I got to bust out my mad photography skillz yesterday at a photo shoot for a client. It was a beautiful day for it: blue skies, a slight breeze and temperatures in the low 70s.

The group I was photographing was a family of four and included a very energetic five-year-old boy. He taught me a thing or two (well, five) about photographing children during our time together:

1. Get kids in their element. If I told him to smile, he showed me his teeth. Most kids will do the same and you won't get a genuine smile. But watch for their eyes to light up while doing a puzzle, playing a game or listening to a joke – things they like to do that don't include posing for you. That's when you'll get the best natural smile.
2. Have some shots in mind. Have some thoughts about what you want to see through your lens before you even go into the shoot. Do you want them outside kicking a ball, inside eating a snack or maybe during the peaceful quiet of naptime? Be prepared with a ball, a snack or scheduling during that naptime to get the most of your time and your photo goals.
3. Have a joke or two ready. It's a good distraction, plus the faces that a child will make while he's concentrating and really laughing are great for candid shots. Here is one that I used yesterday (hat tip to my seven-year-old friend Thomas): Why do skeletons like milk? Because it's good for their bones! It got me a great silly smile.
4. Let them direct the shoot. But just for a minute. There were a couple of times yesterday that the little guy wanted me to take a picture of him or of an airplane flying overhead. I did. He enjoyed looking at them on my digital display, and then we were back to the business at hand.
5. Snap, snap and keep snapping. You never know what a kid is going to do, how his expression is going to change or what (or who) else might come into the frame. I took 271 pictures during this shoot, but not all were perfect. I was able to delete the ones with closed eyes or those that turned out blurry or overexposed. That's one of the many beauties of digital cameras: Keep the best, delete the rest!

Despite the fact that she's 900 miles away, I work closest with Conversational Media Director (and talented photographer) Summer Huggins. Thanks to IM, it's like she's at the desk right beside me! (Except she can't chide me for eating candy all day.) I caught up with Summer to ask her a few questions about a typical day for her, and have to admit working from home sounds like a sweet gig. Even if she does still have to get out of bed in the morning.

Which meal fuels you better for the day: Breakfast or lunch?
I eat all day long. All day long. I'm a grazer. But I have to say, without that kick-start from breakfast, I'm a shaking, drowsy mess. So breakfast definitely gets me ready to work (and snack) for the rest of the day.

How do you refocus if you're having trouble concentrating or getting the creativity flowing?
A couple of things actually: 30 seconds on the back porch to take in some sun and fresh air does wonders for my brain. And a quick IM session with a coworker will get the creative juices flowing again. Chatting with someone energizes me and helps me to brainstorm and move forward.

What's your favorite on-the-job responsibility?
Oh, that's a tough one. I think it's a tie really: I really love getting to talk with client contacts all over the country. And when I say all over the country, I mean I have someone in all 50 states on my speed dial. It's really cool to talk to someone in Florida, Hawaii and Iowa all in one day. That and the freedom we have with new and social media. It's great to get to dive into the deep end of the Internet and social media pool to soak up and learn all that I can, and then get to share those lessons and our expertise with clients.

What do you like best about working from home? What do you like the least?
Best? The productivity. Without the distractions of people in and out of my office, fire drills and the noise of printers going crazy, I get to buckle down and work. It's not for everyone, that's for sure. I've heard from many people that they just wouldn't be able to concentrate and be productive. For me, a quiet home office is the perfect place for getting projects knocked out.

Least? I miss my coworkers! Working from home, I don't get to go out to lunch with the Megans or shoe-shopping with Lena or Jamie. I normally have three snoring dogs around me and sometimes I found myself talking to them as if they are coworkers. I definitely miss the social aspects of working there in Nashville.

And sometimes I only comb my hair about once a week, but I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Robert Quigley, Omar Gallaga and Elise Hu

Moderated by Omar Gallaga, Austin American-Statesman journalist, tech culture writer, and a funny, funny man, panelists included:

• Chelsea Stark, web producer, Twitter lead for KEYE and video game champ
• Robert Quigley, Internet editor and the Twitter face for the Austin American-Statesman and a super nice guy
• Elise Hu, political reporter and blogger for KVUE and fellow dog-lover
• Elizabeth Stoddard, news editor for the Austinist who doesn't want her mother to follow her on Twitter

There were several questions they were hoping to answer:

• Some outlets are doing better jobs than others at adapting to the social media shift, particularly some in Austin, but is there still more they can do?
• What changes do mass media outlets need to make to survive, and what can they bring to the table that bloggers can't?
• How are members of the new guard getting changes made to their newsrooms, and what kind of resistance are they meeting?
• Are journalism schools preparing graduates to deal with the many forms of online journalism, or are they losing some relevance?

As Omar asked these and many other questions to the rest of the panel, a couple of key words emerged: agility and adaptability.

"Trying to evolve as social media grows" is key, said Elise. And the rest of the panel agreed. Newspaper readers and television viewers aren't going away. Social media just gives these news outlets a new mode of communication for reaching them. If they'll embrace it.

Statesman editors witnessed the power of social media during Hurricane Ike in September 2008. Robert created a Twitter account specifically for tracking the hurricane, an account that also pointed followers to the Statesman's coverage of the storm online, generating more than 300,000 hits from Twitter alone. Robert joked that those numbers got him a "play-on-Twitter-free pass" with his bosses. Since then, Robert has used Twitter to engage with followers and readers to create real-time weather maps and cute-dog galleries and to work directly with the community on breaking news stories.

Why the success?

"It's because I'm listening," Robert says. Getting involved in social media is not just about throwing your information out there; it's about conversation, and it works best if the conversation is a two-way street.

The folks on the panel – and most of us in the room – understand that. And for old media to truly rise from the grave, they'll need to grasp the concept as well.

I don't get Explore. It's a section of Flickr where they highlight photos with the most "interestingness" every day. Think of the thousands and thousands of photos uploaded to Flickr every minute of each day -- 500 of those will make it into Explore for that particular day.

Interestingness is based on a behind-the-scenes formula that no one really knows, but it's somehow determined by the number of views that a photo gets, combined with the number of times it's marked as a favorite by other Flickr users and the number of comments the photo receives. Tags also come into play, as well as how many groups the photos is in. Again, I don't get it, but I have 23 photos in there, and I think it's kinda cool to unexpectedly find one there. Like I did with this balloon photo this week:

To see if you have photos with lots of interestingness according to Flickr and your fellow photographers there, visit the Big Huge Labs website. Their "Scout" feature will tell you.