Innovation leaders on how they do it: inspiring, empowering

It wasn't much of a risk, really. With a panel comprising Tim Bowdler, Tim Porter, Simon Waldman and Geert-Jan Bogaert and with Keith Sutton as ring-master, the discussion was always going to be provocative. That was indeed the case in the packed auditorium in Preston last night and also in the chat room online (see the excerpt below).

If you missed the discussion on "Leading Innovation: What to Do, How to Do It" - or want to run through it again - check out the recording.

Mark your calendar, too. The 5th Journalism Leaders Forum on February 6th, 2007, will be chaired by Mark Tungate, a Journalism Leaders Programme discussion leader and author of the first comprehensive look at the world's top media brands, Media Monolith. Watch for updates on the event here or mail us at leaders[at]ukjournalism[dot]org for an invitation.

Simon Waldman: At the moment, the most significant revenues onilne are actually derived from advertising...I think the real challenge over the next two to three years is to ensure that everyone is geared up to secure as much ad revenue as possible...
Mark: One of the reasons journalists are negitave to the changes is that they have seldom if ever consulted on how and why the changes should occur
Tim Porter: Correct. That's why more collaboration and cultural change is
needed.
Mark: directives from the top alienate the journalists who often see the changes as principally cost saving methods

Simon Waldman: Mark..you're right..
Simon Waldman: Let's not forget the Telegraph basically laid off a load of
journalists..
Tim Porter: Or ... newspapers tend to pile up priorities until there is a laundry list of goals, most unsupported by training.

Mark: too much money goes in to the technical infrastructur
which is constructed for and by technical staff. The point of departure must be
firsty "how can we tell our stories better"
Tim Porter:
There is a tremendous need for product development -- in a traditional sense --
in the newspaper industry.
Editor: The cultural battle is being won - the key to capitalising on the undoubted revenues out there is to keep traffic high thanks to the quality of journalism
Mark: product is produced by journalists. There is a tremendous need for *journalistic* development
Mark: Swedish statistics show that sanitary workers have more money for mid-career training than journalists

Tim Porter: “Merely riding the current of change, complaining all the while, is a path that leads only to cynicism and failure. It's seductively self-indulgent, but it's just plain wrong. The alternative is choosing to act.
That's leadership. And it's what these times demand.”-- David Zeeck, executive
editor, Tacoma News-Tribune, President, American Society of Newspaper
Editors,2006-07
Julia Ogden: In my opinion the desire to change and adapt to the future is in many of our newsrooms, but I would argue the investment is not - as yet. Is JP planning to roll out new media newsrooms like the one at LEP to other divisions and if so, when?
Mark: so where do the ethical standerds of journalism c0me into play?
Mark: xcuse the spelling :-)
Tim Porter: They remain. The challenge is to change the forms and practicies of journalism without undermining the principles.

Guardian digital director joins international line-up for 4th forum

Simon Waldman, director of digital publishing at Guardian Newspapers, has just been added to the programme of the 4th Journalism Leaders Forum to be held on October 17th.

Waldman, who has played a key role in GuardianOnline, will join an international line-up to discuss "Leading Innovation: What to Do, How to Do It.”

In a recent article for the Press Gazette , Waldman said:

It is clear that the ultimate challenge is not simply to build a good web operation, but to build the news organisation of the future. And having your online operation as a remote satellite simply isn’t going to do it. Having said that, the one thing you realise after looking around is that there is no clear model for making it work that everyone can feel comfortable with.

I do predict, however, that in the next five to 10 years will bring a wave of change in newspaper offices around the world as they grapple with this.

Other panellists are:

• Tim Bowdler, chief executive of Johnston Press and the person recently described as “the most powerful figure in Britain’s £3 billion regional newspaper industry”
• Geert-Jan Bogaerts, digital editor of DeVolkskrant, the first fully-integrated multi-media newsroom in The Netherlands
• Tim Porter, associate director of Tomorrow’s Workforce, a Knight Foundation sponsored devoted to professional development in America’s newsrooms, and author of the blog First Draft.

Keith Sutton, past president of the Society of Editors and an Industrial Fellow of the Journalism Leaders Programme, will chair the discussion.

To attend this free programme at 6pm on Tuesday, October 17th, in Greenbank Lecture Theatre in Preston - as well as the reception from 5:30pm - please RSVP to leaders[at]ukjournalism[do]ac[dot]uk. If you can't be there in person, there are other ways to join the discussion.

You can post your questions and comments on this site, or you can view the live Webcast by logging in as a guest at: http://breeze01.uclan.ac.uk/journalismleadersforum/. Online participants will be able to post questions to panellists in a chat room.

Want to avoid getting drunk on digital?

The Telegraph’s move from Canary Wharf to their new multimedia newsroom in Victoria will make it the UK's first fully integrated multimedia newsroom. Not surprisingly, it has been closely watched and widely – and passionately- discussed.

“I have seen the Telegraph's future, and it works,” gushed GuardianOnline blogger Roy Greenslade recently after a tour of the new facilities. On the other hand, John Carey, NUJ father of the chapel, has railed, “They are tearing the heart out of this paper and each day that goes by they are doing it more and more.”

Under the headline, "The dizzying decline of a great paper," Phillip Delves Broughton, a former Paris correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, today summed up the spectacle this way:

Watching the Telegraph leap into the digital age is like watching a late arrival to a party drinking too much to catch up and then falling over on the dance floor.

The transition from print publishing to multimedia change was never going to be easy. But did it need to be quite this bruising? More than a decade into the 'digital party', are there some things that the Telegraph executives - and other latecomers - could learn from earlier arrivals, such as De Volkskrant in The Netherlands?

Geert-Jan Bogaerts, De Volkskrant's online editor, will speak to the challenges of moving from print to multimedia during the 4th Journalism Leaders Forum in Preston on October 17th.

The panel discussion, 'Leading Innovation: What To Do, How To Do It', will be chaired by Keith Sutton, an award-winning editor and an Industrial Fellow of the Journalism Leaders Programme. Other participants include the person recently described as "the most powerful figure in Britain's £3bn regional newspaper industry," Johnston Press chief executive Tim Bowdler . Tim Porter, an associate director of Tomorrow’s Workforce, a Knight Foundation-sponsored project devoted to professional development in America’s newsrooms, will contribute a pespective from the other side of the Atlantic.

The forum, which forms part of the residential week activities for participants in the Autumn block of the University of Central Lancashire's Journalism Leaders Programme, is also open to the public. To attend this free event at 6pm on Tuesday, October 17th, in Greenbank Lecture Theatre in Preston - as well as the reception from 5:30pm - please RSVP to leaders[at]ukjournalism.ac.uk .

If you can't be there in person, there are other ways to join the discussion.

You can post your questions and comments on this site, or you can view the live Webcast by logging in as a guest at: http://breeze01.uclan.ac.uk/journalismleadersforum/. Better still, do both. And let's get the discussion going.