
3.    Chaos - finding a clear reading path
4.    Lack of design formats
5.    Filling up holes, when better to only do graphics you really want
6.    Rigor is not enough - keeping focus on high quality
7.    Software independence – letting yourself do non-computer art
8.    Don’t add value to the news story – avoiding a repeat of what is in text
9.    Many things inside – focusing on one idea

For copies of workshop presentations and handouts, see SND’s blog.