How is technology helping publishers work smarter ?
Rapid changes in technology mean publishers need to be more agile than ever before.
By Ella Wilks-Harper | Mar 8, 2018
Merging teams, encouraging learning and engaging with new technology are ways that legacy and digital-first companies are responding to industry shifts.
Two decades after the emergence of the internet, the structure of a new media ecosystem is becoming clear, as are the substantial challenges this presents to legacy media organizations.
Going Digital: A Roadmap for Organizational Transformation report draws on findings from over 60 interviews in a wide range of media organizations. It uncovers how going digital has impacted media players’ business models and strategies.
Let’s take a look at how different publishers are adapting to become more agile…
The diversity of minds and people and backgrounds and functions, having this dynamic team of interactive people (…) I wouldn’t swap the newsroom we have now for the newsroom when I started here.”
— Lucy Kueng, Google digital news senior visiting research fellow, Reuters Insitute for the Study of Journalism.
The BBC & The Financial Times: Multidisciplinary teams
In 2012, the BBC launched the BBC News Lab which combines journalism, technology and data. This has helped the BBC grow it’s engagement.
In the ‘Going Digital’ report, the Financial Times spoke of the benefits of having a multidisciplinary team. The FT explained:
“The diversity of minds and people and backgrounds and functions, having this dynamic team of interactive people … the visual people, the video people, the interactive people, the core journalists … I wouldn’t swap the newsroom we have now for the newsroom when I started here.
The New York Times has found a “deep desire among many reporters and editors to get news skills”.
The New York Times encourages learning
Organizational learning is a priority for many publishers.
The New York Times has found a “deep desire among many reporters and editors to get news skills”.
In the report, The Times discusses how it has embedded a training team of 13, because: “That’s how adults learn. They don’t learn by being taken out of their daily work environment, brought into a classroom, talked at, and then told to go back. They learn as they’re working, so we have people there as they are filing stories, as they’re writing headlines.”
The Economist & The Washington Post integrates technology
New technology can help speed up the distribution of content on multiple platforms. Last year The Economist redesigned its website for this purpose.
The new website connects services such as Apple News and Instant Articles.
In the ‘Going Digital’ report, The Economist said: “We rebuilt our website last year so that we’ve got a services layer in the middle…into this category come agile methodologies, which have spread from software development and are used by many media companies.”
Similar pivots to technology has been seen at The Washington Post who have embraced cloud computing. In the report, The Post said the move ‘drives agility’. Adding, “It’s (cloud computing) cutting out of this massive slowness in the handoff. Why? Because now the developer has direct ability to rent this box in the cloud and use it”.
Find out more about how companies are adapting to the the fast-paced evolution of technology by downloading the ‘Going Digital’ report.