To the Press Tribe: Your Content is a Product

Companies and businesses would do well by reading and understanding this post titled migration point for the press tribe by Jay Rosen [hat tip to Chuck Peters]. In it, Rosen describes how thanks to the rising of flourishing of people as content producers, expert sharers, and self-guided consumers, the professional news tribe finds itself in the midst of a great survival drama. He puts his finger on exactly what did not happen with the migration to the Internet.

The Web is not a way to re-purpose content from other platforms - it's a way to engage, a completely different way of understanding what people think about, what they want to say and do. One that moves to exponential results when the context is built with the community that wants to participate in mind.

It did not happen for mainstream media in exactly the same way as it's not happening for companies. Products and services are shared territory - experts and veterans can and must exercise their editorial voice. On the other hand, the grassroots peer groups who are good at participation, community formation, and locating intelligence anywhere in the network can contribute those strengths to the system.

The shared part is also where the customers' use makes the product either a success or an utter failure.

It's not a matter of having one system without the other - at this stage, it's necessary to have both. Strong and inspiring leaders and thriving communities - of employees, of customers. The balance in the conversation between them shall be reflected on the balance sheet. 

News was one-way traffic just like communications and information flows in organizations were only top-down. Business managers created it, compartmentalized it, had it aggregated, published and broadcast. Yes, water cooler conversations among employees have been going on for a while. Does this remind you of the carefully scripted brochures and marketing materials for customers?

Except for now we have better tools and knowledge to be distributors *and* creators. Imagine the power of having actual distribution and communication tools that allow those same people who used to be just on the receiving end to produce their own information and disseminate it through their informal networks. Peer networks tend to be stronger because dissent and questioning are (better) welcomed within a horizontal or open structure.  

In talking about why media gets community wrong, Adam Tinworth wrote - "Most media people don't realize that blogging is a community strategy. They think of it as a publishing process... They certainly don't think of it as a conversation."

If you have seen me draw those pyramids on white boards or notepads, you will recognize one of my biggest pet peeves about companies and their processes - they forget the people part. Companies are process-focused and not people-focused; traditional media is content-focused and not people-focused. Your content is a product. The true integration is between people - journalists and readers who are also publishers; in business overall it's all employees with customers.

Pat Sullivan, the creator of ACT! and SalesLogix said "last time I checked, there were no buyers at our corporate offices... so maybe we should figure out how to spend more time in the field with them, learning about what they need than we do here with us guessing!"

Community is an approach to better product and services. Tinworth concludes: "holding community apart from professional content only harms the professional content creators. It bars them from seeing and exploring the reaction from their customers to their work. It stops them developing relationships - friendships even - with those they ultimately work for."

A lesson for business if I ever so one so clear. Now can we stop talking about the tools and start thinking of community as a strategy?

Bonus link: the state of the news media 2008 - an annual report on American journalism.

[top online news sites ComScore, unique visitors]

Comments

[Betsy Wuebker]

Yes! Everyone's a customer and the customer should always determine the product. No different in lofty journalism. I'm enjoying your blog very much.

[Suzanna Stinnett]

Valeria,
I sense that it is just taking some time for the conversation to become visible (audible) to all the right people. We are approaching a tipping point here. I look at it in terms of newspapers, because I really like newspapers and think they have a place. The trick is that enough people who like reading newspapers have to enter the online conversation, realize its potential, become part of BOTH communities, and then be the bridge that makes the change. With newspapers, we can certainly employ the vibrant prosperity available through Internet channels to make a new, working model for great journalism on paper. It just has to be sustainable. And it wasn't. So it's almost gone. As the conversation crosses borders, we will see its power and its impact in our communities and our institutions. Hm. Conversation AS an institution. Hmm!
Thanks for your brilliance and timing, as always.
Suzanna Stinnett

[Blog Expect]

I agree with you on this one. You have to sell yourself to every single visitor that comes to your site.

[Steven Woods]

Valeria, it's an interesting point, and in many ways I agree. It will be interesting to follow what happens with one part of the publishing world though; mainstream books on science research - things like Malcolm Gladwell's books (and many others).

Does the online world have the right economics to motivate that kind of effort? Are the size formats right (ie, a blog entry over 2 pages starts to feel very long), and will it be easy to introduce larger, framework-changing thoughts in the online media types?

Or, as Gladwell, Godin, Peters and many authors have done, launch a book for both economics and size/format, and use the online media types for discussion and community in parallel? Does this hybrid model become the norm, or are we in a transition phase right now? Food for thought, it will be interesting to see how it evolves over the next few years.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Betsy - thank you for passing through :) The biggest concept is that news and information are local and very much momentary.

@Suzanna - in reading your observations, my mind was going to all the times that business is just interested in profit and not in sustaining their earnings - both as return on investment and involvement. This short-term myopic approach can only lead to starving the very system that needs feeding. Steven is suggestion an interesting model. Online is for brevity (one wouldn't tell here). How can we do long form and conversation both?

@Steven - I like research actualized or at least in the hands of more people than just academia. The online model will need to develop better economics if it hopes to thrive. AP commissioned a study not long ago where they discovered that young people love to get the news in snippets (no big surprise there), but then they might want to dig deeper (paid content) when the news interested them/touched them in personal ways. I'm thinking here local and regional stories that layer more intelligence. I wonder what this kind of model would to to sensational journalism for the sake of the award. I wrote about the AP study (look under category of new media, you'll need to scroll pages, or search this blog if interested). The book is not going away. It's portable and allows for a more intimate and personal interaction with information - not everything needs to be public for it to happen. We also need to take into consideration mobile communications with the portability issue. Yes, indeed more to come.

[Shannon Paul]

Valeria, this is the most brilliant explanation of the disconnect between old/new media I have seen in quite some time. I needed this today. Thank you for writing it, you've just completely realigned my thinking on several matters. I will share this with everyone I know!

[Adam]

I'm glad you found that post of mine from a few months back useful. Thanks for the link.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Shannon - glad it was useful. It is the same kind of disconnect I am seeing for non marketers and marketers who have made sure they are up to speed on where customers are in their thinking.

@Adam - I've enjoyed reading your material and finally just got caught up on a story angle where I could share a glimpse of your thinking. Good work.