If you haven’t yet heard of The Next Newsroom Project be sure to check it out. It’s a group that began with the question: If you could build the ideal newsroom from scratch, what would it look like?

If you could build the ideal newsroom from scratch, what would it look like? We’re trying to help The Chronicle, the Duke University student newspaper, find an answer. Join our conversation. And visit “Newsrooms” to create a page for your newsroom.

The group recently released five qualities that the Next Newsroom should have, and I think they are right on. Among the buzzwords: innovative, flexible, adaptable, integrated, embracing the public and transparent.

I agree that the right kind of people are more important than the environment, but you also have to have a surrounding that fosters innovation, collaboration and spurs the free flow of information and ideas.

I kid some people where I work saying that the newsroom here looks just like the one in the movie “All the President’s Men” sans the typewriters. But it is true. And I have to stop writing now. I need a cup of coffee.

I used to be on the bandwagon that thought content was what brought people online, but that is no longer that case and the reasons are too many to cite here.

People use the internet as a way of life and come to expect certain standards. Facebook and MySpace are about relationships and connecting. Content is a catalyst for those connections, but anymore that is about it.

Jeff Jarvis who writes the BuzzMachine blog said in a recent post that the “old media” way of thinking is hard to break away from, even with the most innovative people in the media industry who are attending the Always-On OnMedia Conference in New York.

The problem with that, I think, is that the internet is more about connections and relationships — that’s where the core value is and content is a vehicle for that.

Jarvis concludes his post with an interesting point about advertising, which we all need in some form to make money.

But someone on the panel pointed to Nike, which is moving away from CPMs and GRPs and heading to providing the infrastructure for communities to do what they want to do. Nike is turning from a manufacturer and marketer of products into a platform.

The overall point is that online is still not fully understood be even the most innovative people in our industry. That is both scary and exciting at the same time.