Innovation requires picking up the pace

Newspapers love multi-level planning, with lots of meetings, memos, battle plans and the like. Well, that doesn't work in the fast pace that innovation requires, as Scott Karp explains in this Publishing 2.0 post.

This is a bit of rant, but it's a good rant by Yoni Greenbaum on how newsroom leaders need to understand the interactive tools and the technology we need to use to reach audiences.

Rob Curley tells how to cover a local breaking news story in this look at the coverage of the Monte Carlo fire in Las Vegas.

I also want to let you know about two important API opportunities:

Upholding and Updating Ethical Standards. API has received a new grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation. This will help us present a heavily subsidized seminar, Upholding and Updating Ethical Standards, for newsrooms, press associations and journalism organizations. We can present a one-day seminar examining ethical issues relating to innovation. Or we could present a two-day seminar that would combine the innovation issues with some traditional ethical issues such as accuracy, attribution and confidential sources.

The seminar will discuss ethical issues related to such aspects of digital journalism as online comments and discussions, audio/visual journalism, blogging, accuracy, breaking news coverage, links, databases, revenue generation and transparency. We don't present simple answers, but lead your members through a discussion of difficult questions and discuss how to apply journalism values to make sound decisions in this ever-changing field.

The one-day seminar would cost your organization a $500 fee for associations or newspapers with less than 100,000 daily print circulation and $1,000 for newspapers 100,000 and over. The fee for the two-day seminar would be $1,000 or $1,500. The grant pays transportation costs for the discussion leaders. The host organization pays the meals and lodging as well as seminar costs such as photocopying and providing a conference room. Please contact me if you'd like to discuss details or schedule a seminar for your newsroom, journalism organization or press association.

Newspaper Next 2.0. I hope you will join us for the free Feb. 19 webcast about our next report, Newspaper Next 2.0: Making the Leap Beyond "Newspaper Companies." This webcast and report will focus on revenue opportunities and will share the lessons of our Newspaper Next partners in 30 case studies. We will use the 2.0 report as the basis for consulting and training in the coming year. We would like to help you use the lessons of Newspaper Next to maximize the revenue opportunities in their markets. Please register right away for the free 90-minute Feb. 19 webcast.

I am working on another N2 report for release in the spring on using databases to build audience and generate revenue. If you are doing some interesting work with databases, please let me know right away so I can include your experience in that report.

Please let me know if you want to discuss Newspaper Next 2.0 consulting or training for your organization.