For a reporter on deadline, every minute counts. Covering a Capitol Hill hearing via Webcast, dialing in to a press conference, or surfing your way to the information you need can be a tempting way to save time. It cuts down your commute, but there is a big downside. It robs you of opportunities to connect with your sources.

As a reporter, I wrote the in-depth, technical stories my editors wanted only when I got to know the people I was writing about and their business.

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Expert reviewers are getting ready to provide their annual critiques for business-to-business publications seeking ways to improve content.

The American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) and Trade Association Business Publications International remind b2b editors that only two weeks remain to sign up for an assessment by a panel of peers. Submission deadline is October 1.

The Magazine Critique Service delivers an objective outside analysis by editorial and design reviewers. The panel scrutinizes publications from cover to cover, looking at usefulness to the reader, flow, tone, and other characteristics. Reviewers also scrutinize use of white space, photographs, illustrations, fonts, colors, and general layout issues.

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Many publications and Web content managers are trying to help their constituencies understand what is really going on in the economy. The American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) recently took a giant step in the right direction by setting up an educational foundation to raise the caliber of business journalism. As shown in this excerpt from ASBPE’s blog, the market is ready.

It’s true. If you build it, they will come. [This summer] ASBPE formally launched its tax-exempt educational foundation and the results are in: two dozen contributions from institutions and individuals. We’re well on our way to reaching our first-year goal of $30,000.

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Organizational life is full of outdated rituals, from office parties to annual performance reviews that do little to improve the quality of product, process, or personal experience. Technology can do away with many of them. For instance, an organization can do an online survey to find out how staff would really like to socialize. A manager can conduct a round of “exit interviews” after a project ends and provide feedback while the project is fresh in everyone’s mind.

One ritual may well go away on its own, the telephone call. Not the serious conversation with subtle, sensitive dimensions that must be conducted right away by two or more people who can’t meet. Or the pleasant, thirty-second, “Hi, are we still on for drinks at 7:00?” But perhaps the discussion of a topic that neither party understands very well, or the interminable conference call in which half the participants are multitasking and the rest are wondering who’s speaking and whether anything is really being accomplished.

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As metropolitan dailies shrink and commercial websites struggle to entice advertisers, one news medium is enjoying unprecedented success: free weeklies.

Bulging with local ads, they cost practically nothing to produce or distribute. They may provide little intellectual stimulation, but major news media and Web investors find them intensely interesting. How, they wonder, can we do what they do?

“Local is where the Web is,” concluded the organizers of the latest invitation-only Web Managers Roundtable, Julie Perlmutter and Gary Arlen. “Local,” they say, “is vital to success in today’s digital environment.”

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Today’s collaboration tools are great—your virtual team members can work just as effectively in another time zone as in the next cubicle. Instant messaging, video conferencing, file transfer, Microsoft SharePoint, virtual private network (VPN), and other whiz-bang technologies can link far-flung team members tighter than people on different floors of the same building used to be connected.

But effective collaboration doesn’t mean you’ve solved the traditional “out of sight, out of mind” problem. No matter how good tools are or how much bandwidth you’ve deployed, people can’t interact the same way as colleagues do in the break room, over lunch, or unwinding together after work. Chatting remotely without a video connection, of course, you can’t tell whether a colleague is rolling her eyes or jumping up and down with enthusiasm. This lack of personal bonding can lead to increased stress over deadlines, misunderstandings, and—maybe worst—missing opportunities that arise from casual interactions and brainstorming.

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It’s not your imagination. The world is moving faster and people are less patient.

I switched from dial-up Internet access to a broadband connection only four years ago, and I’ve already forgotten what it was like to wait for Web pages to load. Now, when pages don’t load instantly, I’m irritated and tempted to move on to something else. And when Web sites lack obvious links to whatever I’m seeking (product details, prices, media contacts, phone number, company mission, etc.) my patience evaporates instantly.

Jakob Nielsen—a hero to many in the Web community for advocating sensible, economical, and results-oriented practices—recently noted that Web users are “getting more ruthless” in their browsing habits. He describes people being brutally goal oriented, wanting to reach sites quickly, accomplish goals, and move on.

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While I have many friends and colleagues from my time working at full-time jobs in real offices, my personal and professional networks have steadily grown in the 17 years I’ve been a freelance technology writer/editor/consultant. I was lucky that my independent career began at the dawn of the public Internet, which has been a primary tool for marketing and networking, in addition to client communications.

When writing for The Washington Post on the importance of communication for career development, I queried several lists for comments. A book publisher referred my query to Tom Calcagni, who had just written a book on the subject. Tom and the book were helpful for the article and we’ve since identified interests and opportunities. Since one of my interests is supporting career skills and opportunities for non-youngsters, I facilitated his speaking to a meeting of the Washington, DC 40Plus chapter.

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Is your publication or Web site recruiting experienced writers, editors, graphic designers, or photographers? You couldn’t ask for a better market.

As the newspaper industry spirals downward, newsroom downsizing has sent hundreds of talented journalists on job searches. One of the best places to find talent is the Website of the Poynter Institute, the journalism school founded in 1975 by Nelson Poynter, chairman of the St. Petersburg Times and its Washington affiliate, Congressional Quarterly.

Job posting packages start at $50 per month and include access to the résumé database. From experience, I recommend searching the database as well as posting a job. Qualified people may respond to a personal e-mail who wouldn’t respond to a job posting. After you’ve sent out 100 résumés, with no responses, it’s easy to get discouraged.

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In this hyper-connected age, it’s easy to think that just as all human wisdom and knowledge is available on the Internet, you can use today’s social networking Web sites to meet everyone worth meeting. In fact, both beliefs are wrong.

Just as there’s a “deep Web” orders of magnitude larger than the visible Web, many valuable human connections exist only in the flesh with no online presence. They’re reachable only via the 1930s speakeasy discipline, figuratively knocking and saying, “Joe sent me.”

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