STUDIO 20 PROJECTS

From September to December, I teamed up with Documented NY, a newsroom focused on immigration. Earlier audience research revealed that Nextdoor app is growing in popularity and one of Documented’s target audiences (Caribbean immigrants) are avid users of the app.

PROMPT: HOW DO WE CONNECT WITH THE INCREASING CARIBBEAN IMMIGRANT POPULATION IN THE CITY AND HOW DO WE BEST SERVE THEM?

Solution: Conduct user research and device a strategy to distribute news on Nextdoor, a neighborhood-level social platform, for caribbean immigrants

Audience development: This project allowed me to mix my reporting and newly acquired audience engagement skills. I poured through Documented’s existing research and audience surveys. I also followed the literature about Nextdoor and conducted experiments to familiarize myself with its functionalities. I also narrowed down neighborhoods with Caribbean immigrant populations and interviewed close to 20 people to determine their information needs on Nextdoor.

Survey test designing: I spearheaded a user-testing initiative that helped us identify platform-specific information needs in Caribbean immigrant neighborhoods. Documented’s Caribbean Communities reporter and I designed two sample Documented accounts and filled it with content. We then designed a survey questionnaire and designed the user test interview. I conducted all of the interviews in person, documenting my observations of how they are using the platform.

Data analysis: This project was also an opportunity to exercise my data analysis skills. The qualitative and quantitative data collection showed us a fuller picture of user motivations while browsing Nextdoor. After drawing patterns from the data, I produced template content for Documented on Nextdoor and developed a best practices report.

 The City

From December 2022 to May 2023, I was the project manager for three projects with The City. In this role, a few lessons stood out strikingly clear— the immense value of documentation, stakeholder negotiation and collaboration. Besides exercising project management skills, I also contributed technical skills in audience research, user surveys and prototyping.

Project 1: Targeted Postcard News Distribution

Prompt: Create an effective distribution strategy for their service journalism on housing in New York

Solution: Finding a way to use physical media (print, etc.) to deliver The City's service journalism to reliant readers who aren't as online as the readers it is currently reaching. Specifically, they want to try experimenting with the The City’s interactive map that shows where rent-stabilized apartments in New York City are no longer. (The map uses data from the housing group JustFix.) The main idea would be to go beyond simply advertising The City’s journalism and leading readers back to the website, and instead making sure the physical product provides value upfront.

Optimizing distribution channels:

We were tasked with creating a distribution strategy specifically for their interactive map that shows all the rent-stabilized apartments in New York, highlighting those that hadn’t been registered by the landlord. It was very important to us that we were intentional about the design of the distribution strategy, meaning that the strategy’s functionalities needed to meet the attributes of the journalism being promoted.

Since we figured the map would be relevant for tenants across the city, we developed a neighborhood-level distribution strategy. The research for that required deep research and analytical skills. I had to keep myself abreast with the journalism landscape by reading Nieman lab daily and following prominent media consultants and advisors online and watching closely at what others were doing. Case studies from Membership Puzzle Project and Listening Post Collective came in handy as well. During my research, I had come across the term, “postcard journalism.” And, during one of my conversations with consultant Fiona Morgan, I came across Every Door Direct Mail Service, it quickly became clear that this distribution strategy would be a perfect fit for the project. I presented those ideas to the The City and they were to eager to test it!

Stakeholder management:

Dreaming up an idea is just the start—getting everyone else to rally behind it is where the real challenge kicks in. There were multiple departments involved in this project (editorial, engagement team, data and engineering). It involved engaging in thoughtful dialogue with the reporter, who wrote the story, to ensure we were providing the right information. We also worked closely with the audience engagement team to ensure we were keeping to the style and identity of The City intact in the final product. That translated into negotiations and debates with multiple members of the newsroom. Here, my documentations and communication management plans came handy. For instance, the scheduled weekly debrief sessions with The City's liaisons were the cornerstone of our collective progress and adaptability. Each meeting was a chance to reflect, refine, and reinvigorate our efforts, ensuring every stakeholder's vision was interwoven into the final postcard that landed in our readers' hands.

Managing budget and expectations:

I also had to organize and manage a tight project budget. I identifed cost saving opportunities, which helped us deliver the project 20% under budget. Additionally, I also deisgned a comparative test where I implemented and tested the print distribution strategy against other digital strategies. The latter helped us set hypotheses and manage expectations.

We found that the postcards had a 7% open rate, comparatively higher than The City’s newsletter open rate (3%). We also employed a Facebook ad strategy for the same content to compare it with the postcard distribution. The Facebook ad brought in more impressions but those who accessed the content via postcard displayed deeper engagement, clicking other links on the page and exploring The City’s website.

PAST WORK