Customer comments

Five students from four schools interviewed their peers in NYC during the convention last week. In exchange for their comments, each interviewee was offered a dollar-store prize, and the interviewers got a free sandwich for their hard work (all generously paid for by the CMA board). Here's what we learned. We labeled each comment by gender and age...

Male/19
Highlight: The keynotes were incredible. They were very good at explaining what they did and how they got there. Koretzky’s Chicken Salad workshop was also very engaging.
Lowlight: It would be great if they could schedule more downtime, because every time I want to eat or rest or something, I feel like I’m missing something. Also, I noticed numerous spelling, grammar, and format errors in the conference booklet.

Female/20
Highlight: I liked the emphasis they placed on multimedia compared to last year.
Lowlight: They didn’t have any mingling activity among the students.

Male/21
Highlight: The flash photography tutorial workshop was really great. The presenter really broke it down and made it really simple.
Lowlight: The “Multimedia on a Shoestring” workshop was very disorganized. It was also much more geared to photojournalism for dailies, and there wasn’t much actual photography. The photography stuff that there was, was very basic and just covered how to shoot without talking much about idea generation.

Female/21
Highlight: Koretzky’s magazine and arts writing workshop was very entertaining and lively.
Lowlight: The “Interviewing ABCs” workshop was very, very basic and way too remedial. I already know that it’s a good idea to write out the questions I plan to ask before I do an interview.

Female/21
Highlight: The adviser class was great. I want to be a teacher, and there were lots of really usable items. The tours of People Magazine, and especially Time Out, were awesome.
Lowlight: The narrative storytelling workshop could have been better. We’re from the yearbook, and it was totally newspaper-focused. We would have preferred something a little more broad.

Male/20
Highlight: Bill Elsen! I was able to schedule a brief meeting with him for 20 minutes, and I got excellent feedback. Byron Pitts was also very influential.
Lowlight: There just wasn't enough time for everything.

Female/19
Highlight: The Chicken Salad workshop was fantastic!
Lowlight: Some of the presenters were unprepared and disorganized. And some of the slide projectors were too dim, which made it hard to see the presentations.

Female/21
Highlight: The Time Out tour had a lot of internship tips and general tips for office management.
Lowlight: I wish that there were more advanced workshops spread out over the conference. Also, more workshops reflecting the current job market would be great.

Female/22
Highlight: The all-day advanced design workshop was great and very comprehensive. The smaller groups also allowed for more individual attention, and it was really cool to get some one-on-one time with the designers
Lowlight: The overlapping schedule for design stuff prevented me from getting to all of the workshops I wanted.

Male/22
Highlight: The New York Times multimedia event was great. The presenter was very accomplished and had tone of useful advice. He was worth emulating and very inspiring.
Lowlight: The “Making Your Website Independent” was really boring. The “Working at CNN” workshop was pretty lame, and the presenter was not very exciting or excited.

Male/23
Highlight: Chicken Salad with Koretzky had a lot of good ideas.
Lowlight: All of the design workshops were in InDesign, and we use Quark, so I would like to see more Quark workshops.

Male/19
Highlight: The First Amendment rights workshop was very well executed and the examples were key in understanding it.
Lowlight: The “Writing for a Vocation” workshop was very off-topic.

Female/20
Highlight: The narrative storytelling workshop was very informative; it taught a very fact-based approach to writing.
Lowlight: The race workshop speaker was dry and disorganized and it wasn’t at all relevant to writing.

Female/20
Highlight: The “Iron Fist/Velvet Glove” workshop helped solve a lot of our office problems and hit a lot of them right on the head. It also taught us to be more assertive.
Lowlight: There could have been more information on the conference layout and better directions.

Female/22
Highlight: The keynote by Byron Pitts was great. His backstory was really helpful and it gave the talk a more personal focus.
Lowlight: There could be more clarity in the workshop descriptions. They weren’t very accurate.

Female/18
Highlight: I liked it all. This was my first convention, and I was very pleased. I gained so much from this experience. The keynote, Brian Storm, was very touching.
Lowlight: The inconsistent climate inside the convention – at the keynote, it was freezing.

Female/20
Highlight: Josh Mervin had a lot of good stories and Byron Pitts was amazing. His journalistic integrity really showed through in his keynote address
Lowlight: “How to Get an Internship” was useless and had no new, usable information. She just talked about herself a lot.

Female/20
Highlight: Byron Pitts was very motivating and encouraging. He really provided a great role model.
Lowlight: “The Ordinary People, Extraordinary Stories” workshop was very basic. It wasn’t very nuanced and there was nothing new.

Male/27
Highlight: Brian Storm portrayed photojournalism in a really interesting way
Lowlight: The Facebook/Twitter workshop was totally mis-advertised, as it didn’t mention either one.

Female/21
Highlight: Koretzky’s “Iron First and Velvet Glove” workshop had a lot of really applicable information.
Lowlight: Popular speakers needed much more space.

Female/21
Highlight: The F.I.R.E workshop taught me a lot about what my rights were and gave me some ideas for what I can do on my campus.
Lowlight: The trade show was pretty shitty. It would be better if there were more industry professionals and people from legitimate news outlets.

Male/21
Highlight: The “Rule with an Iron Fist Yet Wear a Velvet Glove” workshop had a lot of good information on how to run the office on a day-to-day basis.
Lowlight: More diversity in terms of what workshops are offered in each slot.

Female/21
Highlight: “Alpha to Omega,” run by professional editors, was a great workshop. It wasn’t a real roundtable, but the workshop had a discussion that covered a lot of issues that aren’t covered elsewhere. The subject matter was unique and interesting.
Lowlight: Scheduling conflicts between vendor/vendor and yearbook/yearbook workshops made things difficult at times.

Male/21
Highlight: Eric Adelson’s workshop on profiles was really helpful. He pulled a member from the audience and did an interview where the audience was allowed to ask questions, which was very engaging. And the guy being interviewed was actually pretty interesting.
Lowlight: They should try to fit expected turnout to room size better because some of the sessions were very crowded.

Male/20
Highlight: Malcolm Gibson's seminar “Getting a Job and Keeping It," It had good advice, and I liked all the resume do's and don'ts.
Lowlight: I liked Byron Pitts, but I didn't learn anything – I didn't gain anything from this.

Female/19
Highlight: The magazine writing session gave good inside info into breaking into the business.
Lowlight: The catalogs need to be clearer. Some of the descriptions didn’t match the speakers’ lectures.

Male/20
Highlight: Saturday workshop on narrative writing. It was encouraging, helpful, and inspirational.
Lowlight: The InDesign session on Sunday morning was too basic and aggressive. I wanted to learn more coloring shading and spacing.

Male/23
Highlight: “101 Story Ideas” had a lot to offer, and it helped motivate me.
Lowlight: The presentation by CUNY speakers wasn't by professional speakers, and it was poorly organized.

Male/28
Highlight: Koretzky, because he was informative and funny. You can be both.
Lowlight: None!

Female/25
Highlight: Keynote speech by Bryan Storm – the videos were interesting and he had great tips.
Lowlight: “Art Directing Photoshoots” was too full and you couldn't hear.

Female/19
Highlight: “101 Story Ideas” brought a lot of creativity.
Lowlight: There wasn’t enough time between sessions.

Male/21
Highlight: The sports/ESPN session had good tips and information.
Lowlight: The Internet at the hotel.

Female/18
Highlight: Radio station/music content/non-profit organization. I knew what they were talking about, and it was very informative.
Lowlight: Cancellations with no warning – some with an hour or two hour notice, some with none at all.

Female/20
Highlight: Koretzky – he took a different approach, which was much needed. He was so much better than the dry approach of the others.
Lowlight: Getting lost. Some of the rooms were hard to find.

Female/24
Highlight: Producing multimedia for NY Times. It was inspiring and it dispelled fear.
Lowlight: All the other multimedia sessions. They weren’t as progressive.

Female/21
Highlight: The media professionals (compared to the advisers) were very knowledgeable.
Lowlight: Two sessions I wanted to go to were cancelled.

Female/19
Highlight: The typography session gave good information, with interactivity of other elements.
Lowlight: The speaker for the multimedia storytelling session gave a presentation that focused only on her company’s product. It was a 50-minute advertisement.

Male/19
Highlight: The photography session showed a great technique: the blur effect.
Lowlight: Overall, I was disappointed with the other sessions because they didn’t really teach anything new.

Female/20
Highlight: I like that the sessions end at 5:00, so it gave us enough time to check out the city.
Lowlight: Most of the presenters were dry and generic. They didn’t really get into any information that was beyond introductory.

Female/24
Highlight: Koretzky was a fountain of knowledge.
Lowlight: Waiting for an elevator.

Female/20
Highlight: The keynote speakers and the seminar about landing a job in NYC were very helpful.
Lowlight: The lack of advertising for the events going on around the convention, other than seminars.

Male/20
Highlight: Being able to see the experiences and challenges with others – and find answers.
Lowlight: People in sports seminars, Trying To Run When They Can't Walk, wasting time by asking dumb questions.

Female/18
Highlight: Saturday’s workshop on Soundslides was very informative. I learned a tremendous amount that will help my staff this summer and next fall.
Lowlight: The ignorance of those attending the seminars. They asked time-consuming, self-explanatory questions.

Male/22
Highlight: I appreciate the schedule they created – trying not to have two sessions with similar topics be given at the same time.
Lowlight: They need to have an introductory event where they facilitate the students in one room and almost force them to get to know each other. I learned more from talking to students as opposed to the sessions. It was hard to talk to most people though because they stuck to their own groups.

Female/19
Highlight: Koretzky’s design sessions. I’m not a journalism major, but I thought this was very helpful.
Lowlight: Booking a room was very difficult.

Male/26
Highlight: Brian Storm, because I have a multimedia company, and this is going to help me revamp it.
Lowlight: The commute, because I couldn't afford to stay at the hotel.

Male/21
Highlight: Networking with professionals!
Lowlight: We need more networking with students. Also, there was poor advertisement for cancelled sessions – let us know 10-15 minutes in advance or post a sign or something.

Male/21
Highlight: The workshops. The professionals could get into some great details.
Lowlight: The discussion-based seminars, because you can find that anywhere.

Female/19
Highlight: I loved the sightseeing possibilities.
Lowlight: The people who spoke were weak and negative. They were discouraging and disappointing during their sessions.

Male/17
Highlight: They have an eclectic mix of different colleges.
Lowlight: The media tours seemed unorganized. It was very difficult to sign-up.

Female/18
Highlight: I like that they have the other newspapers for display.
Lowlight: I didn’t like the fact that some students were presenting sessions. I want to learn from others that are older and more experienced than me.

Female/ 28
Highlight: I liked being able to meet all the different students.
Lowlight: They should have a meet-and-greet lunch or brunch, so all the students can get to know each other. They can even tie it into a lunch just after a keynote session.

Male/17
Highlight: The wide variety of sessions, especially ones that discuss the future using new media.
Lowlight: I wish they had more tours with industry professionals.

Male/19
Highlight: Some of the sessions have been very entertaining as well as educating.
Lowlight: They should unify the schools in some way, to get all the students to meet each other.

Female/19
Highlight: I like how they stressed the importance of the skills necessary in today’s multimedia environment.
Lowlight: They should have food and drinks nearby.

Female/28
Highlight: The two-hour photography session was incredible. They showed us how to perfect our techniques using different strategies.
Lowlight: They should have microwaves in the hotels.

Male/20
Highlight: How to Rule with An Iron Fist was great.
Lowlight: The description in the catalog didn’t always match the session.

Female/20
Highlight: They had great ideas for features, and I liked the philosophy of journalism that they talked about.
Lowlight: I didn’t like the critique. Cost $10 and I didn’t learn from it.

Male/21
Highlight: It was fun seeing students from all over the nation.
Lowlight: All the critique did was bash our ideas. Our newspaper isn’t what they’re used to, and they don’t understand that.

Male/20
Highlight: There was a good balance among the sessions being introductory, intermediate, and advanced.
Lowlight: The tech sessions aren’t teaching me how to actually do it, they’re only showing the final product.

Male/21
Highlight: Koretzky. He was audience-orientated.
Lowlight: Many sessions didn't live up to expectations.