Help us plan sessions for the 2012 Online News Association Conference & Awards Banquet, Sept. 20-22 in San Francisco.

Our Session Selector is now open and you’re invited to submit session proposals for consideration in the ONA12 program. Submissions will be accepted through March 1. Then, from March 6 to March 29, the ONA community will vote and comment on sessions they’d like to see.

This year, there are two ways to offer your expertise at ONA12:

• If you have a session you’d like to suggest for the conference, take a look at the submission form and send us your best idea.

• If you have expertise to share with the digital journalism community and you’d like to speak at the conference, you can fill out the speaker application. As we put the program together, we may contact you.

Ideas from the community, along with input from the ONA12 conference committee, ONA staff and a member of the Board of Directors, will help the program committee create the sessions for ONA12.

If you have questions about the Session Selector or the ONA12 programming, email ONA12program@journalists.org. If you have any general questions about the conference, email ONA12@journalists.org.

As always, we look forward to seeing what you come up with.

This is one of a series of blog posts from the first ONA class of MJ Bear Fellows describing their experiences and sharing their knowledge with the community. Fellow Lam Thuy Vo is a multimedia journalist based in New York.

Animations are in! International organizations, advocacy groups and journalists have come to embrace motion graphics as a means to explain complicated issues. And I’ve come to love them, too.

For a project on privacy issues, my friend and investigative journalist Stokely Baksh and I created this animation:

A joint collaboration between Matt Thompson of NPR, Amanda Michel of the Guardian US, Andrew Pergam of The Washington Post, ONA Board member and Webbmedia Group CEO Amy Webb, and Jenny 8. Lee, Spark Camp is a grand experiment in journalism. Taking the form of an unconference, works by inviting 50 journalists (and colleagues from other field), having them each invite one person to the conversation, and seeing what develops during a massive meet up in a select city. The invite process is fairly mysterious — the organizers work hard to find an interesting mix of people, but don’t share their secret sauce for the initial picks. Spark Camp is sponsored, so outside of travel and accommodations, the event is free.

Fueled by a desire to remake journalism (and massive amounts of sugar), Spark Campers spend 48 charged hours tackling the issues of the day. Here are four takeaways from two Spark Camps that have been held so far:

1. Choose a Theme for the Quarter

Each Spark Camp has a core theme. The first gathering in New York was called “Real Time,” and the goal was to explore how instant communication platforms like Twitter and Facebook have changed how we understand, create and source news content. The second meetup, in Texas, focused on the emerging role data plays in journalism. Selecting a theme allows for attendees to really explore a topic in depth while still allowing for a lot of different interpretations. The lesson: Working with a theme starts to center our often fragmented and frantic work lives. For a part of this year, try dedicating your career to a new theme — it could be anything from “learning to code” to “more creativity.”

The ONA Issues Tumblr is your platform to define and explore the pressing issues in digital media and get a better fix on how they impact your work. Here are the top five posts from last week.

• Does the Privacy Protection Act protect journalists using cloud storage?
• MSNBC’s Meg Robertson shows her mobile reporting kit.
• A breakdown of the questions asked during President Obama’s first Google+ Hangout.

The Online News Association, the world’s largest membership organization of digital journalists, has an exciting opportunity for a full-time, tech-minded business development and sales manager to drive revenue and sponsorships for this fast-growing nonprofit 501(c)(3).

He or she will work creatively with the Executive Director to set strategy and drive new vendors and sponsors to our sold-out annual conference, newly developed website and growing member events around the world. We’re looking for a visionary who can move seamlessly between the profit and nonprofit worlds, understands the tech marketplace, knows the players and can help form productive partnerships with technical and creative leaders in digital media.

ONA, with its Board of Directors comprised of game-changing digital journalists and small, dynamic staff, is leading the way for media in the digital age, and prides itself on innovation, collaboration and quick response to member needs.

Interested, or know someone who might be a good fit? See our full job description here.