Journalism as media venture: A workshop & work plan
Bill Mitchell, Nikolaus Koller & Tobias Göllner
12-14 September 2013FH Wien University
Vienna, [email protected]
[email protected]@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
