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Kevin: European editors are hopeful about the future. They are looking to digital for new revenue streams. Listen to Bruno Patino at Le Monde. I met him last October, and he’s a sharp mind. Also interesting things at Svenska Dagbladet.
Best…comment…ever
As part of my day job, I was reading a post on Comment is Free by Jonathan Freedland about the proposed blogger code of conduct following the threats against Kathy Sierra.
One commenter responded with some force and more than a little eloquence:
Must have been so nice to be a journalist or commentator in the old days. Just lock what you say in print and damn the masses. Times have changed. You can lock the doors, but then there’ll just be you.
Brilliant. Certainly there are risks to opening up and engaging, but this comment succinctly highlights the risks of doing nothing.
And just to be clear, this isn’t me having a go at a colleague on my own blog. I’d do Jonathan the professional courtesy of responding on Comment is Free, either in the comments or most likely in a proper post. This is just one of those brilliant comments that sums up some of the changes in media these days. It’s as if, suddenly journalists have been transported into the kitchens and lounges of our readers and viewers as they scream at the paper and swear at the telly.
There are some great comments on that post highlighting the range of opinion about blogging and freedom of speech online. If you’re running or considering running a site like Comment is Free, it’s well worth the effort to read.
Community doesn’t come for free
I expanded on comments I made at the recent Guardian Changing Media conference about community and news in a column for the Press Gazette. I go over some common mistakes that news organisations make when crafting and executing a communities strategy, and I highlight some success stories. Just to highlight the main points:
- Your audience isn’t a community.
- This isn’t just about choosing the right tool or technology.
- This is about changing the culture to involve the public.
- It doesn’t come for free. A little investment in a lot of engagement is a key to success.
links for 2007-04-06
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Kevin: Terry Heaton draws parallels between the 15th Century and media today. “here’s money to be made in this new world, but the ticket for entry requires, among other things, a willingness to let go of the weighty baggage of the world that preceded it
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Kevin: Amy Gahran thinks the lessons from the 15th Century and a fight for control over printing Bibles is similar to today’s battle over intellectual property and copyright.
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Kevin: Peru’s El Comercio tests out novel AJAX-based timeline to navigate the news. I like the idea, but I found it slow to load. I hope it catches on and is refined.
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Kevin: Random link for Easter weekend. Lateral or should I say parallel thinking. Strapping together a bunch of Sony PS3’s for research. Put all that gaming power to good use.
links for 2007-04-03
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Kevin: News and community strategist Steve Yelvington encourages journalists to get our from behind their desks and talk to real people. Steve is involved in project that is sending journalism students out to talk to hundreds of people in communities. Mor
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Kevin: Tim Porter (of First Draft) and Michele McLellan (ex-Oregonian) announce the results of their American newsroom tour. “It’s the people who have to change, they say in an excerpt from their new book. And guess what? It’s happening.”
Connected Marketing podcast
At the end of March, Kevin and I had an interesting chat with Justin Kirby of Connected Marketing for a series of podcasts he’s running (unfortunately our bit doesn’t have its own link UPDATE: which now has its own link on the new Connected Marketing blog). We chatted on Skype for a good hour, a fun conversation which Justin summarised thus:
We discuss many aspects of business blogging, including: how it is used to created a two-way dialogue with your audience; how businesses can gain insight from consumer conversations; how participation requires resource and commitment; the cultural changes required to incorporate blogging successfully into your business; and how corporate blogging in the Europe and the UK compares to that in the US.
Justin has split the discussion up in to three short episodes of about 15 minutes which you can manually download in M4A or MP3 format.
Episode 1
(3.5MB)
(4.99MB)
Episode 2
(3.52MB)
(5.02MB)
Episode 3
(3.77MB)
(5.44MB)
Supporting the Open Rights Group
I don’t normally write about the work of the Open Rights Group here because it seems a little off topic, but we have a really important fundraising event coming up on 11 April in London that I’d like to give a wee bit of bloggy love to. This is cross-posted from Chocolate and Vodka.
It’s just over a week til the Open Rights Group‘s Support ORG (and Party!) event, at which there will be public domain DJs, free culture goodie bags and the chance to win some really cool schwag. Our special guest speaker is the wonderful Danny O’Brien, who is always fantastic value for money and well worth coming along to see. So, if that sounds like fun, come along – it’s free! Well… it’s sort of free – we just ask that you bring someone who might like to become a new ORG supporter.
If you can’t make it, then you can still support ORG by buying a raffle ticket for just £2.50 (link to PayPal is at the bottom of that page). Prizes up for grabs include:
- a signed copy of Code 2.0 from Lawrence Lessig
- £150 in O’Reilly book vouchers
- a signed copy of the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property from Andrew Gowers
- a signed copy of Bruce Schneier‘s Beyond Fear
- a set of a dozen Beatpick compilations
- a signed author’s galley of Cory Doctorow‘s next novel, Little Brother and the opportunity to be written into it
- … and the pièce de résistance, as far as I am concerned – a ‘very battered keyboard with a key missing and everything!‘, signed by our Patron, Neil Gaiman.
Many thanks to everyone who has donated! Buy your tickets on the night, or online via PayPal. At £2.50 each, they’re a snip!
Oh… and also, please blog about this as widely as you can. ORG has a busy year ahead and we really need to spread the word – your blog post is as valuable a way of showing support for the work that ORG does as buying a raffle ticket or becoming a supporter.
Adopt the mantra “Change or Die”
I’d really missed Tim Porter the last year. He had all but stopped blogging at First Draft as book work took precedent. But, it’s good to see him not only blogging again but also releasing his book. From the first look over on PressThink, Tim and Michele McLellan have produced the kind of clarion call for change that I had come to enjoy from Tim’s posts on First Draft. I really like in the post that they focused both on management and staff.
Management needs to focus on how to foster change, they said.
Many newspapers editors found themselves in the ranks of management somewhat by chance. They were good at their previous job – reporting, say, or copy editing – and got tapped for a promotion. They adapted to the duties – and adopted the values – of their new jobs, becoming decisive, directive and demanding, good for driving a fast-paced environment like a newsroom, but less useful in leading organizational change.
I’m one of those accidental managers, even though I don’t really see myself as managing anything. Although I’m an editor, of sorts, I don’t really see my managerial role as pushing people to do something. I’ve never seen that strategy work. I’d much rather blaze trails and lead by doing. That’s what I’ve been good at during my career. I really see my job not as a blogs editor but as a digital journalism evangelist. Participation and engagement just happen to be part of the mix of digital journalism. Passion can be infectious. Success is inspirational, and if managers take risks, it gives their staff permission to innovate.
Tim and Michele also have some great bullet points for staff as well. They talk about the newsroom of the past, and contrast that with the journalist of the future who will:
- Take initiative and responsibility at all levels.
- Enjoy brainstorming and trying new things.
- Learn even from failed experiments.
- Adopt “Change or Die” as a mantra.
There is a lot of hand wringing about the future of newspapers and journalism, but here we have yet another blueprint for how to not only survive but thrive in the future. Add Tim to your RSS feeds. He won’t disappoint. He’s definitely one of my heroes.
links for 2007-04-02
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Kevin: The Guardian’s Simon Waldman expands on the BBC’s Richard Sambrook’s short post on journalists re-imagining their role with a consideration of what is possible on the web. Mashups and interactive graphics can tell complex stories.
If you want engagement, be ready to engage
I just spent the last hour have a very enjoyable time writing a post on the Guardian’s News blog about the ‘hack’ of John McCain’s MySpace page. I put hack in quotes because I really don’t like how the media uses the term. It’s very unsophisticated, and they usually mean breaking into computers you don’t have permission to use.
But the defacement of John McCain’s MySpace page is sure to go down as Mike Davidson, the ‘hacker’ and CEO of NewsVine, has dubbed it: The ‘immaculate hack’.
Mike gives Team McCain some criticism that rings true for political candidates but also for many news organisations who believe their staff needn’t be involved in their communities:
But then I read the article in today’s Newsweek about how politicians are all setting up MySpace pages in order to “connect” with younger audiences. McCain’s MySpace page is listed, as are the pages from several other candidates. I think the idea of politicians setting up MySpace pages and pretending to actually use them is a bit disingenuous, so I figured it was time to play a little prank on Johnny Mac.
Todd Zeigler in this post at the Bivings Report put it more directly:
This is another example of the point I made in my last post: if campaigns are going to play in these social communities they need to understand the rules and respect the culture.
It’s pretty easy to see through these cheap ploys, and they feel disingenuous. Setting up a static page on a social networking site actually makes it look even more static, not at all interactive. Just by being in MySpace, or having a Twitter feed or putting the odd video up on YouTube doesn’t make a media organisation more interactive if you don’t actually interact.
Publishing on an interactive platform is still just publishing. What happens when people ask your ‘content’ questions, and there isn’t a human being there to answer? Well, at the very least, nothing happens. People get bored and go away. But, sometimes bad things happen, especially when you’re not particularly clueful with your approach and don’t understand the space. If you want community and participation, be ready to participate.