Conference in NYC

I'm attending the College Media Advisers spring national convention the next few days in New York City. The convention this year moved to the Marriott Marquis in Times Square - creating quite the buzz among attendees. It's in the heart of the action.
That said, I couldn't wait to get away from the mania of Times Square yesterday. To find food, fun and the real city. I think a lot of people want to do that in a place like this; few actually find a way to do it.
Getting off the beaten path is a cliche among journalists in a lot of ways. As a collective, we talk about doing things differently and looking at the other side. Too often, we fail at that as an industry.
One of my goals for this conference is to find ways to encourage students to continue to look outside their comfort zones. To explore new story ideas, watch for new possibilities - and how to explore those to produce news content.
I have several other things I'm interested in doing here, of course. But journalists need to be reminded to continue to look not just straight ahead, but up, down, around and to the future in order to properly serve readers.