Sean Blanda

I swear there is a reason why I have been so quiet. Well, actually make that “reasons.”

One, TechnicallyPhilly is doing as well as any of us could hope when it comes to traffic and community response, so we are making our first moves towards monetization with the slow rollout of our advertising infrastructure. This has been both an exciting and frightening prospect as it is now time to see if we are all as smart as we hope we are. Of course, as we surmised at BCNI, ads are just the first and easiest baby step, and there are many more ideas in the pipeline that I will be certain to share here once we release them.

Thus far, the only equity we have put into the business is sweat and dinners for our bi-weekly meetings. But as we said in our post announcing the effort to our community, we don’t want this to be a hobby or some also-ran of entrepreneurial journalism endeavors. We want this to be our part time job. Or, if we are lucky, a full time gig one day.

How I got a job

Speaking of full time gigs, I’m very happy to announce that I was hired early last month as an Editor at Vital Business Media, a startup headed by Prescott Shibles, former Penton VP of New Media. The job has me traveling to work in their New York City (aka the 67th Ward) offices twice a week, while working from Philadelphia during the rest of the work week.

I really wish I could talk more about what I have been up to, but you’ll have to wait until we launch our first editorial product.

What I can say, for everyone that just recently graduated, is how I got the job. I was put in touch with Vital and their management with someone who was a regular reader of this site. After the hiring, I was told that I was given a serious look because of the side projects I was building while freelancing to pay the rent.

The lesson? Chances are there will be not be a job waiting for most journalism grads. While we can sit around and lament the loss of the “traditional” path, it won’t do anybody any good. Take a side job and then hustle to create your own path. Gather some peers and start your own publication. Organize an event. Start a podcast. Try something. Anything.

Use your newly discovered free time as an incubator for all of the ideas you have about saving journalism and media.

At worst, you fail and you learned that idea X wasn’t valid and you don’t waste any more time. If you succeed, you can find yourself new opportunities.