Focus on Essential New Tasks
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As business models change, those who pursued the old model are often portrayed as stupid or evil. Creating a new model is very hard work.
Our C3 work is all about exploring, and creating, new models. Many in our industry seem to be stuck on erecting walls around the old model. As I noted recently,
the emotional connections we maintain to products and companies often blind us to the relevant tasks of creating a product agnostic local ecosystem of information
We need to focus on creating the new ecosystem for local information, and the appropriate economic exchange for using that system.
While warning us of the dead ends of the old models and attempts to preserve them, recent lengthy posts by Bill Wyman ended with:
And, of course, they are too wedded to past practices.
If I were running a chain of papers, here’s what I’d do:
1) Go hyper local; devote all resources, from reporting to front-page space, to local news. No one cares what the Pittsburgh Post-Dispatch has to say about Iraq.
2) Redesign the websites to present users with a single coherent stream of news stories and blog entries. Create simple filters to allow them to tailor the site to their preferences.
3) Tell the union you won’t be touching salaries, but that all work rules are being suspended, including seniority rights. Tell all reporters that they’re expected to post news if word of it reaches them in what used to be thought of as “after hours.”
4) Get out of the mindset of “nice” coverage. Tell the reporters to find the “talker” stories in town—development battles, corrupt pols, anything with a consumer bent. Monitor web traffic to find out what people are interested in. If a particular issue jumps, flood the zone. Make each paper the center of every local debate, no matter how trivial, and make finding and creating those debates the operation’s prime job.
5) Create chain-wide coverage of all areas where it can be done. It’s sad, but it means laying off a lot more film critics and dozens of other duplicated positions. For such positions, do this. Hire two people to cover the beat for the chain. Make them into sparring partners, arguing about each new TV show, movie, CD, traveling Broadway show, concert tour etc. Get out of the business of being promotional. Give your readers sharply argued opinions, something fun to read they can’t get anywhere else.
6) Create local listings second to none. Create them from the users’ point of view. Don’t use abbreviations. Overwhelm users with insider information that only locals know; where to park, where to sit, when to go, etc. Get rid of all the site navigation levels no one cares about. Put the information people want front and center.
7) Devote as much manpower as possible to creating must-read local news blogs. Tell the bloggers to work the phones and IMs, finding out about every personnel change, every office move, any tidbit. Support and cite local bloggers in the same areas. Yell at staff members if they are consistently being scooped by (unpaid) competitors.
8) Create and maintain a wiki designed ultimately to function as an encyclopedia for the town, from neighborhoods and politicians to every retail establishment. Let it become the ultimate guide to the area. Like Wikipedia, it will inevitably contain information that is controversial. Cover the controversies with alacrity.
9) Serve the community. Don’t publish crap. Tell folks stuff they might not want to hear. Grow a pair.
In our C3 work, the first big decision we had to make was separating content creation from product creation. I still cannot see any way to get to a new local ecosystem of information without making that split. But that just gets us to a place to stand to do the real work.
We need to create content in the first instance with a new mindset, both those content creators we employ full time, and contracted or freelance community content creators. All content creators need to have a primary emotional bond with their content and audience, not a product or company.
This content creation needs to take place in a new infrastructure which allows atomization and tagging at the simplest elemental level. Today we are stuck with locked-down story and advertising publishing systems, and a bewildering array of blogs, tweets and social space entries.
Then, as mentioned by Wyman, we need to consciously create a wiki of local knowledge and wisdom, that can be edited by many trustworthy contributors. Most wikis today are just too complicated for that type of community effort, and don’t easily link to the atomized content.
So, let’s focus on the essential tasks of new content creation, atomic content, local wikis and the structure of the new local ecosystem of information, not berating the past models, or arguing about walling off the old models.
As Chris O’Brien recently put it:
But on a fundamental level, it’s still the “blogs or mainstream news” construction that bothers me. … On any given week, I produce more words for blogs than the newspaper. So what am I?
Answer: It doesn’t matter.
What does matter is that I’m constantly trying to see how all those different pieces fit together and complement each other. I see blogs not as competition, but vital parts that help expand the conversation around news and information. I worry less about who is winning the battle of breaking news first, whether it’s mainstream sources, blogs, or Twitter.
Seeing these other pieces as competition leads down the poisonous road where people complain about bloggers stealing content. Or, it takes you down the equally poisonous path where people argue that blogs (or now Twitter) have rendered the mainstream newsroom obsolete. I don’t want to choose option A or B. I want “All of the Above.” That is the mindset we must choose to fully realize the enormous potential of this digital era of journalism.
And, as Chris ended his well regarded post on August 13 -
Journalism is doing fine.Instead, newsrooms need to ask:
> How do we reinvent local community on the web?
> And how do we reinvent the local marketplace online?
By no means are these puzzles solved. I don’t believe that Craigslist represents the last, best way people in a community will buy and sell things. Yelp, while growing in traffic, continues to have reputation issues with local merchants.
The discussion over paid content and tweaking the advertising model is too limited. Solve those two bigger challenges of community and the local marketplace, and you’ll create a business that will support smart, multi-platform newsrooms. These newsrooms won’t be dominant, as they were in the past. They’ll exist as part of local news ecosystem.
But create community, help people succeed in business, and you’ll find a way back to re-igniting the passion for a local news organization.
August 18th, 2009 at 8:27 am
Had alot of “YES!” moments in this post, but I thought this one was the best…
“Monitor web traffic to find out what people are interested in. If a particular issue jumps, flood the zone. Make each paper the center of every local debate, no matter how trivial, and make finding and creating those debates the operation’s prime job.”
Yes! Yes! Yes!
August 18th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Chuck,
I’m wondering if you can record this post and get it on the loud speaker here at work to play over and over again.
These essential tasks should be built into the goal setting procedures we are working on right now. These have to be the expectations moving forward, right?
On the flip side, how do you recommend we show and tell the communities we serve that this is our new mission? What tasks are also needed to inform and engage the audience as to our newer methods?
As a selfish product person, the new content streams created by this new ecosystem will create audiences we’ve never been able to engage before. I look forward to that.
Jason Kristufek
August 18th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Every time I read your blog I go back to a statement you made about 16 months ago:
“We need to figure out the least amount of people it takes to create the newspaper – and put that many people on it.” You went on to say they rest of the people need to go about doing new and interesting things. Like mentioned in this post.
So – as Jason suggests…put this message on the loud speaker and get on with it. Painful yes, necessary – more so.
“Amateurs” have already begun – there are at least 3-4 local sites trying, we’ve been fortunate no one with the knack or cash has figured it out yet.
Because when they do – and we’re not ready…it’s going to get ugly.
August 18th, 2009 at 10:03 am
This is an excellent post with great citations and needs to stay front of mind. I echo the thoughts of both commenters….my gut reaction was “Amen!”
August 18th, 2009 at 11:02 am
If we can accomplish this:
“Tell the reporters to find the “talker” stories in town—development battles, corrupt pols, anything with a consumer bent.”
we are well on our way to becoming the “media provider of choice”. I agree 100% with less of the “nice” stories. Let’s really focus on what is important from the consumer’s standpoint, not from our standpoint.
August 18th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
We must have hit on the same octane level of coffee today. I posted a blog entry this morning about Dan Pacheco’s post, “How Fear, Brand Addiction and Paranoia Block Innovation.”
August 18th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
The focus on the essential tasks needs to include a new look at the revenue opportunties the new local ecosystem will present. As I noted in this post (http://bit.ly/wUzwq, referencing both the Bill Wyman and Chris O’Brien posts), we made a huge mistake in the 1990s by failing to explore the commercial possibilities of the new technology.
As we develop the new ecosystem, we must include new ways of serving business customers in our thinking.
August 19th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
[...] The third is a very clear set of tasks that can be done to create a ecosystem of local knowledge. It comes from Chuck Peters in a post called Focus on Essential New Tasks. [...]
August 19th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I believe a leap forward could be realized if all the Cedar Rapids Content group members had their home base in the same room. The efficiencies and energy that could be gained is a dynamic force which could be another leg up on future, as well as current competition. There is no substitute for smart creative people playing off each other in the same room. And the efficiencies gained would be great and cannot be gained otherwise, along with the bonding to the common cause of content.
Seems to me the product staffs have been reduced to “’the least amount of people it takes to create‘” each of their products, to the point they are sometimes under staffed, and the content cannot be created in only raw form, but must be crafted into semi- and completely finished state for each of the product’s unique needs. Philosophically we can separate Content from Product, but practically we are just not a big enough operation and it is a credit to those who work here that are mentally jumping back and forth between the two mindsets.
We need more investment in equipment and technology.
On Bill Wyman’s #4 above, web traffic is a tool, and one of many factors that us in Content can use when making decisions, but again is wedding us to one Product area if we pay too much attention to it. We need to do good journalism on the “’talker’” stories and use all our strengths to lead on those stories.
August 19th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Thanks for the quick comments, and particularly those Yes and Amen comments!
Jason – if we don’t incorporate these objectives into our overall goal setting then we will be retarding our progress. I appreciated the links on your post on innovation. Did you and Mike find Pacheco’s post on your own?
Of course I agree with Steve. We need to create the joyful user experiences that generate economic exchange.
Rollin raises key points. We have to both invest in equipment and technology, but also different ways to use that technology. It is true that engaged groups can play well off each other, but all of the content creators for a community our size, both employees and community creators will not fit into one room. We have much work to do to reduce the tactical friction as we continue to produce our traditional products while changing our infrastructure to create the local ecosystem of information.
As noted in the post, we need to be able to develop that infrastructure to make better progress.
August 19th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Chuck – I did find Pacheco’s post about a week ago in terms of the title but didn’t read it till yesterday when I was looking for thoughts on brand protectionism.
I agree with Abe’s comment on the post too. It’s nothing new. But as I mentioned, our whole organization has not moved beyond that ‘brand addiction’ or emotional connection to a product. I got caught saying to a colleague the other day that I thought we as a company have moved beyond certain things. Pacheco’s post was more of a reminder and I hope more people will dig into it and research quickly so we can move ahead. It goes back to what you said here that need to focus on the essential tasks.
September 1st, 2009 at 1:54 pm
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