The internet and digital technology have brought significant change and, occasionally, death to many industries. The newspaper industry is no exception, as advertising revenues and reader subscriptions have plummeted. A return to the old days is not going to happen. But does that mean that newspapers are doomed? Not yet, but certainly likely, if they maintain the status quo and follow innovative leadership ideas.
Here is a recommended roadmap for reinvention that I would pursue if newspaper ownership was my livelihood:
Carefullystudy the trailblazers and what they have learned
Over the past 5 years, there are many lessons. Here are a few of the best ones to start with: Huffington Post, Voice of San Diego, Business Insider, and Tech Crunch.
Innovative leadership … make customer engagement a top priority
A top priority in all reinvention ideas. Build communities for your readers and your business advertisers.
Your biggest customers, other businesses, are also going through significant change … make their success the centerpiece of your reinvention.
Innovative leadership characteristics … become a more predominant business leader
Look throughout the region. Be a hands-on leader, spokesman, and creator of change and improvement in ways that local governments have not been able to do.
Make the leadership to change the flagship of your new brand.
Go hyper-local
Hyper-local with the predominance of your news and information. Limit the state, national, and international news to summaries only.
Solicit from your customers on all critical issues.
Make crowdsourcing a competency
And use it for both internal as well as local issues. Experiment, prototype, and test fearlessly … iterate often. Make business model experimentation a top priority.
Note that 80% of the game-changing ideas over the last 100 years came from people outside the fields where the new ideas were successful.
Employ all emerging media platforms
Consider platforms such as video and mobile, two important examples. Identify creative, synergistic ways to integrate them.
Encourage new, innovative ways to collaborate with other businesses
Look for inventive partnerships that can yield win-win opportunities.
Become a medium for entertainment and local social sharing
On-line internet games and learning are in their infancy and would be a great place to start.
Many of the issues that your readers and businesses face are multi-faceted and complex.
Be more innovative in ways to present information and data visually
Look to improve education and bring clarity to these issues.
Finally, many of these ideas (and others) will require new skill sets.
Develop and hire new skills
Look for skills such as multi-media specialists, community builders, information technology experts, curators, and innovation specialists.
Several of these recommendations you are already pursuing, many others have yet to be defined or implemented.
The biggest obstacle the newspaper industry faces?
Letting go of the old ways fast enough so that the new ways have a chance to grow and develop.
The bottom line:
We need to put more thought into how we adapt and use our communication assets. Surely, we all spend time attending meetings and conference calls, reading and responding to messages that could be used more productively. That’s frustrating.
However—and this is a crucial point—we don’t know those interactions will be fruitless until we actually employ them. While it’s easy to remember the frustration of having our time wasted, it is not much harder to recall times when we have come across a random thread of information that we were able to capitalize on by sharing with others.
It is also those chance encounters that often lead to bigger things, precisely because we are able to share them, get diverse viewpoints and mobilize the efforts of many others. Increasingly, we live in a social economywith collaboration at its center.
It is no longer just efficiency, but agility and interoperabilitythat makes businesses such as newspapers most successful.
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Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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More reading on creativity and innovation from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Learn How to Think What No One Else Thinks
Generating Ideas by Convergent Thinking
Amazon and Managing Innovation … the Jeff Bezos Vision
