I’ve learned much in the past three days. Self-examination and realization tends to do that.

I found my inspiration the other night from an unlikely source: Season 4 of the West Wing in an episode titled 20 Hours in America. Despite your probable laughter, it worked for me.

I haven’t been at my best, but I will be better. No words are going to show that. So I’m ready to run into the fire and keep moving forward.

And although my personal and professional challenges don’t rise to those portrayed via fiction in a television show, there is an underlining theme I needed to hear.

Long version (3:41)

We did not seek nor did we provoke an assault on our freedom and our way of life. We did not expect nor did we invite a confrontation with evil. Yet the true measure of a people’s strength is how they rise to master that moment when it does arrive. Forty-four people were killed a couple of hours ago at Kennison State University. Three swimmers from the men’s team were killed and two others are in critical condition, when, after having heard the explosion from their practice facility, they ran into the fire to help get people out. Ran into the fire. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight. They’re our students and our teachers and our parents and our friends. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels, but every time we think we have measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we’re reminded that that capacity may well be limitless. This is a time for American heroes. We will do what is hard. We will achieve what is great. This is a time for American heroes and we reach for the stars. God bless their memory, God bless you and God bless the United States of America. Thank you.

Shorter version

His passion for classical music is astonishing, and he doesn’t get deterred by the negativity surrounding the closing of  orchestras or survey results showing that only 3 percent of the population likes classical music.

“There are some people who think that classical music is dying. And there are some of us who think you ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” he says.

His talk is funny, inspiring, motivating, eye-opening and likely the best 20 minutes, 46 seconds you could spend today.

I mentioned each time I watch it I pick up something new. Here is what I heard today:

“The conductor of the orchestra doesn’t make a sound. He depends, for his power, on his ability to make other people powerful. And that changed everything for me. It was totally live-changing.  .  .  I realized my job was to awaken possibility in other people.” – Benjamin Zander

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Hugh MacLeod

This post is going to be a bit different. I don’t have a complete thought on this topic but I know it’s a good one to explore. I need help in finishing it, so won’t you give me an opinion?

I recently came across an excerpt of a book written by Matthew E. May that introduced me to the power of incomplete ideas.

Two things from that stuck with me from his excerpt.

In the Zen view, emptiness is a symbol of inexhaustible spirit. Silent pauses in music and theater, blank spaces in paintings, and even the restrained motion of the sublimely seductive Geisha in refined tea ceremonies all take on a special significance because it is in states of temporary inactivity or quietude that Zen artists see the very essence of creative energy. Because Zen Buddhists view the human spirit as by nature indefinable, the power of suggestion is exalted as the mark of a truly authentic creation.

Conventional wisdom says that to be successful, an idea must be concrete, complete, and certain. But what if that’s wrong? What if the most elegant, most imaginative, most engaging ideas are none of those things?

I am in search of companies or individuals who embrace and see value in incomplete ideas. Do you know of any? How do you handle incomplete ideas?

I’ve said before that ideas are cheap, and now more than ever action over talk is needed. At that same time, there are ways to act more wisely. Having a process for handling smart but incomplete ideas is one way to do that.

As someone who embraces disruption, here’s what I’ve been reading that furthers my value in those incomplete ideas:

• Research has shown that innovative ideas tend to emerge more readily in communities in which people work in small and relatively isolated groups where early stage, incomplete and vulnerable ideas are given space and time to mature. – Neil Perkin

• Great ideas alter the power balance in relationships. That’s why great ideas are initially resisted. –  Hugh MacLeod

• A great piece of art is composed not just of what is in the final piece, but equally what is not. It is the discipline to discard what does not fit—to cut out what might have already cost days or even years of effort—that distinguishes the truly exceptional artist and marks the ideal piece of work, be it a symphony, a novel, a painting, a company, or most important of all, a life.  – Bestselling business author and self-employed professor Jim Collins

• How do people come up with truly original, effective ideas? A key part of the process is actually leaving out a detail or two. Regardless of what you are trying to create, allowing it to have a blank space or two will give your brain the freedom to think more creatively. – CornerWorld

• In the networked society, companies premised upon the legacy, linear, mass-media models of: business, organisation, and marketing must think the unthinkable – in fact they must embrace the unthinkable. And work out how they innovate to survive. – Alan Moore

• “Less is the new more” Easy to learn: symmetry, seduction, subtraction, and sustainability. Very valuable to do.  – Guy Kawasaki

Here are a few random and incomplete ideas I have. Anyone want to help me with them?

• Can a core group of passionate people come together to revitalize downtown Cedar Rapids as an entertainment and lifestyle hub?

• What’s the future of the NewsInnovation movement?

• How do you turn the physical newspaper into a medium that adds value through explanatory, forward-thinking journalism while losing the stigma that comes with being a newspaper?

• What’s the best way to teach, inform and show journalists and community catalysts the value in creating kick-as, must-read local blogs?

At the same time, I helped hire a mobile journalist to work for GazetteOnline.com in Cedar Rapids whose responsibility was to create, collect and present information for a digital audience.

Within a few months, the mobile journalist flourished in both content collection methods and audience growth by using the latest tools and technology to publish information quickly, while also equipped with new tasks to meet the growing needs of that digital audience. The position did that, in part, by spending 85 percent of the time outside of the traditional newspaper newsroom and focusing almost exclusively on the wants and needs of a digital audience.

At the same time – and even to a certain extent now – journalists who spend a majority of their time in the newsroom still have not yet reached the level of producing digital-first content for digital audiences.  There have been huge strides made, but we struggle with the new mindset, fear and the “sucking sound of the core” like many other places across the industry.

Howard Owens, who runs The Batavian – a digital-only local news and information source, recently wrote that the original sin of media companies was in keeping its online operations “tethered to the mothership.” He instead argues that web products should be businesses on their own.

Here is his realization:

“Instead of thinking about how to generate more cash, I needed to figure out how to create a news operation that could exist profitably based on a reasonable expectation for local online revenue.”

Here is his proposal:

• Minimally staffed on both the sales and content side.
• Both staffs would operate in a building far away from the newspaper office.
• No newspaper content would feed the web site, and the online staff wouldn’t consult or work with the newspaper staff on stories. There would be a total wall of separation.
• There would also be a total wall of separation between sales staffs.
• The separate business unit would be competitive with the newspaper, not complimentary.

News tasks lead to new mindset

My colleague at Gazette Communications, Steve Buttry, writes that mindset is more important than organization in referencing the points made by Owens.

Howard has some excellent advice on starting an independent online operation and most, if not all, of the online spinoffs from newspaper organizations did not do things the way Howard is saying they should have. My point is that organization is not as important as mindset. And spinning digital operations off did not change the mindset.

I agree that mindset trumps organizational structure. But the only proven way that I’ve seen mindset change in a newsroom environment is by creating new tasks – (the show, don’t tell philosophy) – with clearly defined expectations and incentives and consequences attached to them. But even then, that process will take years to accomplish at the enterprise level what a small group, whose focus is entirely on reaching a clearly defined audience, can do in a matter of months.

Audience-first philosophy

What’s missing in many reorganizations across the industry are the wants and needs of the audience. We aren’t collecting content – both in news and advertising – with clearly defined audiences in mind.

Chuck Peters, the CEO of Gazette Communications, told me about 18 months ago something like this (I’m paraphrasing): “If you own a product and are not tied directly to revenue, how can you judge whether the product is successful?”

It made sense. I find myself asking another question too, and since I’ve stuck to a content theme I’ll continue with that: If you are responsible for putting content in front of digital audiences with a goal of increasing engagement and usage, but have no sustained and direct link between the content collectors and the audience you want to engage and reach, how can you be successful?

Especially in the digital realm, the lines between content, sales, marketing, audience and web development are so intertwined that separating those entities extremely hampers the success of digital operations.

It’s a little surprising to me that after all my study of Clayton Christensen and other thinkers on disruptive innovation  that I didn’t see more clearly sooner the imperative of a separate operation, but it is what we should have been doing. – Howard Owens

Katherine Warman Kern would probably disagree with my assessment based on the future of media will be marketing post.

Publishers/Programmers, Technology, Marketing should collaborate to identify how each platform will add incremental value to the consumer and the brand’s bottom line. To create incremental value, the media brand should leverage the unique advantages of each platform to express itself and evolve its relationships with the audience.  A fully integrated, multi-platform media brand will deliver a whole much bigger than its aggregated parts.

On digital platforms – or any other platform for that matter – having content collectors, sales staff and marketing folks focused on that specific digital audience offers the best chance for success. A small team and a self-sustainable revenue model, like the one Owens mentioned, can work.

The flip side is that on the enterprise level we will continue to market digital products in our legacy brands. We will continue to put newspaper ads online. We will continue to cover events that newspapers have always covered.

As director of new media in Ventura and VP of interactive in Bakersfield, I certainly had some grasp that online wasn’t print. I did push such innovations (at least for the time) as comments on stories, video, web-first publishing, locally focused home pages, user profiles/social networking. But looking back, I see now that I still had a lot of newspaper-think in my outlook. – Howard Owens

Newspaper readers and broadcast TV news viewers who use our online products will not solely help us grow audience. Adding incremental value to further the overall brand’s bottom line, in my opinion, will not help a product engage and reach audiences that have never consumed our products before.

It’s time to divide and conquer.

Do a couple of self-proclaimed tech guys/news junkies stand a chance competing in a crowded online news media field? While it doesn’t seem plausible, the digital age has made it possible. And sometimes, that’s enough. – Mark Briggs

The new culture is open, fast-paced, and encouraging of first-time entrepreneurs. It’s about blogging and tweeting and digitized networks of people sharing information about what they’re interested in, and where they’re investing. It’s about informal “unconferences” popping up to discuss the latest tech trend. It’s populated by people who see the value in having broad networks of friends and acquaintances across lots of companies. Employers who operate in the new culture realize that the way you keep people motivated and maintain your position in the marketplace is by giving them interesting projects to work on and rewarding them appropriately . . . The new culture isn’t afraid to spread the good word about the innovation that happens . . . The new culture is about seizing opportunities, not reinforcing hierarchies.

- The Cultural Revolution: Which Side Are You On? – Boston.com

At the same time I was putting this post together, Howard Owens pushed a message across Twitter that speaks to journalism and the new culture.

howardowens @dangillmor @johnrobinson @cshirky Journalism has stumbled not because of TV or Internet, but failure to change with society.

Anything we do going foward has to be in line with the new culture in order to meet the needs of the audience and the people who don’t yet engage.

They all have to do with innovation, taking risks and breaking down barriers. Engaging in those and taking a critical look at the tasks I’ve been doing, has given me some of the fire back that has been absent for awhile, so I felt a need to share. Here goes:

The first is a video from the folks at CoPress called A Case for Innovation. Simple, to the point and right on.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/6172232]

The second is a post by Dan Pacheco on how fear, brand addiction and paranoia block innovation. This struck with me because breaking down these and other barriers is going to lead to some really cool stuff.

Just to be clear, I’m not opposed to building and growing existing brands, but in today’s fragmented world I think that “one size fits all” brands have limited appeal. My advice to mature information companies is to think of their brands as “wrappers” for capabilities and expertise. They deliver solutions to customers. But every audience prefers different packaging, so if you use the same brand for everything you end up polluting their potential.

The third is a very clear set of tasks that can be done to create a ecosystem of local knowledge. It comes from Chuck Peters in a post called Focus on Essential New Tasks.

It is a collaborative blueprint for fundamentally changing the way media companies collect content, engage audiences and new voices, disseminate information and work more closely with communities they serve.

We need to create content in the first instance with a new mindset, both those content creators we employ full time, and contracted or freelance community content creators.  All content creators need to have a primary emotional bond with their content and audience, not a product or company.

This content creation needs to take place in a new infrastructure which allows atomization and tagging at the simplest elemental level.  Today we are stuck with locked-down story and advertising publishing systems, and a bewildering array of blogs, tweets and social space entries.

The fourth comes from Neil Perkin and his Only Dead Fish blog. If you’ve never come across him, take the time. It’s worth it.

He recently wrote a post about the power of incomplete ideas, which to me speaks directly to the way innovation often happens.

As Matthew May says in the introduction to his lovely manifesto on the subject (HT to Johnnie Moore for the link): “Conventional wisdom says that to be successful, an idea must be concrete, complete, and certain. But what if that’s wrong? What if the most elegant, most imaginative, most engaging ideas are none of those things?”. Matthew goes on to make a brilliant point about this, that it is the “unusually simple yet thoughtful construction of what is there” that gives the missing piece its surprising power. Rather like Itay Talgam’s ‘Doing By Not Doing’ (if you haven’t seen that talk yet, watch it. It’s worth it).

I am a media junkie and love the idea of forging ahead and breaking down barriers to lead to new success stories in this industry. I take these four items as a call to action.

I realize many talented folks are not looking to join what could be considered a traditional media company. But we are not a media company that is standing still. We believe we are headed in the right direction with a blueprint for a complete community connection and the leadership to make it happen.

Here is an opportunity to join a progressive six-member team in a fun, fast-paced environment at a media company doing cool stuff.

If you are interested, check out the job ad or contact me via email with questions.

For me, the point of the news innovation movement has not been about talking and creating new ideas. It’s been about action and collaboration. I think most people got that at the BarCamp.

With that said, here were my big takeaways, and I’ll go into more detail on some of them below:

• Collaboration – although messy and hard to replicate – is vital to success.  Collaboration solves the filter failure issue. (Originally I couldn’t find the right link to the ‘filter failure’ post until Scott Karp posted this).
• Organizations need to commit to innovation, despite the cost, and the sharing of those innovations leads to smarter ideas in the future
• We have to better create more relevant user experiences across print, digital, mobile and the next platform to come
• Sales staffs at media companies still have no idea how to sell or be creative when it comes to digital advertising, business models or call-to-action types of monetization efforts.
• Three dudes – Sean Blanda, Brian James Kirk and Christopher Wink – who run Technically Philly offer a great lesson on a digital startup.
• Not many of the news innovators work for media companies. A lot of the talent is working for companies trying to help the media industry evolve.

One concept that I have not yet fully explored, but agree with came from Ted Mann via Twitter: @turkeymonkey: #BCNIPhilly takeaway No. 1: If you’re creating a blog or website, forget about building your business model on advertising”

The comprehensive roundup of the reaction from #bcniphilly gives a better overview of the day than I can, but I want to go into more specifics about topics that resonated with me.

Collaboration

Media organizations must learn and be better at collecting and curating content based on topic in a collaborative, networked way. Those companies are only one voice and there are hundreds of others out there locally who like to produce, consume and share. We need to find those people, engage them, work with them, publish them and celebrate their successes within this newly formed network.

Scott Karp of Publish2 talked about collaboration in general at #bcniphilly (which you can also view), and also what his company is doing to try and make it easier for media companies.

We believe citizen journalism is part of a larger process where professional journalists still play the vital role they always have. The key is to enable dynamic and ongoing collaboration between citizens and professional journalists, where citizens can become a true practical extension of the newsroom.

In all this, it was clear that we need to recognize the wetness of collaboration. It’s messy and there is no perfect formula to make it work. But when it does, it’s magic.

Someone working alone with really cheap tools has a reasonable hope of carving out enough of the cognitive surplus, enough of the desire to participate, enough of the collective goodwill of the citizens to create a resource you couldn’t have imagined existing five years ago. – Clay Shirky at Web 2.0 Expo

Innovation

Steven King, the editor of innovation for washingtonpost.com, spoke about the web ninja’s team and about some of the past and future projects they are working on. View his presentation and watch a video interview with him.

The team is made of up only three people. Their job is to, as his presentation says, rapidly develop innovative ways to present news and information. They also work with a three-person ad innovation team.

“If we are not looking toward the future, than we have no future,” King said. “It is very important to have these types of discussions and be flexible to be able to work with whatever comes next.”

In some ways that’s what I meant when I wrote about “What are the jobs to be done” saying if it is to solely make money now, than we will fail. Yes, we need revenue to continue to operate but we need that three –person team, or whatever it is, of smart, talented people looking toward the future. If we do that, I think instead of being way behind, we’ll be more agile and better equipped to address issues when they arise.

The startup mentality

As I noted above #bcniphilly organizers Sean Blanda, Christopher Wink and Brian James Kirk started a web site, Technically Philly, that for me offered some good lessons for the startup mentality we need right about now.

Whitney Rhodes sums it up pretty well on how to get started by finding 1) a need 2) a community based on that need and 3) a way to reach out and fulfill said need for said community.

Technically Philly suggests you tackle a community you already consider yourself a part of. Technically’s founders, three recent college graduates and tech gurus, did just that. They saw a tech coverage hole in Philadelphia and created TechnicallyPhilly.com to fill it.

The reason why I mention this mentality is because it plays into the moving away from the institutional brand to the person brand. Our society and industry seems to be shifting to that mentality and having the skills and mindset of a startup is going to play a big role in that.

I will embed the PDF below, but if 30 some pages are too much Mark Potts offers a good, condensed analysis called Inventing the Future in Iowa.

So let’s assume this blueprint is the way to go. How would you implement it? What would you build? What are the ideas do you have for applications, widgets and whatnot? What should the priorities be? Where would you start? I’m looking for specific ideas that you think can be implemented anywhere.

What would an organization with this mentality look like? If this is a startup, what would it be in the first three months? Six months?

I’ve just now read it and am beginning to digest it. (Even though we work at the same company, Gazette Communications, Buttry rolled it out to me like he did to everyone else via his blog. I’m not bitter, but it would have been great material to talk about at #bcniphilly.)

I will be working through it as I travel back to Eastern Iowa in the next day or so and I will post my own answers to the questions above by the end of Thursday (If I’m asking you to do it, I have to follow through as well).

So have at it. Ryan Sholin asked me at the end of the day on Saturday what’s next for the BarCamp NewsInnovation crew. Could playing a role in forming some specific examples on how to implement this plan be a first step? I’m not sure, but it can’t hurt.

[scribd id=14712679 key=key-1ityhlex2b2xoyt0nvh3]

I also managed to sit down with Sean Blanda, who organized the event and ran with the idea of News Innovation, and put together a short clip.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzikTuDSvn4]

A full recap via Twitter is available by using the hash tag #bcniphilly. Amy Gahran provided a quick glance from some of the best Tweets at Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits.

Greg Linch provided live blogging coverage from the CoPress on j-schools, Publish2, Web Ninjas and separating content from product sessions.

Christine Cavalier has several video takes using qik.

You’ll be reading more from me in the next few days on my thoughts and some ideas for what’s next with the News Innovation movement.