To keep the spirit of news innovation alive and burning brightly, it’s time for the second edition of GonzoCamp: Programming the future of news.

It’s like a hack day, code sprint, barcamp, barn raising or many other tech-geek terms for unstructured events. This one-day event brings journalists, programmers, entrepreneurs, web designers and students together to build something cool and, hopefully, useful. The first event, held in May, “sold out” quickly and produced three interesting prototypes by three different teams in a matter of hours.

This time, we’ll be under the globe at the Seattle P-I. How’s this for irony? A news innovation event at the headquarters of the first metropolitan daily newspaper to go completely digital. (Thanks to Michelle Nicolosi and Monica Guzman for making it happen.)

If you can make it to Seattle on Nov. 12-13 (or are already in the area), visit the GonzoCamp site and reserve a ticket. There is a limited number and the Journalist tickets sold out quickly last time.

If you’re not local, sit tight. We’re working on plans to bring GonzoCamp to more than a dozen cities in 2010. If you are interested in sponsoring an event in your town, drop me a line.

The economic winter for jobs in journalism has thawed. But if you’re still waiting for traditional news organizations like newspapers to begin hiring again, you’ll be left out in the cold and might miss the massive shift to online.

Recently I wrote about a handful of recent college grads who parleyed digital skills into full-time jobs upon graduation. Now comes word that such a shift is picking up serious steam. AOL’s CEO Tim Armstrong told an audience at the Web 2.0 conference that his company has quietly assembled one of the largest online news organizations in the world. Here’s a snippet of CNet’s Caroline McCarthy report:

Armstrong, who joined AOL in March after a stint as head of sales at Google, said that recently the company has increased its roster of journalists from 500 to over 3,000, and that over 3,000 pieces of content are posted every day to AOL properties. It’s also now creating three to four times as much video as it was several months ago.

“We’ve hired people from places like The Wall Street Journal and ESPN,” Armstrong said. “You’re not just hiring a person, you’re hiring the community they come with, and I think that has been an important part when you look at the network effects of that.”

Also this week came word that Yahoo was getting into the original reporting game by luring Andrew Golis from Talking Points Memo to head up a political blog and aggregation effort for Yahoo News. The Bay Area News Group has begun hiring and job listings on sites like Wired Journalists are getting interesting.

I see a trend here. I hope you do, too.

Need more evidence? Look outside the U.S., too. Consider the newly launched Asian Correspondent site. Simon Owens (@simonowens) tells me “it’s basically like a Huffington Post for Asia,” with 50 bloggers writing for the site, which also publishes daily Asian-issue AP wire copy.

“Back in August I helped the site founders locate over 250 of the best English-language blogs in 13 Asian countries, and over the next month they narrowed it down to 50 that they approached,” Owens said. “The site owners then offered them year-long contracts. The bloggers are being paid a set amount rather than based on generated pageviews. In our first day we got over 20,000 uniques, and that number is growing as we finish up migrating all the bloggers onto the site.”

It’s a great lesson for out-of-work writers or yet-to-be-hired students. You don’t need anyone to publish you; publish yourself. Get writing and reporting on what interests you and, if you do it well, maybe someone will want your talent — and your audience.

As you already know, news is no longer a one-way lecture. It’s conversation.

It started with comments on stories and blog posts and has evolved in the age of social networking with Facebook and Twitter. So what’s next? Going “offline” and actually meeting with readers and sources, face-to-face.

A small-but-growing number of reporters is finding power in emphasizing the “social” in social networking. Tweetups, meetups and other gatherings allow the people behind the news company’s brand to come out from behind the curtain, shake hands, press the flesh and have real conversations with real people.

What a concept.

“People were giddy, taking pictures of the presses running and everything. It was fun,” said Jude Seymour, a political reporter with the Watertown Daily Times in New York, in reference to an event the newspaper hosted recently. “We wanted people to know who we are. We didn’t want to be faceless. We are real human beings and we’re interacting with their lives.”

The Times has hosted a handful of events that only get promoted on Facebook and Twitter. So the turnout isn’t huge, but the interaction is valuable. Oh, and there is also a little be of marketing involved, but don’t tell anyone.

“We felt like we’ve got to reward people for doing this, for being part of our community,” Seymour said. “So we had a party and brought people to our operation. People really connected to it. One guy who’s become active won a 3-month subscription to the paper. The whole thing doesn’t cost much money and we’re able to hit them over the head with all we’re doing to cover the community.”

The Times hosted a “party,” to celebrate hitting the 100-fan mark on its Facebook page, at the newspaper that drew 30-35 people in May. The meetings at a local Panera Bread only draw about a dozen people, but still allows reporters and editors to “tear down a lot of the preconceptions” people have about the news organization, according to Seymour.

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Last month I traveled through what seemed like a time warp. I was transported back in time to a place where newspaper publishers gather in first-class accommodations, party with old friends and celebrate a business they love.

Publishers gathered at the Otesaga Hotel and Resort in Cooperstown

At the annual publishers’ conference for the New York Press Association, I was introduced to a vibrant organization hosting a two-day conference in Cooperstown. I haven’t been to the annual conferences of all other state press associations (just a handful), but NYPA appears to be in a league of its own.

How? For starters, most of the newspapers in attendance were run by independent ownership. Without massive corporate debt (resulting from ill-conceived acquisitions) weighing it down, a community newspaper can still thrive in the digital age (contrary to what is reported about the national landscape).

In one session titled “web pricing models,” the presenter asked who was experiencing declining ad revenues. None of the 15 publishers attending the session raised a hand. (I was a shocked.)

The NYPA is experiencing growth, too. The association has approximately 500 member newspapers “and that number continues to grow each year,” according to Jill Van Dusen, assistant general manager at NYPA. Approximately 300 people attended the Spring Convention, too.

The newspaper publishers at the conference – in its 156th year – were not resting on their laurels, however. They were actively discussing digital strategies and looking for ways to improve their business with web and mobile.

And through it all, there was a vibe I hadn’t felt at a newspaper conference in a long time. It’s the vibe you get at a tech conference or at the recent Online News Association conference in San Francisco. I spent considerable time with publishers at the dinners and lunches and attended other sessions. There was no dark cloud and “doom and gloom. “Instead, measured optimism and pride in good work being done permeated the conversations.

Michelle Ray, the NYPA’s stylish executive director, asked me to speak at the next NYPA conference in March. Of course, I said yes. I can’t wait to return to the great newspaper time warp.

You could write a book about all the amazing projects, technologies and ideas that were shared at the Online News Association conference last week. But it takes a while to write a book (trust me) and by then, the moment would have passed. So in lieu of a definitive analysis of the best ONA conference ever, I humbly offer four observations:

1. Twitter makes it better: While much is said about the power of Twitter during a conference for backchannel reporting and discussion, I think the strength of Twitter at a conference like ONA happens before the conference. Through Twitter, people have already formed relationships even though they have never met in person. Then, when they finally have the opportunity to put a face with a Twitter ID, it’s more like seeing an old friend than meeting someone new. Meeting @ryansholin, @mattmansfield and the @NiemanLab guys, among others, seemed like a reunion, not a first-time meeting.

2. It’s officially entrepreneurial: I was fortunate to be involved in bringing a couple of sessions with an entrepreneurial bent to the conference: 6 in 60, where new ideas were presented and judged for business opportunity, and From Journalist to Entrepreneur. Both sessions were packed and seemed to be well received. An entrepreneurial flavor influenced much of the conversations between sessions, too, and then four entrepreneurial ventures (Publish2, Muckety, ProPublica and Next Door Media) captured OJA awards on the final night to solidify this new reality.

3. We need less content: I am encouraging conference planners for next year to build a schedule with more breathing room, even if it means cutting sessions. Rushing from a keynote to a panel with no time in between cuts down on the opportunity for networking (not everyone goes to the bar, after all). Some structured networking time, with a coffee or snack bar, would help people find and connect with even more colleagues (and Twitter friends).

4. There was a swagger: The ONA conference, sold out for the third year in a row, has grown a reputation for being a sunny destination in the cloudy world of traditional journalism conferences. This year, the energy, enthusiasm and optimism started to emerge as a swagger. Instead of simply feeling positive about the future, many people I talked to had confidence that their organization was on the right track. Even people who were looking for jobs didn’t seem to be scared. The consensus seemed to be, I’m in the right place (digital) at the right time, so when something opens up, I’ll be there to take advantage.

There was a time when my daughter, little pistol that she is, would only let her mom read her bedtime stories. Eventually, because I wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer, I convinced her to let me read her one book. But only one book, she said. So after several months of taking turns with her mom, I was still stuck reading the same book every other night.

That was a few years ago, but last week my daughter (who is now 6) asked me to read that book again. It’s called The Important Book and is so simple, so elegant, it’s genius. (The author is also responsible for Goodnight Moon, another timeless classic.) Here’s a taste:

The important thing about a spoon is that you eat with it.
You hold it in your hand,
It’s like a little shovel,
You can put it in your mouth,
It isn’t flat,
It’s hollow,
And it spoons things up.
But the important thing about a spoon is that you eat with it.

Since I’ve been thinking about the Online News Association conference in San Francisco this week, the two subjects collided in my brain. I instantly wondered if you could apply one to the other, so after a few tries, here is my attempt to summarize the importance of ONA and all its members while paying tribute to Margaret Wise Brown, one of the greatest children’s authors of all time.

The Important Thing About Online News

The important thing about online news is that it is timely.
It comes from many sources,
It’s massive and it can come at you like a flood.
But the important thing about online news is that it is timely

The important thing about online news is that it is interactive.
You can search it,
Sort it,
Tweet it,
Email it,
and trash it.
But the important thing about online news is that it is interactive.

The important thing about online news is that it is innovative.
It looks like blogging and podcasting,
It gets mashed up on maps and in databases,
And is done by startups and big companies at the same time.
But important thing about online news is that it is innovative.

The important thing about online news is that it is wherever you are.
Some people say “if the news is important, it will find me,”
And it does.
It can be delivered to any digital device or through any social network,
But the Important important thing about online news is that it is wherever you are.

The important thing about online news is that it is a successful business.
It has created more opportunities than it has destroyed,
It’s why billions of dollars are spent on digital advertising every year,
And it is just getting started.
But the important thing about online news is that it is a successful business.

The important thing about online news is that it is evolving.
It isn’t what it was,
And it isn’t what it is going to be.
So the important thing about online news is that it is evolving.

Thanks for indulging me. Writing a children’s book would be a lot harder than it looks. If you think this was a fun read, please share it with others who would enjoy it, too.

And thanks to everyone who pitched in and volunteered their time and energy to make this week’s ONA conference a reality. If you’re not able to attend, follow the Twitterstream or livestreaming keynotes. With more than 1,000 people gathering (third straight sell-out), it’s clear that online news is certainly important.