My good friend Steve Yelvington highlighted this great post by John E. McIntyre at the Baltimore Sun: More more with less. He was commenting on the move by the Boston Globe to create a new class of multi-platform editors and the response that it had in the industry.

The idea of doing more with less or less with less is common as many legacy news organisations contract. Both phrases have become a bit toxic. Overworked journalists don’t feel they can do much more, and they also fear giving up more. I’ve seen journalists obsessively hold onto tasks because they think their jobs will be protected if they have enough tasks they do. If only that were true.

The real question is not simply about doing more or less with less, it’s really about what we must do and what we must stop doing. One of the biggest obstacles to innovation in legacy media organisations is how tightly we hold onto things we’ve always done. Without giving up some things, we simply will not have the capacity to innovate.

As a local news executive, I also know how important it is to bring staff and your communities with you. If there was one bit of self-criticism that I would have of myself is that I haven’t been as engaged with my communities as I would like, wasn’t explaining as transparently as I would like what we’re doing. I can give the excuse that I’ve been sucked into the operational side of things far more than I had expected as we reorganise four newspapers, but that has to change.

Where you’re working, what is the thing you think you have to give up? What thing will do instead? I’m serious. I’d like to hear what you’re thinking. We have to brainstorm to deal with this. One of the most important things that nimble organisations do is that they decide what they stop doing so they can focus on what they must do.