Journalism as media venture: A workshop & work plan

Bill Mitchell, Nikolaus Koller & Tobias Göllner

12-14 September 2013FH Wien University

Vienna, Austriabmitch@gmail.com

Nikolaus.Koller@fh-wien.ac.attobias@pioneers.io

Your work life:Three circles & a sweet spot

What we’ll explore in this workshop

• Audience as journalism’s first consideration• Audience problem as foundation of media

ventures• Market & media trends as your roadmaps • Tools like Twitter, Facebook & Storify• Elevator pitch as a journalist’s secret weapon

What you’ll do in this workshop

• Select an audience to serve • Pinpoint an unmet audience need/problem • Plan a venture to meet that need • Pitch that venture

Thursday night:

• Select an audience to serve • Pinpoint an unmet audience need/problem• Discuss market & media trends • Begin discussion of tools• First draft: Your audience, problem, venture

Friday night: • Meet in teams• Plan a venture to meet an unmet audience need • Continue discussion of key trends and tools

Saturday morning: • Complete plans for your media ventures• Pitch training by Tobias Göllner

Saturday afternoon: • Your pitches• Final revisions of your plans

What your pitches will include

• Name of the venture• Audience to be served• Audience problem to be addressed• Market/media trends to capitalize on• Tools to be used• The business model in a nutshell

Groundrules

• What happens in Vegas…• Tweets and photos• Talkers and listeners

Logistics

• Nametags• Register for WordPress (if you haven’t already)• Attendance: – Up to you to initial the sheet at end of each class– If you leave early, indicate that on the sheet

• Grades: – Quality of posts to class blog– Quality of your team’s pitch

Breakdown of grades

• 4 = exceptional• 3 = good • 2 = acceptable but needs work• 1 = needs a lot of work to be good• 0 = time to think about another line of work

Questions, concerns?

Comments from Nikolaus & Tobias

Break: Please return in 10 minutes!

Next Break & start writing: 19:30Last break & start writing: 21:00

The community/audience you’ll serve:

Three circles and a sweet spot

The changing role of audience(s)

Audience: Its digital role

Audience as… community

not just consumers of media, not just spectators…

Let’s think of the people “formerly known as the audience” as

a community of media co-creators

Some audience examples:

Personal examples

Why we need new media ventures:

“Creative destruction is the essential fact about capitalism.” -- Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, 1942

“News organizations today are experiencing a continuing crisis of value destruction …They must find ways to create new value to replace that which is being destroyed. If they do not, they risk their demise.” -- American economist Robert G. Picard, 2006

Framing your audience:

• Audience geography, demography, topic• Audience problem to be addressed• Competitive analysis: Has someone else

already solved this problem?

New value creation: Begins with understanding problem(s) to be addressed

• Something that, if it could be solved, would make life better in one way or another

• Get specific!• Don’t jump too quickly to the solution. Focus

on the problem for a while.• Focus on problems that might be addressed

with media of some sort

Your assignment:

• Interview a classmate to learn four things:• His or her name• The audience he or she wants to serve• The unmet audience need/problem to be addressed• Results of very preliminary competitive analysis• Sample: See class blog entry re Jane Doe

• Timing: • 5 minutes for A to interview B• 5 minutes for B to interview A• 15 minutes to write & publish a post with this headline

• Name: Audience and problem

20 years of new media ventures in a few minutes:

Stage I: Early experiments in digital publishing (1993, pre-web)

The fundamental problem

Ongoing challenge: Old media is collapsing more quickly than new media can be created. (Clay Shirky)

Discussion: What new media value can be created?

First we’ll look at key trends…And then some opportunities for

value creation

Key trend: user-generated content

Audience: Pregnant Poles & familiesProblem: No reliable info on careSolution: Enlist the women to

evaluate the hospitals

Crowdsourcing with “plane-spotters” around Europe: Who’s using the president’s plane?

Key trends: Social passes search as traffic driver for news

But… traffic that arrives via search can be more valuable:

-- More intense interest on the part of the user

-- Greater “time on site”

Bottom line: You want both social & search traffic!

Key trends, continued: Verification of news

Key trends, cont.: The “appification”of news

Key trends, cont.: Audience-based delivery (vs. publication-based)

Key trends, cont.: Data-driven news

Facebook Tips

Finding & refining audiences using Facebook Graph Search

More with Facebook Graph Search: Austrians living in Boston

An inside source for you at Facebook

How journalists can use Twitter

• Seek info as you begin your reporting (note New York Times example)

• Stay connected with sources (create a Twitter list like the Fh-Wien 13 list – public or private)

• Find & capture reaction (great for events where lots of people showed up but scattered)

• Use Topsy to search old (3-4 years) Tweets• Twitter critical to your post-publication strategy• Consult Mallary Tenore (see class resources)

Introduction to Storify

• Tk – perhaps show one as an example…

Behind the scenes with Storify(switch to laptop for live demo if time)

Basic business models

• The tension between reach & revenue– Advertising revenue– Subscription revenue

• Crowdfunding (Krautreporter, etc.)• Membership plans• Do journalism – but sell something else

Your assignment:• This time, write a post about your own

venture and include:– Its name– Audience– Audience need/problem– Media trends you’ll capitalize on– Digital tools you’ll use– Business model possibilities

• Same headline style: Your name: Audience• Timing: Please publish your post before

leaving tonight; then you’re free to go