Conventional Wisdom

Moving Pictures II

I'm posting this on-the-spot video report from Visuals Editor Robb Montgomery despite the fact that he stole my idea to ennumerate the swell swag handed out at this year's joint CNA/CCNA/CCMA convention.  The point here ain't the topic or who thought of it first, rather it's the ease and speed with which he was able to produce this brief video report - and others.
(See his Visualeditors.com web site for other videos - include senior newspaper people dancing. WARNING: seeing senior newspaper people dancing may cause drowsieness, headaches and a complete loss of hope that we can ever be seen as anything other than hopelessly outdated by the "young kids" of Canada.)
More later
Bill

Click To Play Video

                                                                                                            
         

Moving Pictures 1

Rob Curley, the disarmingly candid news web guru behind LJ World and the washingtonpost.com's fabulous "On Being" site, talked about running an ad in Naples, Florida, when he was working there and they were launching Studio 55, a daily newscast.
I'm paraphrasing badly, but the ad featured photos, headshots, of every single member of the Naples Daily News newsroom, all 100 of them, and then pointed out that the local TV news station had a newsroom staff of 10. "Who would you rather get your news from?" the ad asked.
"Yeah, they hated us for that one," Rob said with that dry smile of his.
The local TV folks may have hated them, but I'm betting their web users don't. Studio 55 is a simple, low cost, perfectly serviceable newscast, covering 3 items or so, plus the weather, and incorporating readers and staff photos, staff video and in-studio narration - all stitched together with some very slick graphics and sound. (More on the philosphy and mechanics of Studio 55 in a minute.)
Folks, this is your future.
In yesterday's lunch Leonard Asper talked about adding video capabilities to the CanWest newsrooms and, half jokingly said, "The CRTC (Canadian Radio Television Commission) will probably never allow us to have a television station in Ottawa, but there's nothing to stop the Ottawa Citizen from becoming a local TV station," and of course he's right.
Think of the size and reach of your newsroom — compare it to your local TV news operation. "Who would you rather get your news from?" indeed.
Up next: Moving Picures II - how to build your own newscast - the Rob Curley way
Bill

No, I didn't get lost

I really wanted to attend the Video Newspaper session despite this being an 'editorial' focus and my being a 'sales gal'...I was very interested to see how low cost video could be produced both for the newsroom (and also see if this as a tool for advertising!!).
I appreciated CEO of Visual Editors, Robb Montgomery's casual style and "(minimal) bullet points" — I think I'm just about conferenced out!!
Robb had good examples and lots of reference to sites and tools to check out. He made reference to a  European newspaper/web site produced by a 29 year old editor: 24 Video that fits everything on one screen — "thinking of the consumer" who likely does not want to scroll down. Good examples of innovation...let's get moving!!!
Kelly
kmontague@thespec.com

Ka-Boomer ? Talking about MY generation.

Your 50+ year-old readers are paying attention and this is what they are saying " It's all about me."
Matt Thornhill is a market researcher who started the Boomer Project three years ago to get a better handle on Boomer consumers. He says pay attention.
They have money, flexibility, want to be engaged, and will pay attention to you if you serve them. Boomers know they are not getting younger and are searching for ways to leave their mark. They want to serve and want to make the earth a better place, socially and environmentally.
"This is the generation that started the environmental movement," says Thornhill.
"They've spent the bulk of their life consuming and now they are saying, "How can I give back? How can I contribute?"
Anyway newspapers can go green will be asset to these socially-conscious consumers, he says. The Boomer mantra: Viva The Vital. Boomers are a force and smart marketers will find ways to tap their vitality in the following areas: Financial
Physical (they are going to the gym, watch what they eat)
Mental (watch for mental gyms)
Social (they've spent 40-50 years developing social networks are not about to let that go
They want to stay involved (volunteer rates in this group are way up)
Spiritual (sales of spiritual and religious books are way up. This group is looking to see what's beyond the white light).
Thornhill's research can be found at his Boomer Project website, where you can also listen to him yourself in a short two minute video.
He says if you email him matt@boomerproject.com, he will send you a copy of his 24-page report.
Blogged by jpscribbler
(photo is from Kevin Slavin's Flickr photostream)

Opportunities galore!!

The only problem with conferences that trigger great ideas is that I want to get back NOW and try them all!!
My choice of sessions today focused on the world of sales opportunities. I attended a talk by Peter Jackson (president of SalesSTAR corp.)  on How Newspapers Can Gain Their Competitive Edge and found his 12 steps to being more effective very relevant.
(While I won't be listing them here, Jackson will be e-mailing his presentation and I can gladly forward it to anyone who asks)
Once again on-line is front and centre and Jackson stressed that the days of "supporting the local paper are gone". Advertisers want innovation and results. They want internet, even if they don't know what that means exactly. In fact, many Mom and Pop shops don't even have a web site. Jackson stressed that we have to bring them the web solutions... pronto!
We also need to simplify the buying process for advertisers...how long will it take us to realize local businesses don't care what an agate is?! We need to see small advertisers and non-advertisers as huge potential and not rely on our top 25 advertisers to carry our business.
This small advertiser market was the topic of discussion for my next session too that addressed Effective Management of Small Accounts and featured: Denise Tucker, Barrie Examiner; John Hay, Links Information Management; and Katherine Wiggett, City Media. All reinforced the earlier themes of print and online solutions and looking for opportunities in non-advertisers.
"Try to fit them in the newspaper any way you can", advised Denise. I hear ya girlfriend! We need to take advantage of this revenue stream and get moving now!!
Kelly 
kmontague@thespec.com

Your strategy is all wrong

Sitting here in the Newspaper Next seminar, listening to Steve Buttrey (from API) talk about the strategy for disruptive innovation developed for newspapers by Clayton Christensen (yeah, him again) and I just love this approach to innovation: Fail Fast.
Christensen says that research shows that 90 per cent of successful new disruptive ventures (new ways of meeting unmet or unrecognized customer needs that threaten traditional business models) start off with the WRONG strategy.
And, need it be said, 100 per cent of failed ventures started off with - and ended with - the wrong strategy.
In fact, on average, successful new ventures change strategies FOUR TIMES before finding success.
To succeed at creating new, disruptive projects then, give yourself permission to fail and pay careful attention as you do, because for sure you will. Another way of summarizing this really useful approach:
Invest a Little, Learn a Lot.
It reminds me of a piece I read by Bob Young, owner of self-publication site Lulu.com (and the Hamilton Ticats), who made a massive pile of millions with his start-up company Red Hat Linux who wrote that he attributes his successes to his willingness to fail over and over again - something that began in high school. He figured he got a much better education much faster than others who had less trouble.
More later.
Bill

Online sigh of relief

Rob Curley, vice-president of product development for the Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive was by far my favourite speaker so far. What innovation!
Curley spoke of the ever popular 'hyper-local' concept and gave some brilliant examples that were adopted by the Naples Daily News and Lawrence Journal-World in Kansas. Check out the video online program: On Being-brilliant!
Great advice about tapping into our intern resources and "every newspaper must have a supply of nerds". 
I must admit that while I was encouraged throughout the presentation that someone out there is doing this online stuff very well, my spidey sales senses were in high gear waiting for some indication of revenue success. Curley did not disappoint with a great finish alerting the audience that every city or newspaper has to have their own unique strategy and do what makes sense in their market.
While it appeared a ton of resources and revenue were being thrown at all of his wonderful projects, he also spoke of web revenue success!!!! Whew!
Kelly

Learning and Strategy

In session with Bill Dunphy (Hamilton Spectator) and Vickey Williams (API Learning Newsroom Project Director): Documenting success of Learning Newsroom, of which The Hamilton Spectator was a student. Only Canadian paper to be part of 10 newsroom project.
The duo talked about changing power shift in newsrooms, and the value of giving staff more input and and control in decision-making. It means huge culural shift, but by giving staff an opportunity to pull on the levers, you get a more responsive staff, tons of creativity and engagement. Dunphy, a reporter with the Spec's newsroom, gave several examples of how his paper has used the Learning Newsroom to better connect with readers and its newsroom.
Check out a recent interivew: 5 minutes with Vickey Williams:
You can read more about the experience by checking out Vickey's book: It's called All Eyes Forward: How to Get Youir Newsroom Where It Wants to Go Faster. It's $10 and the price cover the cost of printing. You can get it through ther ASNE website. Blogged by Jpscribbler

News is NOW

Rob Curley is the uber-in-demand online guy. He starts his talks with this quote: My name is Rob Curley I'm an internet nerd from Kansas who is in love with local news and the evolution of traditional media. His message: if you are not online, get on it NOW.
It's where the growth, money and readers are. If you are among the people saying,  "Hey we have a good story, we are going to hold it for tomorrow's paper." Rob says: Don't. "If readers see smoke and they log onto your website and don't see it there, they don't think you are holding it for tomorrow's paper, they think YOU SUCK."
That pretty much sums up Rob's message. Get online and use it for hyper local content. We are in the news business and we should be giving our readers every single scrap of content we can.
He says publishing online is easy (9-year-old girls with cells phone are posting photos and video to you tube 52 seconds after they've captured their content). I've got some of his recommendations, after the jump:

Curley's off and running

Web news guru Rob Curley has just begun his talk, warning the room that he usually takes 3 hours but since he only has 70 minutes, he's downed 3 red bulls and a mountain dew...
Rob's the guy behind the LJ World site that set the news business on it's ear a few years back (the NYT called the tiny paper "the newspaper of the future") and now at the age of about 17 it seems, has become a vp of washingtonpost.com.
We'll have more (lots more) on Curley - the convention's marquee speaker - but for now I give you one of his opening comments, underlining the need for newspapers to "own local breaking news", and dealing with the still current thinking that if you have a really good scoop you should save it for the print edition.
"If there's a really big fire in your town and people can see the smoke for miles and they go to your website and don't see anything — they don't think you're holding it for tomorrow's paper. They think you SUCK."
(caps in original- he speaks like that.)
More to come...
Bill