This isn’t necessary. Just blog.

For those smaller businesses or SMEs just waking up to the power and necessity of content, it can be a hugely daunting prospect. Whether it is a law firm, solar energy supplier or company selling all types of batteries, just where do you start and what can be done?

For too many SMEs, the journey starts with contracts with web design companies, an SEO expert and possibly external marketing help. Everyone wants to help, but all too often the approach is fragmented. What use is a blunt tool that delivers erratic results? Everyone wants to stand out from the crowd, but just how do you do it? Get the content right and your website visitors will soon become your customers.

If planning is started from the perspective of the desired results and then mapped along the customer journey and back through the organisation it will be possible for SMEs to identify the activities and content that will make an impact.

And it doesn’t need to be complicated. You don’t need to become a professional journalist, you just need to learn how to use a blog to communicate your expertise in ways that customers find useful.  Forget about the buzz words of inbound marketing, content marketing or content strategy. Instead focus on building a blog and sharing that content across social media channels. Think customers, and discover what questions they need answered.

And if the words blog and blogging fill you with dread, stop. It can be fun and done properly it will be rewarding, both personally and for your business. And who benefits most? Your customers, because you are empowering them, you are helping them make the right decisions, avoid mistakes, and save money. For SMEs it is a crowded market, and your blog can help you be unique.

Six tips to plan and produce content that works.

1.  What is the business goal?  A simple question, but all too often it is ignored when it comes to defining what content will do to help achieve the required results. For even the smallest SMEs, content should not be an after-thought, it needs to be planned with a very clear goal in mind. Think about what types of content will help the business reach its targets.
2. Understand your customer. You know what you want to sell, and you know the volume you have to sell. You have identified your adwords, and sales leads are being generated. But you know you don’t have enough of the right sales leads. Problem is, once people arrive at your website they’re not sticking around. What information does your potential customer need? What can you offer them that helps them make a decision and then engage with your products or services?
3. Be unique. Create unique ideas that resonate with your customers. Make sure your blog is thinking like your customer and not like a business owner. Put yourself in the position of a customer.
4. Empower customers. No matter how dry, practical or uninteresting your products, it doesn’t mean your content has to be equally boring. If you help people avoid mistakes, save money and get great value you will be seen as a trusted expert in your field. If you can teach people how not to mistakes and save money they will love you forever. If they love you, they are more likely to buy your products. Think inform, think share, think educate. Don’t go for the hard sell, as if this is done properly you won’t need to.
5. Simplify, simplify, simplify. Whatever you do don’t try to impress people with your deep technical knowledge as it will only act as a turn off. Take complex issues and then present them in simple and engaging ways.  If you have a business selling bicycle tyres, don’t harp on about grades of synthetic rubber, instead talk about which tyres are ideal for different surfaces. Are they best for smooth roads or mountain biking? If you are a lawyer, don’t tell people your firm has been in business for over 100 years and don’t bore them with legalese. Instead offer some case studies that shows how to solve specific problems, get the right results and that it needn’t cost a fortune. Think video, and how it can be used to help people
6. Know the questions people are asking and answer them (and have an opinion). Listening is key. If you know what people are asking, what they need to know, or what keeps them awake at night, you will be able to create great content. Don’t sit on the fence. People don’t want to hear wishy-washy nonsense, they want a clear and compelling message about how they can solve their problems, create opportunities or save money. Keep a running list of all the types of questions your customers ask and then answer them.

Content Rev - Evolutionary Strategic Solutions

User generated scheduling

I’m generally not too concerned with developments in television beyond the explosion of content targeted at specialist interests,  the growth in delivery channels and media convergence. But today’s launch of a new TV channel from British terrestrial broadcaster Channel 4 has piqued my attention.

Channel 4seven has a simple and quite innovative premise. Its mission is to listen and build schedules around which of its programmes have created the most buzz across social media, bloggers, critics and from viewers. A montage of comments will be aired before each programme starts.

Interesting, yes. Brave, definitely. Foolish, possibly.

So which programmes will we be seeing on Channel 4seven I wonder? The mass market dross of programmes such as Embarrassing Bodies where you can gawk from the safety of your own living room at other peoples’ genital deformities, or endless repeats of Gordon Ramsey swearing at people in kitchens?

Will I Watch It?

I’m beginning to think I’m a mind-reader. You may not believe this, but after writing the previous sentence I checked the published schedule for the Channel 4seven launch and, yes, there is Embarrassing Bodies Live at 8pm, followed by Gordon Behind Bars, where Ramsey probably gets the chance to swear at prisoners.

Let’s think about this. I can watch Channel 4 live. I can watch it with an hour’s delay on Channel 4+1, or I can watch at my leisure by recording programmes or on demand online. Do I need this as well. Probably not.

I’m a bit old school when it comes to my viewing choices. Unsurprisingly, given my news background, I love good documentaries, investigative journalism and factual programming. Well crafted British contemporary drama as opposed to period pieces, classic programmes from the past and innovative comedy also appeal. As for sport, I would love to watch more, but as a subscription TV refusenik I seldom have the chance unless I pop down the pub for a beer.

Mass market populist stuff such as reality TV bores me, soaps hold no interest, panel shows with the same old comedians are tiresome, and as for the disposable so-called “celebrity” culture that washes through society, I really don’t care. Shopping channels, games channels or porn chat channels will also never get my attention.

I suppose, then, I’m quite old-fashioned.

If the schedulers at Channel 4seven do their job well and are guided by social media, what happens to editorial judgement? Social media is tremendously powerful. What happens if there are mischievous  attempts to subvert the scheduling by getting the worst or most mundane shows re-aired through Twitter campaigns? I mean, would you like to see last week’s weather bulletin again? I suppose social media could also be harnessed to promote worthy causes, or drive attention to political causes or even extremist views.

Is it a recipe to manipulate viewing schedules? Or will it result in the TV equivalent of watching paint dry? Whichever way you look at it, Channel 4 is trying something quite interesting.

Related articles

• Inbetweeners movie to the rescue for Channel 4(thisislondon.co.uk)

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• 4Seven: the TV channel with programmes chosen by Facebook(guardian.co.uk)

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Content Rev - Evolutionary Strategic Solutions

Data is power.

A friend of mine likes to visit boot fairs and low value auctions. He’s got a great eye and will often come home with a delicate set of antique silver spoons, bits from an old grandfather clock or some old table.

Data. No not that one. (Photo credit: puntxote)

“Very collectible,” he will be heard to say of his early morning bargains as he sets about restoring furniture or giving the brass on a magic lantern a bit of a rub. Stuff is repaired and piled up in various rooms in his house.

His plan is that he will sell most of it on eBay, and indeed he has made some killings with items bought for a few pennies being sold for hundreds of pounds. The problem is that while he may sell a few things every few months, each week he is accumulating far more.

And there is the rub. If he was able to get on top of his ever-increasing pile of clutter he would generate a not insignificant second income, but he has a fulltime job and sees his rummaging and collecting as a hobby.

And how many businesses may have the same challenge? When it comes to digital data, businesses are increasingly rich, data is piling up across different databases, but are they succeeding in building “Big Data” and extracting the maximum value? No, inevitably they are not, especially when the data is not seen as a primary revenue source.

In business-to-business (B2B) publishers and other organisations many companies are sitting on hugely valuable data assets. But legacy systems, or even the business models, act as a barrier and an apparently insurmountable hurdle to cashing in and exploiting digital data assets.

And so, you need to ask five questions about your data:

• What data are you are sitting on?
• What data are you creating?
• What data are you capturing?
• Do you know the value of that data?
• Do you know how to extract the value from that data?

What Is Big Data?

Data can be numbers, text, video or any form of content, but while data can be anything, Big Data is everything. The old school view of data was as lots of ones and zeros, or numbers on a spreadsheet. Yes, it is true, but the true value of data comes when they are added together and comes to mean something, to offer a conclusion. So, a list of customer names, contact details and preferences becomes a prospect list; a spreadsheet of numbers becomes a graph, an infographic can become a news story that tells the reader what is happening.

Big data takes it a stage further, but it brings the challenges of how to effectively capture, store, search, share, analyse and visualise the data. It is complicated, but if the value is to be extracted, it makes sense to invest in building a system that enables a single view.

Moving beyond customer data, some publishers are also gaining value from their data. It makes no sense to have dusty archives cluttered with loads of stuff that may come in useful. This old stuff has value and it is your job to find out what that value is. At a time when traditional publishing models are under threat as never before, some publishers are creating new digital data products, where they are distilling the statistics, reordering them, packaging them in such a way as to make them easily understandable or visually appealing, and then selling that data wrapped inside new data products. They are then delivering them across numerous digital channels.

There is a growing school of data journalism. The point here is that while in the past a journalist would need a “nose” for a news story and then spend time trying to develop it, today that journalist could spend time making sense from mountains of data. While the news may be breaking via Twitter and other social media platforms, the data journalist could be the first to make sense of the impact of that news event. Knowing something is happening is one thing, but understanding the consequences could be far more powerful. As a simple example consider the British parliament MPs scandal when mountains of data was sifted to report on one of the biggest scandals ever to rock the British establishment. For the Daily Telegraph, the newspaper to break the story, it resulted in massively increased sales and global attention.

An interesting point here is that data journalism should not be limited to traditional publishers. In an era when every organisation is a publisher, data journalism captures an activity which aims to make sense of something for the target audience.

So, if a B2B publisher wants to help its audience understand market trends, it can turn to data journalism. If a legal firm wants to help employers (its potential customers) understand trends in employment law it too could turn to data journalism to offer insights into its data on employment tribunals and the outcomes.

None of this is easy, but if we accept knowledge is power, then when thinking about digital data, that data is both the fuel and the engine that drives knowledge.

Related articles

• Top 5 Myths About Big Data(mashable.com)

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• The C-level is coming around on big data [infographic](gigaom.com)

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• When it comes to big data, don’t forget about video(gigaom.com)

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Content Rev - Evolutionary Strategic Solutions

Following on from my post this week “10 essential steps to change editorial to embrace digital“, I found myself embroiled in a really revealing discussion with a member of the STM Publishing group on LinkedIn. For those of you that may not know, STM stands for Science, Technical and Medical, and is, as you can imagine,  a major branch of the global publishing.

Typewriter to word processor. Is that digital transformation?

As ever, I had cross-posted the article to various relevant groups on LinkedIn, including STM Publishing, as I find it a really effective way of increasing exposure to my ideas. Anyway, I digress.

Following publication, up popped a comment that simply said: “What makes you think editorial has not embraces [sic] digital? My company went digital in 1990! I would like some evidence.”

Goodness, I thought, this company was clearly way ahead of the game. However, on closer inspection, it transpired that my correspondent was a little mixed up. He considered a shift to using “word processors” (and by association I assume moving away from typewriters) and the end of hard copy manuscripts as examples of a digital business. Further, he also considered that “the day for digital innovation and disruption is about done and now it is just applying the technology”. So, his view seems to be that innovation is over, there will be no more digital disruption, and we can all sleep soundly in our beds.

What is the meaning of digital?

My purpose in highlighting these contributions to the debate on digital transformation is that it may not be a simple segmentation between those that “get digital” and those that don’t. While there is an expanding cohort of people who really understand how digital can help publishers, there also appears to be those who think they get it, but who are actually naysayers who consider it as no big deal. That thought can only be filed in one place, under “ignore at your peril”.

Extracting maximum value from the possibilities presented by digital is a learning process that is only going to accelerate. As I have commented on these pages previously, we are still only at the beginning of the digital era which can only be characterised as a period of massive disruption and immense opportunity and threat. The risks of inaction are far greater than the risks of trying new approaches and then getting them wrong.

Digital focus in PwC Media Outlook 2012 – 2016

In publishing, digital creates the potential to extend beyond the core offering, to open up new revenue streams through engaging in ways that were never previously possible. The PwC “Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2012 – 2016“, that was published this week, says the industry has entered a “new normal”, with digital embedded in business-as-usual. It is, PwC says, “the end of the digital beginning”. That may be so, and it only serves to ring alarm bells ever louder for those who still think digital doesn’t apply to them.

PwC said those publishing companies that thrive will be leading the cause for innovation and those that understand behavioural changes in the world will be able to take advantage. There were three key areas to be understood:

1. Understanding the connected consumer through data analytics while heeding concerns over privacy.
2. Devising new business models to reinvent the value proposition of advertising and content.
3. Developing the organisational models and collaborative capabilities to drive revenues from new behaviours.

As ever, this is rooted around the customer and customer behaviour. It is about understanding customer data and how the customer engages in a connected, multi-screen environment, while also allowing the customer to be in control rather than just being “owned”. People will volunteer greater amounts of data when they feel it is in their own best interests.

Businesses need to aim for a win-win model in which the medium, the advertiser and the consumer all collaborate and benefit. Ultimately, the only person who ‘owns’ the customer – and the customer’s data – is the customer him or herself.

And back to the original discussion on LinkedIn.

To my correspondent, I say, “in your long career you may think you’ve seen it all before, but the truth is there has never been a disruptive force as powerful as digital unleashed on the publishing world. It is no longer just about pushing “stuff” at readers, it is about collaborating with customers. Publishing businesses need to extend their activities, there needs to be innovation, and they need to understand how they can help solve their customers’ problems.”

Related articles

• Why digital-native media will (almost) always win(gigaom.com)

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Content Rev - Evolutionary Strategic Solutions

The demands on editorial teams have never been greater. The days of over-stuffed newsrooms and large expense accounts are long gone. Instead, costs are being cut and digital enables an ever accelerating flow of information that readers and consumers increasingly expect over multiple channels and devices in real-time or within a short period. How can editorial teams reinvent themselves to thrive in this challenging environment?

When I first arrived as a foreign correspondent in Vietnam in 1992 there were just a handful of international telephone lines linking the country to the outside world. Calls needed to be booked, they were horrendously expensive and very poor quality (plus the communist spooks also listened in, you could hear clicks on the line and sometimes voices in the background).

By 1995, things hadn’t improved much. Telephone density in Vietnam was only 3.8 per 100 people, far lower that any other countries in the region. An experimental email bulletin board system was launched by a college in the capital Hanoi, but communications remained a massive challenge. On assignment I would disappear. It would sometimes be days before I was able to file a story, and as for transmitting photographs, forget it. Even by 1999 when mobile networks had begun to sprout up in the cities, vast swathes of Vietnam were uncovered and when working for Reuters with its never-ending deadlines I could frequently be found driving 20 or 30 miles to reach a telephone.

When you stop for a moment to consider the digital changes that have swept across the world, information has been freed. It is no longer constrained by geography, physical infrastructure or even politics.  In the same way as water will always find a way to flow down hill, information strains to be free. When considering traditional editorial operations, the days of being able to hold on to an exclusive while waiting for your print or publishing deadline have gone. You run the risk of being overtaken by someone else and of annoying your readers who expect to be quickly informed of important developments in their areas of interest.

But to do this takes change. Not just change in terms of function, but change in terms of attitude, expectation, skill sets, and organisation. Both publishing and editorial leaders need to drive change. It doesn’t matter whether you are the publisher of print or online and digital products, the same rules apply. This article is not concerned with aspects of defining business strategy, but it is focused on achieving business goals in a changed publishing environment.

When considering how to change editorial to be able to generate value for carefully defined customer needs, a thorough cross-functional business process needs to be followed. Editorial is not a separate entity (no matter how many editors would like it to be), it is an intrinsic part of the business and needs to be fully involved in business planning and execution.

The following is not an exhaustive list. As with a tree, there are many branches that could be explored, and let’s not forget change management is a highly complex process where the risks of getting it wrong can have a huge impact on the business overall. For example, not all staff — senior or junior — will sign up to the new vision and it will be necessary to consider how to reach the goals if significant barriers remain in place. But, I have direct experience of driving change within publishing businesses and while it can be like walking on eggshells, if publishers are to thrive in the digital world they need to tackle tough decisions fairly and decisively.

Here are 10 ways to drive editorial to change and embrace digital:

The first five are cross functional with involvement of all business departments, including editorial, which must be involved in agreeing business direction. Items 6 – 10 are for editorial with support from the business.

1. Understand your customer, your reader, your viewer. In short, change isn’t just for change’s sake, it is for a clearly defined reason. Start from the perspective of understanding what role your products and published services play in the life of your customer. How can your services make your customer’s life easier? Build detailed customer personas and use them all the time.
2. Determine what role you want to play for your customer and how this meets business objectives. This may sound odd when thinking about editorial change, but for someone who is paying for your services, they really don’t care how you are structured, they just want to get the value and information they need to make their lives better. This will be informed by understanding the customer personas. Get this piece right, and success in hitting business goals will follow.
3. Think how your current portfolio of services meets the customer personas and their needs. Use data to understand what information your customers access and how they access it. What else needs to be done or could be done to improve the customer experience? This covers a potential multitude of opportunities, from different types of content (text, audio and video), different digital engagement platforms, social media integration and the critical paid subscription, free content or a freemium model where free content is tied to an action the customer needs to take.
4. Formulate a vision. Make it outward facing, not inward. What is the value proposition for the customer and how will it benefit the business?
5. Communicate the vision across the publishing business, with carefully constructed escalation from the top down to permeate through all layers with the goal of an all-inclusive approach.
   

   No point hiding, editorial teams can change

6. Review editorial roles. Assuming the editorial leaders are fully bought in to embracing not only changing business priorities, but also changing working practices, the hard work then begins. They need to review roles, responsibilities, workflows, resources and really importantly, skills, to understand how editorial staff can be trained, equipped and helped to work smarter without burning out under the burden of unrealistic expectation.
7. Involve editorial staff in redefining their job profiles. If the discussion around organisation, responsibilities and the reasons why things need to change is opened up you will be surprised with how successful you can be. Change is unsettling, and many people will recognise good ideas but still fail to understand why they need to change. A top down dictated approach will not secure buy-in and support. Change needs to come from within, but it should be carefully nurtured to ensure the desired results are achieved.
8. Define new guidelines and adhere to them. Involve team members in updating your Editorial Guidelines and in drafting a new Editorial Operations Manual that defines workflow, how things are done and the expectations placed on editorial team members. This should explain how each piece of content can be versioned and reversioned for multiple use across different products, platforms and services. “Generate Once Use Multiple Times” to avoid duplication of effort and deliver maximum value from every piece of content. Review the Style Guide so that it captures changes that may be needed to adapt output for different channels or platforms. For example, do you need to review headline policy to ensure headlines are not only optimised for a web presence, but how thy work on platforms such as Twitter?
9. Plan, Communicate, Train, Implement and Enforce. There is no point expending all this effort if it counts for nothing, or ends up half-baked. Editorial staff need to adopt new ways of working. Find ways to make it fun, reward and recognise significant contributions to helping meet the goals and encourage innovation.
10. Measure, review, tweak and don’t be afraid to change again. Change never stops, it is ongoing. Customer needs will continue to evolve, new markets and opportunities will emerge, technology will continue to make the previously impossible, possible, and staff skills will grow.

Related articles

• How Traditional Publishers Are Going Digital – and Why Brands Need to Watch Closely(thecontentlab.icrossing.com)

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• How media disruptions are changing magazine websites(emediavitals.com)

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Content Rev - Evolutionary Strategic Solutions

Video flagging the new paperback book of “Macrowikinomics: New Solutions for a Connected Planet”. Co-authors Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams present groundbreaking innovations from around the world and how businesses, organisations and individuals are using social media and mass collaboration to revolutionise the way we work, live, learn, create and care for each other.

Watch this video.

Content Rev - Evolutionary Strategic Solutions

Social media is at the heart of personal interactions, be they taking place among friends or, increasingly, within the workplace. While there are still those businesses that exhibit Luddite tendencies to restrict, ban or monitor social media activity during working hours, there are others that are embracing the opportunity (and risks) that social media offer.

Inclusion of these links within the Rev’d Blog doesn’t imply that Content Rev either agrees with or supports the ideas, suggestions, examples and theories that you may find curated here. These are simply things related to publishing, content, digital, community and consequence that you may find interesting.

We’d love to hear your comments on these, as well as suggestions on which themes you’d like explored.

#1 The benefits of Facebook in the workplace by Troy Larsen

Facebook at work improves productivity

Published 9 May, 2012 on “Conspire“, the Mindjet blog

Troy makes the sensible point that those companies embracing enterprise social media platforms alongside email are seeing increased unity and organisation when compared to those depending on the increasingly outmoded email alone. Arise, the virtual water cooler.

#2 What traits mark a “social” leader by Cheryl Burgess

Seven personalities of a social executive

Published 9 April, 2012 on Uprising

Michael Dell, he of Dell Computers, is trumpeted as understanding that businesses can no longer afford to rest on their laurels while the digital bazaar transforms the world around them. Nice article that highlights how leaders need to listen and engage in the digital world.

#3 How to understand social media in the workplace by Will Taylor

Social Networking’s Nasty Habits

Published 31 May, 2012 on ZD Net UK

Sensible piece of analysis from ZD Net UK on how social networking in the enterprise has implications beyond the trade-off between happiness and distraction in the workforce. Three essential steps — educate, devise a sensible acceptable use policy and then protect system integrity without blocking unnecessarily.

Content Rev - Evolutionary Strategic Solutions

Don't just follow, lead (Photo: Michel Gounot / Godong)

How often are you frustrated by the pace of change? Do you have loads of great ideas that you believe will turn your strong organisation into an exceptional organisation? How are you going about securing the support? Do you know how to build a compelling business case? Can you sell change as a positive?

Irrespective of your company structure and whether you are part of a traditional hierarchical team or fit somewhere within a complex matrix of competing priorities and interests, there are several guiding principles to getting your ideas aired, considered and implemented so that change can take root. Skip any of these crucial steps and you may as well be shouting into a gale force wind for all the good it will do you. Get it right and you will be seen as one of the organisation’s natural leaders.

The following three suggestions will help you get ideas accepted and increase the pace of change in your organisation.

1. Think “what will this solve?”

The strongest ideas, those that achieve the fastest take up and which gain real support to drive change, are those that are clearly going to solve a problem and deliver a solution. Resist the temptation to immediately head blue-skywards with “Wouldn’t it be great if…?”  So, for example, if you are (or fear) losing competitive edge and need to crack open a new market or launch a new product think first what your ideas will do for others. Understand the decision makers‘ fears and concerns and tailor your initiative to deliver something meaningful.

2. Be prepared. Where is your business case?

Be prepared. Be prepared. Be prepared. Sorry, just in case you didn’t get that. Be prepared. This isn’t about getting high off the adrenalin rush of your great ideas. It is all about building that compelling business case and calmly painting a picture of the value of the ideas to the business, how they help meet business goals and the risk of inaction. It can be extremely annoying when someone you trust to grow a business let’s their heart rule their head and who fails to understand those around them or to listen. The decision makers, be they your peers or your senior management, want to see you have carefully structured your arguments, and that you have considered the opportunity from both the positive and negative.

But having a great business case is still only part of the battle, you also need to be able to clearly and succinctly communicate what you are going to achieve. Spreadsheets have their place, but try to think of engaging ways to present the business case through diagrams and graphics. A great image will stick in the mind when it is associated with a great idea.

3. Maintain visibility and deliver quickly.

So you’ve successfully had your business case accepted, you’ve been given the green light, what next? Your business case is only the beginning, it is a guide. Think of it as a sketch map that sets out the rough route to the goal but which doesn’t accurately portray roads and paths or the topography of the landscape.

You need to engage across the organisation to build support and trust, and crucially to tap into the expertise you need to deliver against your great idea. This isn’t just about being able to deliver against your ideas, but it is about keeping those ideas as part of the conversation within the organisation. Don’t, whatever you do, let the ideas slip from view. Communicate little and often, keep the focus on progress, devise and follow the project plan and make sure you deliver whatever has been promised.

Content Rev advises organisations on how to develop a culture of change and ideas that drive innovation and grow the business. Speak to us to find out how our process can help.

Content Rev - Evolutionary Strategic Solutions

Innovation is at the heart of all great businesses, and great businesses will often have visionary leaders. These are people who immerse themselves in ideas, listen actively and who are not afraid to fail. But it’s worth asking the question: How many people who call themselves leaders are actually fully engaged with the opportunities they are discussing?

Inclusion of these links within the Rev’d Blog doesn’t imply that Content Rev either agrees with or supports the ideas, suggestions, examples and theories that you may find curated here. These are simply things related to publishing, content, digital, community and consequence that you may find interesting.

We’d love to hear your comments on these, as well as suggestions on which themes you’d like explored.

#1 Tips for publishers to build revenue by Amy Gahran

10-step mobile strategy for community publishers

Published 22 May, 2012 on “News Leadership 3.0″ from the Knight Digital Media Center

A few useful suggestions from a recent workshop that brought together editorial, business and digital managers from the New York City area. Key takeaways — stretch beyond you comfort zone and mobile first. I’m sure that’s something we all know, isn’t it?

#2 What a digital leader looks like by Guy Tasake

8 Traits Your Digital Leader Must Have

Published 9 April, 2012 on Paid Content Strategies

Written with newspapers in mind, it is, as Tasake says, “not a time of many small experiments.” Here’s his take on some of the decisive moves and mindsets needed. “It’s not a time for incremental improvements, it’s a time for curve jumping/paradigm changing stuff.”

#3 The Digital Career Switchover by Maija Palmer

From Silicon Valley to American Express

Published 23 May, 2012 on FT.com

Damn those orthodoxies! If businesses are to get on they have to build new skills, and if that means moving out of the comfort zone and seeking talent from unrelated industries, then so be it. Here’s the story of how former Skype CEO Josh Silverman became head of Amex’s  US Consumer Services business.

Content Rev - Evolutionary Strategic Solutions

This is the first in a regular series of posts that aims to pull you in to subjects and experiences beyond your core competencies. There are numerous examples of common issues across different sectors, so here’s a chance to find out how others are grappling with those thorny issues.

Inclusion within the Rev’d Blog doesn’t imply that Content Rev either agrees with or supports the ideas, suggestions, examples and theories that you may find curated here. These are simply things related to publishing, content, digital, community and consequence that you may find interesting.

We’d love to hear your comments on these, as well as suggestions on which themes you’d like explored.

#1 Putting the visitor first by Clairey Ross

Designing for community-powered digital transformations workshop

Published 15 May, 2012.

This posting from Clairey Ross, a self-confessed museumaholic who is also chair of the  Digital Learning Network For Museums, Libraries and Archives, has a neat little Prezi that illustrates what we all need to do: Put the customer first.

#2 Digital transition is not digital transformation by Ken Doctor

New Orleans’ Forced March to Digital

Published 24 May, 2012.

News industry analyst Ken Doctor slams the shift by The Times-Picayune newspaper in New Orleans from daily to thrice weekly as a “forced march to digital”. It is, he says, one of the last US newspapers to keep its digital business separate. The publisher “is circling the print wagons, hoping to milk the remaining print advertising by corralling it into a few days of the week”. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

#3 Digital is the substitute for newsprint by Katie Vanneck-Smith

Digital has been our single biggest strategic mistake

VIDEO – Published 21 May, 2012

Katie Vanneck-Smith, CMO for News International, explains how digital is the substitute for newsprint, is the biggest pressure on the News International business model and it is the only platform on which they will operate in the future. She sensibly kicks off saying she was grateful to only tackle the business and organisational transformation, rather than the more general challenges currently faced by the company.

Content Rev - Evolutionary Strategic Solutions