(Michael P. Smith)

Are American editors dumber than editors in other parts of the world? I am frequently asked that question - sometimes not so bluntly - when I do presentations in front of newspaper executives these days.

In 2006 the Media Management Center set out to document global best practices in all aspects of leadership. That led us - and continues to lead us - to some remarkable discoveries about how newspapers and media companies around the world create new products, find new readers, develop new marketing approaches and transform themselves. We have shared some of those stories in this blog and elsewhere. The global best practices research has become a key piece of our executive seminars. When we share these insights on panels, as I did with INFE, or with industry groups such as the Knight Foundation Advisory Committee, someone will invariably ask the question about why this is happening with such great speed and success beyond our borders. Do they have more research than Americans? Do they feel more threatened? Are they smarter? It is easy to blame the editors of American newspapers. So I try never to do that.

The answers to these questions are complex, and they depend on the individual cases. I would say American newspapers actually have more and better research. Many of the global success stories rely on the Readership Institute’s Impact Study or Newspaper Experiences Study. Increasingly, editors from outside the U.S. attend seminars at the American Press Institute or the Poynter Institute or conferences such as the annual meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. They often quote Romenesko to me. I don’t know if foreign editors are smarter but, on the whole, they are usually better educated - most have advanced degrees in fields like law and engineering and have studied abroad in the United States and Europe. Yes, they feel the threat of erosion, but all media are threatened by fragmentation, so we are talking about degrees of danger. The ownership structures differ from region to region. And the financial expectations of the owners differ from region to region. American newspapers are much more profitable than anywhere else in the world. Schibsted, which is the darling of the European Capital Markets, faces the same issues that the publicly traded companies in the U.S. face. Their CEO is the dynamic Kjell Aamot, who was willing to risk cannibalization early in order to save his company. The CEO/owner of Vorarlberg Medienhaus in Austria, Eugen Russ, has his desk in the middle of the newsroom and lives by rules such as transparency, the three-minute rule (getting stories online within three minutes of the event), and matching the Web 2.0 companies with local versions. I believe leadership is part of the answer.

The global best practices interests of MMC run parallel to our belief and research into media innovation. We are pursuing that on many fronts, including with the release of our most recent research.

Rather than to try to answer the questions about global innovation myself, I decided to put it to some media leaders.I plan to come back to the question in future blog posts. MMC and its partner, the Inter-American Press Association, recently conducted our annual Cost & Revenue Study and Management Seminar in Panama City. The newspapers in Panama are dynamic, sophisticated and quite competitive. I first met Panamá América newspaper executive Gilberto Arias several years ago at an MMC seminar. Recently, I asked him for his take on what makes the newspapers there so innovative.


MMC: How do you talk about innovation at Panamá América? Is it part of the strategy? Do you have innovation teams? How do you inspire it?

ARIAS: I think innovation and experimentation is not something that we talk about quite so formally here, as this tends to make it a bigger deal than it really should be. That is to say, we don't sit around and convene "an innovation meeting," or put in a very specific budget figure for "innovative projects." This obviously has good and bad sides to it; however, our principal thrust is that we don't have a formal mandate for innovations, but more of a cultural, organic approach to innovation. So it's "innovate or die," not "innovate at budget or die." Also, it means that we can't spend a lot of money - granted, big innovative projects like launching a new product needs more formality, but lesser projects, like sections and projects around pets, shouldn't need six months of internal negotiations in order to approve budgeting for the planning meetings. In our view, the aim of innovation is to take advantage of interests one suspects exists, which have limited opportunities for development, and then exploit where we find resonance.

Likewise, it is important not to have extraordinary expectations of new ideas. Big expectations need big, complicated projects; no complex system works if it does not initiate from a small, simple system that works. Therefore, in my mind, the idea is to innovate without having a big budget - this is also a strategy for limiting what we're risking. Of course, the size of a budget is also relative, so an editorial experiment has a different budget profile than a production experiment - generally speaking, not having to work up a big budget means that you're not risking so much on an idea. Call it "zero budget innovation" if you want a catchy phrase.

Remember, even Steve Jobs had a "Newton" before an "iPod," and he had a "Next" before he had an "iMac." But maybe it was because of the firsts that he had the latters.

I have no idea what an "innovation team" is, and the concept sounds rigid to me. Innovation should not be pigeonholed or limited to a group of people in the organization. I wouldn't even say that we have specific "innovation evangelists" (to follow with more jargon); what we do try to do (maybe more like what I try to do) is to encourage an atmosphere where ad-hoc, cross-organizational initiatives have a chance of getting traction in the company. The idea is that a broader talent pool comes to look at ideas, in order to innovate with the strengths of the company, so your effort is not easily copied. So where an interesting idea comes up, we get people from different areas of the company (not always the same people and not always the same areas) together to look into the idea and see if we collectively can improve it or do something with it - this, at most, is a one hour meeting. There is contact with the participants from there up to when we actually do the thing - which may be a month or a week or two years later.

Most of all, innovation has to be as entertaining/rewarding as possible for the participants - maybe this is why I don't like the "team" moniker as it sounds too much like work. If it's like work, then it will either become repetitive as a new routine, or I will eventually return to previous comfort activity areas, neither of which is propitious for great non-linear innovation (in my book).

The thing is, innovation has to be unexpected, or else it is just evolution or improvement. And that's probably where you're heading with your question on inspiration.

With respect to inspiration, one way forward is to tap the talent that you have - it's very easy in an organization to overlook talent that people have which is locked up in their personal or side interests, or things that they may notice in their experience in those personal or side interests, yet these people are very good sources for innovation in the products. And, it doesn't cost anything extra (or relatively little) to tap this - in short, at least as a manager; we try to instill a culture that it's OK to play with the product, in a grownup sort of way.

So then, from my seat, I find inspiration in all the crazy things that people in all industries are doing, and then come up with hooks that I can leverage my company's products and strengths in unique ways. So I don't just look at what print media is doing (although that's obviously important), or even what media generally is doing (which is also important), but I also will try to see what people are watching on TV, playing with at home or eating at fast-food restaurants. All of these industries are innovating and maybe I can twist something that we do so as to tap into interests that are floating around - hmm, this is the last question.


MMC: The newspapers in Panama are vibrant and energetic - what accounts for that? Is it the competition? The leadership?

ARIAS: I think it's more the competition (I can't think there's anything different about the leadership here as opposed to anywhere else) and the limited resources that we have in the marketplace. Vibrancy I see in many places that have complex competition, like Scandinavia or in Peru among the "chicha"* newspapers (19 in Lima alone - none of them are free). Maybe what you see as vibrancy I see as competition for niche identity, personality or differentiation between the different print media proposals in circulation - we don't really have technological differentiation, as all papers have more or less the same quality of printing presses and the principal houses even use the same software to prepare and run their products.

So the vibrancy is simply each paper's attempt to interact with the public using a "voice" that includes all three elements of the printed media product: editorial voice, graphic presentation and photographic support. In there is everything from typography to color palettes, so there is a constant trial to get people to take note of new corners in the publication, new columns and new angles on material. Now with the internet, it's even more fun as we move columns to alternative on-line stuff, with blogs and forums and back-issues and collateral advice and (yes) even merchandising.

In the end I think it's necessity and simply rolling up your sleeves and not making a huge mountain out of trying out new things.


MMC: Where do you get your inspiration for innovation? What is at the root of innovative thinking?

ARIAS: There is innovation happening all around us in many areas; I think you just have to open your eyes and think laterally. Have a look at what people in different age groups, different socio-demographics are thinking, doing and enjoying and see what craziness you can spin off as well. So everyone in the Editora (newsroom) talks with everyone else and everyone is in some sort of beerball league or whatever, so people feel free to think up stuff. So the cartoonists aren't just holed up in their closet, they're talking to the infographics people and the sports writers and the closing editors. And maybe the closing editors change a headline after talking with them.

So, to put it another way, I think innovation has some seed in eccentricity, but this sounds crude. Innovation needs unexpected thinking. In fact, I think generally the "Ah-ha!" moments in innovation are collective when we're talking about projects or ideas for projects, and even when the "Ah-ha! "moment is not in a group, there is very usually a bigger "AH-HA!!" moment that happens in a group setting, But you can't bet on it being exactly the same group every time. It's the mixture and people losing the fear or timidity (or natural reluctance) of trying something different.


*Blogger’s note: Chichas are compact, slightly sensational newspapers that are graphics and color heavy and very popular with the middle and lower classes.


By Michael P. Smith (m-smith3@northwestern.edu)
Michael P. Smith is executive director of the Media Management Center.