"Reflections of a Newsosaur: Berkeley Media Tech Summit goes live"

Might be worth watching....

Technologies - Pumping up print - "The Daily Beast Seeks to Speed Up the Publishing Process for Books" - NYTimes.com

Another fusion of print and electronic offerings.....

Alliances - Have newspapers explored all of the possibilities? - "Partnership for CBS News and GlobalPost on Foreign Reports" - NYTimes.com

Newspapers can learn from this experience, for better or worse.

Revenue - Is asking "will they pay?" the right question? - "Only 5% in UK would pay for web news" - Reflections of a Newsosaur

These are pretty discouraging figures, but context is everything, not to mention the importance of how questions like this are posed. Of special importance are the various ways in which charges can be assessed less directly, of course, and, as in the traditional newspaper model, born by others.

Technology - Twittering up - "An Infusion of Another $100 Million Is Seen for Twitter" - NYTimes.com

Newspapers might want to consider reflecting on Twitter in different ways. What is it that newspapers can learn from the significant number of people who have taken to the idea of these short messages? Surely that has an impact on how newspapers serve existing and future audiences, no? What is that impact?

Financing - Can newspapers tap "non-profit" model/interest? - "A Nonprofit Local News Site for San Francisco Is Being Created" - NYTimes.com

How does a newspaper manager tap this interest and willingness to provide financial support for much of what newspapers historically have done?

Technology - How can newspapers profit from wikiwoes? - "Wikipedia: A 'Victim Of Its Own Success?'" NPR

How can newspapers refill the void?

Competition - Delivery people can deliver a lot of advertising - "Advertising - U.P.S. to Begin Testing Direct Marketing Service" - NYTimes.com

There is lots of innovation out there among companies that did not seem to be newspaper competitors. Now they are.

Technology - Newspapers seem to have stopped innovating a while ago in this area, no? - "Google Unveils Tool to Annotate Web Sites" - NYTimes.com

What was the last really creative offering from a newspaper that allowed for the posting of comments on individual stories? I get the feeling that it is like so many things, once there is a comment capability on the newspaper's website, that job-to-do can be checked as completed....when it really ought to just be the beginning?

Innovation - Prime the newspaper pump with a contest? - "Netflix Awards $1 Million Prize and Starts a New Contest" - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Is this a model for the newspaper business in seeking innovative solutions to today's crises?

Technology - A newspaper coming to your TV? - "Hybrid Internet-TV Makes Progress in Europe" - NYTimes.com

Surely worth discussing in London?

Diversificaiton - Debates organized by newspapers? - "Good Riddance to Mainstream Media" - Intelligence Squared US

There was a story about this effort in the NYT today. Why aren't newspapers offering these kinds of debates?

Revenues - The belt gets tighter - "Newspapers Have Not Hit Bottom, Analysts Say" - NYTimes.com

Well, I suppose it could be worse.

News - Understanding how it works - "Link by Link - The Amish Paper The Budget Explores a Move Online" - NYTimes.com

There are so many places and experiences from which newspapers can learn so much.

Marketing - Why restrict it to the marketing department? - "Atlantic Blogger Andrew Sullivan Makes Pitch for Supporting Print" - NYTimes.com

I think this is a much bigger story than this brief item suggests. Why? Because if a newspaper is going to succeed today amidst all of these crises, it is going to have work unbelievably hard and creatively to interest customers and surpass competitors. If there is not a team commitment to success, the efforts will not be successful.

What should a good newspaper manager do today to unleash the marketing power of his team? What's the best effort undertaken so far by a newspaper to increase revenue using the entire staff as a marketing team? I think there is a way to do without compromising editorial integrity. If a newspaper employee does not use the newspaper for which he or she works, they ought not be working there. If they do, why not ask them to talk about why they do?

Customers - Newspapers as teachers - "Newspaper offers journalism classes" - SouthCoastToday.com

This is "small potatoes" by many measures, yet an interesting notion of one area in which newspapers might choose to move?

Diversification - Time to think about new ways to serve local advertisers and others? - "Will Amazon Become the Wal-Mart of the Web?" - NYTimes.com

Think about how Amazon began and where it seems to be going. Then thinking about newspapers and the local markets that most serve. A company begins selling books; another begins selling newspapers. One moves in one direction; the other?

Technology - Are landlines the phone company's printing Presses? - "Verizon Boss Hangs Up on Landline Phone Business" - NYTimes.com

Newspapers have more to learn from all this than may be obvious on the surface. There was a time when the phone company was seen as the biggest potential competitor for newspapers on the horizon. How each has evolved since is worthy of considerable study and reflection.

Customers - Understand me and my computer, understand me - "Taming the Digital Distractions That Make Your PC a Time Waster" - NYTimes.com

This may not be a newspaper crisis, but it surely is a personal consumer crisis. If newspaper managers don't try to understand what's happening here, I don't see how they can make sound decisions about the future strategies and business development for their newspapers.

Update on the conference......from WAN-IFRA

"Only few places left!Jacques Rosselin, the French publisher whose "Vendredi" turns web content into print revenue, has joined the programme of the Managing the CrisisConference to be held at the Frontline Club in London on 28 and 29 September.

The conference, organised by the World Association of Newspapers and NewsPublishers (WAN-IFRA), is designed to provide information and ideas to helppublishers emerge stronger from the recession. Mr Rosselin's presentationwill focus on exploiting new technologies and new media, something "Vendredi" does in a non-traditional way.Mr Rosselin's weekly publication is a "best of the web" on paper. Although the information comes from the Internet, "paper provides a unique readerexperience", he has said. "When you search on the net, you can get lost andwaste too much time searching for pertinent information. And people don't necessarily have three hours a day for that. When we read a newspaper, we nolonger have everything, but we opt for a selection of organised information". Mr Rosselin is also the founder of Courrier International, the French weeklythat publishes a selection of stories that have appeared in the foreign press. Vendredi is based on the same concept for blogs and other web material; is put together by journalists who select and edit what is often non-journalistic content.

The conference has already attracted publishers, CEOs, editors-in-chief andother senior newspaper executives from 17 countries in Europe, North Americaand the Middle East. There is still time to register: full conferencedetails can be found at http://www.ifra.com/managingthecrisis.

A "Managing the Crisis" blog can be found at http://managingthecrisis.blogspot.com

Because all publishers have been affected by the recession, the conferencewill encourage exchanges between the speakers and participants, not only inround-table discussions but also during the presentations.

Presentations include:- "Capitalising on new audiences", by Maeve Donovan, Managing Director of The Irish Times;- "How to profit from the crisis", by Reiner Esser, Managing Director of Die Zeit in Germany;- "Boosting ad sales in a slowdown", by Theo Blanco, Senior Sales and Marketing Director at Upsala Nya Tidning in Sweden;- "Emerging stronger from the recession", by Reiner Mittelbach, Joint CEO of WAN-IFRA;- "Alternatives to Google", by Moritz Wuttke, Founder of New Media Initiatives, based in China and Switzerland;- "Leading in crisis - Getting the upper hand in a down economy", by Richard Wellins, Senior Vice President for Global Marketing and Business Development at US-based Development Dimensions International;- "Innovation success in the age of turbulence", by Anna Kirah, a Design Anthropologist with Denmark-based CPH Design;- "Defining the crises (as if one were not enough)", by Terry Maguire,Principal at US-based International Media Development & Counsel;- and "Cost savings or how to manage an earthquake: Lessons from the Russian media", by Vasily Gatov, Strategy Director at Media3 in Russia.The conference will also include panel and round table discussions on four main topics: people, money, customers and technology.

For the evolving conference programme, please go to: http://www.ifra.com/managingthecrisis"

"Cracking the Spine of Libel" - Olivia Judson Blog - NYTimes.com

As a media lawyer by profession and background, I have not wanted to focus too much here on legal issues. Since Managing the Crisis will be in London, however, I think this is one of the exceptions to my rule. In an era when so much in the electronic media world is perceived to be free, and so many views are being expressed, it is easy to conclude that laws restricting what can be said, or, most often, punishing what was said, are not relevant. This is a good discussion of why that is not the case. Any good newspaper manager has to remember that the newspaper usually bears utlimate responsibility for what it publishes in any medium, and the higher the profile of the newspaper, and the more determined the complainers, the more likely it is that litigation will happen. It may not be a crisis, but that's only because there have been enough people opposing the worst of it to keep it under control. If there are fewer media enterprises able to object, for various reasons, mostly economic, that may not continue to be the case.

Alliances - The Google partnership idea, once again - "Google Fast Flip"

I guess this is part of the answer about whether Google can help newspapers. See The New York Times story yesterday profiling this new offering, in which the Times is participating. Is this a good thing and will it stick?

When I searched on "newspapers", here is some of what came up:

Customers - How creatively can a newspaper link its customers and Facebook's? - "Facebook Says Its Finances Are Looking Up" - NYTimes.com

What is the most creative link with Facebook that a newspaper anywhere has developed, and has the newspaper managed to make it profitable?

For example, here's a Linked in connection for The New York Times:

Is there a Facebook version of this?

Customers - Queueing up for newspapers? - "MediaPost Publications Upswing: Newspapers' Online Traffic Doubles 2004-2009"

This is impressive but how did we get here from there? In other words, what explains this increase? What are all the underlying data?

Are the crises getting worse?

Here are three items in today's New York Times that I think are worth reading together.

The first is not a newspaper story, but it tells a publishing story that should concern any newspaper manager.

The second is a newspaper story, and like the first, we'll know more tomorrow, it appears.

Finally, one of the sources of these crises.......

Revenue - Connecting new media dots to earn more money - "An Advertising Shift Helps Blogs Survive as Businesses" - NYTimes.com

Part of the crises picture for newspaper is the challenge of understanding how some of the established principles of newspaper advertising networks have morphed into revenue for new technology competitors without newspapers playing much, if any, of a role.

Technology - What can newspapers learn from government and the people they share as customers? "‘Athens’ on the Net" - NYTimes.com

In many ways, newspapers are in the same situation as are governments - long-time venerable institutions facing rapid changes in their constituencies brought about largely by technological innovation. As such, I'd argue, they have lots more to learn from one another than they so far realize.

Customers - Do newspapers make good teachers? - "At Your Fingers, an Oxford Don" - NYTimes.com

I, for one, see huge opportunities for newspapers in the world of learning. Newspapers teach us about our communities and our world everyday, and why shouldn't they play an even more active role in the educational process. The Washington Post Co., exceptionally, would surely agree, although you would not know it from their newspaper or newspaper website.

Target Stores, newspapers and customers

Today in The New York Times (print edition), there are two full pages of paid advertising from Target Stores, one of the largest US retailers and a substantial newspaper advertiser across the country. The text begins "On May 31st, we published an invitation in this newspaper: "Tell us what more we can do for you."" It continues, "627 of you e-mailed and we responded to each of you with a personal reply."

That got my attention.

The ad text then goes on to talk about some of the 627 suggestions and what Target is doing in response.

But what I kept thinking about was this -- a full page (I believe) ad, prepared by a professional advertising agenc, appears in one of the largest and most respected US newspaper. The response is only 627 people?

What's wrong with this number, perhaps this medium, and what can the current crises provide us in terms of an opportunity to fix some of the problem?

Human resources - Hire the free? - "You Be the Reporter, Photographer, and Videographer" - Share with Us at MyNC.com

The price is cheap. Is it worth it?

Competitors - How to compete with more popular Tweeters? - "Who has the most Followers on Twitter? (Top 100)" - Twitterholic.com

What is especially interesting about this list is that I see only two newspaper listings in the top 100. One is for the NYTimes at an impressive # 19 spot and another, a blog on the NYTimes website, at # 67. Is this wrong, right, or irrelevant to the crises newspapers face today?

Customers - Choosing on whom you rely - "Social Media's Growing Influence" - NPR

Surely there are more creative ways for newspapers to insert themselves into this evolution as the trusted voice and source amidst so much that is so questionable.

Revenue - Has the process started to find a solution? - "Ideas for Online Media Pay Wall Create Buzz" - NYTimes.com

While these initiatives are well worth following, and are important, this New York Times story sprinkles just the right amount of salt on them. There is a lot of bragging competition underway among some of the players, and newspaper managers have to discount all of that if they can.

Technology - Is there still a chance that Google could help newspapes" - "Google Plans Tools to Help News Media Charge for Content" - NYTimes.com

A creative response to Google may be in the best interests of newspapers, no?

Crises - Some are bigger than others? - "Turkish Media Group Critical of Government Is Fined $2.5 Billion" - NYTimes.com

Can you imagine the crisis management needed in the face of this?

Content - How to make even more of it? - "'Spinning the Times' - 1st Irish Festival Offers Plays Inspired by Media Reports" - NYTimes.com

What's so interesting about this story is the suggestion that there are so many other actions and activities that flow from an item in a newspaper than just reading it. Is this not a time - amidst so many crises - when newspapers should focus on that laundry list of possibilities and help advance them in positive directions more creatively? It might be to encourage dramatic works to be created, or it might be to sell groceries, or it might be to affect public policy, etc.

Commissioned investigations?

Today I heard a report ont he BBC about a study "commissioned" by the BBC on immigration trends. The subject was not as important to me as was the process. I thought about the few times that I hear those words - commissioned study - used to describe something that a newspaper has professionally undertaken to do. Why is that? Sure, there is expense to do massive studies, but there is little expense in doing small studies very well. It is, it seems to me, something that could distinguish a newspaper better from the pajama-clad blogger than is now the case, no?

Customers - Shouting is more fun than thinking - "The Media Equation - Obama’s Challenges Reaching a Public Ready to Pounce" - NYTimes.com

Put the specifics of the very US-focused debate aside for a moment. What's at issue here is the communication of information that triggers a response among a significant number of people. How does this apparent fact affect, or how should it affect, the way newspapers conduct their business? Newspapers have both a role that they believe they should play generally and yet an unavoidable need to understand how people are reacting to what news and information they receive. If newspapers want to come out these crises successfully, they are going to have to mount an effort that takes this sort of like-it-or-not reality into account, no?

Customer input - Couldn't newspapers organize this really well for stories? - "A Book That Lets Readers Handle the Footnotes" - NYTimes.com

We are still at the experimental stage on all of this, aren't we? Imagine this in the context of a newspaper. The challenge is to collect all of the good stuff from readers that a newspaper can, incoporate the best and most useful and be sure to share it again with everyone. Imagine, for a moment, a process whereby newspapers publish stories seeking comment, via footnotes or otherwise, take all of that into account offline and product a final version of the story. Those who offer comments would get a first look at the finished product which might be preceded by a little discussion of the comments received and what was done with them. There is ample precedent in how to do this in the procedures used for more than 50 years in the US when federal goverment agencies publish proposed rules and actions, seek public comment, note the comments and discuss them, followed by publication of a final action. Why isn't that something newspapers might try?

Customers - How best to use the women's entrance? - "Yet Another Facelift for iVillage, NBC’s Site for Women" - NYTimes.com

Arguably half of any newspaper's market is made up of women. In some cases, it is more than that and in other cases, less. What makes this story about iVillage valuable is that here is a media company - NBC - trying to reach as many people as it can, and using as part of its offering a site focused on women. Not many newspapers seeking to reach the broadest audience do this; in fact, I don't know of any that do. Some have women's sections or others with a special appeal to women, but none have their own women sites. So, learning from what NBC has done and is doing can help with the management of, as I suggest, possibly one half of a newspapers' customers, no?

Evolution - Are there newspaper building blocks here? - "Turning to Hollywood Tie-Ins, Lego Thinks Beyond the Brick" - NYTimes.com

Newspapers and Legos are both pretty well established ideas in the minds of most people. If you think about how Legos have evolved in recent years, chart that, and put newspaper evolution alongside it, what would the similarities and differences be?

Public policy - Is there something to be said to ending endless anonymity? - "China Web Sites Seeking Users’ Names" - NYTimes.com

In a global marketplace, these sorts of government actions can never really be taken in isolation.

Advertising - Editing the ads? - "Magazines Run Ads, but Now They Create Them Too" - NYTimes.com

Has the time arrived for newspapers to become significantly more involved in the creation of the advertising they carry in print and online? Who would benefit? Start with advertising and reader customers.

Technology - Putting the internet to work for customers - "Google Advertising & Marketing Index" - Google Finance

This is an interesting set of charts from Google which may or may not mean anything in the end. What Google has done, however, is to make them easily accessible and comparable with major indices. And it had done so for a broad cross-section of the consumer economy. What's a good example of something of equal value to a newspaper market that has been launched by a newspaper?

News - Who is the better news organizer - a newspaper or Google? - "Google Shines a Deeper Spotlight on News" - Media Decoder Blog - NYTimes.com

How good a job are newspapers doing today - generally - in providing their customers with the same kind of added-value content?

Customers - Reading by a strap - "The Joy of Reading in the Subways of New York" - NYTimes.com

And where are the newspapers?

Books - What, exactly, are the differences between books and newspapers? - "Abroad - Beleaguered Bookseller Knows Whom to Blame - Oxfam" - NYTimes.com

The demise of bookstores is a sad development for anyone who values words. What can newspapers learn from what has happened to so many? How can those failures be turned into newspaper succeses? What I mean is that these are businesses whose offerings, almost exclusively, are words and pictures, printed on paper, and so have been newspapers; where book purchasers and readers go is much more complicated than a new electronic reader or website, and so, too, for newspapers. In the same edition of The New York Times comes this news of another bookstore failing in New York City, albeit a store speciailizing in French and other non-English language publications.

Customers - Who is offering the best outlet for self-expression? - "BBC World Service - Documentaries - Citizen journalism - democracy or chaos?"

To a large extent, most newspapers are simply letting this battle play out. One could hardly accuse many newspapers of trying to manage the evolution, even in a minor way, to make its outcome a better one. Many of the entities that create opportunities for non-journalists to share their writings claim to have high-minded ideals and seek to make the world a better place. Even if one accepts that, don't newspapers have a lot more to offer than they are now doing? Couldn't good newspaper managers develop a means by which the opportunities for people to express themselves increase more quickly than in the rest of the marketplace? Is it impossible to think that newspapers could take the lead on some of this to help move it in a direction where core values and the apparent desire to express oneself can both be better served?

Customers - Will they read a rain-soaked newspaper? - "Tesco, British Grocer, Uses Weather to Predict Sales" - NYTimes.com

It's easy to dismiss this as just a food industry matter, but I wonder if the consumption and use of what newspapers provide their customers in any medium are as dependent on things like the weather as Tesco believes grocery purchases to be?

Advertising - Dusting off the crystal balls - "A Mixed Outlook for Media Advertising" - NYTimes.com

The newspaper slice of the global advertising pie is not necessarily linked to the size of the pie.

Packaging - Newspapers not worth stealing - "It’s In The Bag" - Gadgetwise Blog - NYTimes.com

Imagine that - a fake newspaper with a computer inside. A sign of things to come?

Public policy - What role will privacy play? - "Media Decoder: Privacy Advocates Push for New Legislation" - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

There are many aspects to the public policy questions affecting newspaper navigation out of the crisis.

News - How do newspapers pursue access today? - "Sidebar - Shrinking Newsrooms Wage Fewer Battles for Public Access to Courtrooms" - NYTimes.com

News can be very expensive, especially when newspapers choose to fight government and/or private interests to obtain access to information, records and/or people. Being forced, it appears, to spend less on this today goes to the heart of what separates a professional news organization from a blogger in her or his pajamas. How do we resolve this not just for the good of the public but for the sustainability of newspapers as institutions with distinguishing characteristics?