The importance of getting inside your reader's head

A recent study of negotiating strategy showed that dealmakers who can see the world through the eyes of the person they are negotiating with are more likely to arrive at a mutually acceptable deal that people who don't.

The focus of the study was to figure out whether it was more important for negotiators to focus on the head or the heart. The answer was the head. Specifically, the study revealed the importance of understanding exactly why your opposite number is at the table and what they really want out of the deal.

The study holds important implications for people trying to figure out journalism's way forward.

In any deal, there's a buyer and a seller. Same thing in journalism. We journalists--or, rather, the organizations we work for--are the sellers. Our readers are our buyers. The deal we are negotiating is: "Give us your eyeballs" (so we can sell them to advertisers). The products we're selling are our stories. The currency our readers pay with is their time. According to the new study, the better we understand why our readers might want to give us their time, and consequently their eyeballs, the more likely we are to get them.

This is a tough question for us journalists. Traditionally, we've assumed that readers open up the newspaper "because they want to be informed." I would suggest that's not necessarily the case. There are myriad reasons why readers used to open the newspaper:

• To feel "in control," presumably by learning everything that had happened in the last 24 hours
• To avoid looking foolish when current events discussions come up
• To feel the thrill of seeing your team do well, or the agony of their defeat
• To feel "in control" by reviewing the latest stock prices and getting feedback confirming that their stock strategy was on track
• To laugh, by reading the comics
• To experience the excitement of learning about exotic countries far, far away
• And so on....

I don't know what the actual answer is. But news organizations need understand exactly what it is readers hope to get in return for the time they give us. That way, we can shape our offerings--our products--so that readers get what it is they want.

One caveat: When I start talking like this, friends who've never left the world of traditional journalism respond as if I'm suggesting this means we should consider selling all kinds of stories that aren't "proper" news. I'm not. I'm suggesting that we understand our readers' motivations and then shape our stories so that our readers get out of them what they're looking for. You can still report on town council meetings. But perhaps we'll learn to shape those stories in ways that are more enticing to readers than the formulaic and--let's be honest with ourselves here--often drearily boring approach we've used to report on civic life in the past.

Photo courtesy of frankblacknoir. Creative Commons license.

Getting ahead--and producing better journalism--by letting others help us

Wikinomics is a great new book about the open source economy that holds important lessons for us journalists.

The subtitle "How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything" underlines the book's thesis. Technology has made it possible for people to collaborate on projects in ways never before possible. Industries that grasp the power of collaboration, and put it to use in product development, are getting ahead.

Proctor & Gamble, for example, once an insular company, now famously outsources much of its R&D, through a program called "Connect & Develop." The company publicizes a research question they're working on and promise a big payoff to the researcher anywhere in the world who solves it for them. Thousands of individuals or smaller companies around the world, with deeper experience in the relevant areas than P&G has in-house, race to try to find the answer first. The approach gets P&G farther faster than when they did all their research, secretively, in-house.

The book is full of such examples in which companies that open themselves up and invite the participation of anyone who's inspired to participate actually get ahead faster than those who try to keep everything in-house.

So what does this have to do with journalism?

Journalism is a notoriously secretive profession. A reporter gets a whiff of something, tracks it down doggedly, all the while trying to keep his/her project a secret from others, less s/he get scooped.

The open source method (a name coined in the tech world for computer programming projects in which new software is developed collaboratively) could turn all this on its head. Imagine how much farther you'd get as a journalist, how much better a story you'd produce, if you told the world what you were working on and let the world help you with your reporting. Here's what you'd gain:

• A much quicker understanding of what's at stake
  
• A much more accurate interpretation of the information you've gathered
  
• Quicker access to documents
  
• Insights it never would have occured to you to look for
  
• And in the end, a deeper, richer, more accurate and more complete story

In fact, this is already happening at organizations that are giving the open source method a shot. The Fort-Myers, Fla., News-Press posted an appeal to the community to help them investigate a proposed sewer and water rate hike. The response was overwhelming. Readers flooded the paper's online forums to discuss the story and share what they knew.

The newspaper got help from everyone from retirees who had worked for sewer authorities elsewhere and could explain their ins and outs, to a local homeowner who'd been investigating on his own and had collected dozens of internal memos, to a local activist who similarly had been tracking the local utilities system and had other forms of documentation.

Just think about how much time this approach saved the News-Press and how much better an investigation they got out of it.

• One of the handicaps of being a reporter sometimes is that you don't even know what it is you need to look for. The private citizens who responded to the News-Press' appeal helped the paper clear that hurdle much faster than they would have had they fumbled along on their own.
  
  
• Another handicap is that, without deep experience in a particular domain, like sewers and rate setting, you're not sure how to interpret the information you receive. Sure, we like to think of ourselves as quick studies. But there's no substitute for someone with a lifetime of experience helping you understand the meaning behind the information you've collected.
  
  
• A final handicap is getting access to documents. Even if you know what you're looking for, it can take a while to find it. In this story the News-Press benefitted from others' legwork.

The idea of opening ourselves up to the world doubtlessly feels uncomfortable to many journalists. We've been taught to keep our cards close to our chests, lest we get scooped. And we've been taught that "we're the professionals" and, as such, that we know best how to do this journalism thing.

But in some cases, it's clear that open source methods produce better, more complete, and more accurate stories. And isn't that, in the end, what we're all aiming for?

Crowdfunding will work -- for some

Sunday's New York Times "Week in Review" section carried a story about "community funded reporting," also known as "crowdfunding." This is an experimental business model for funding journalism that sort of works like everyone's favorite microfinance site Kiva: A news story with a proposed budget is posted on the website of the crowdfunding organization, Spot.Us, and once enough regular folks pony up the money to cover the budget, a journalist proceeds to report and write the story.

Right now the idea is being tested in Northern California only, with the support of a two-year, $340,000 grant from the Knight Foundation. Stories that have been proposed include fact-checking of local political ads, ethanol as the weak link the California's energy strategy, and what really happens to recycled trash in various municipalities.

Here are my predictions about whether this experiment is going to work:

• Crowdfunding will emerge as one of many new business models for journalism. This is because, unlike in the past, when journalism was all based on the same advertising-driven business model, in the future, there will be different kinds of business models for different kinds of journalism.
  
  
• Crowdfunding will work for some kinds of stories, but not all. Mainly for stories that readers really care about, and that aren't already being covered elsewhere.
  
  
• The success of crowdfunding will depend on how closely it emulates the social networking aspects that make Kiva work. It won't be enough for journalists simply to post the results of their work. They will need to find ways to make their contributors feel connected to the whole endeavor.

Crowdfunding already has a track record. Chris Allbritton traveled to and reported from Iraq, based on $15,000 in contributions from his readers. In the fall of 2004, when Talking Points Memo was just one guy's opinion blog, Josh Marshall raised about $5,000 from his readers for a trip to cover the New Hampshire primaries.

What made these appeals work were two things. First, the authors had a personal connection with their readers. Their readers enjoyed reading their take on things and felt personally invested in the writers themselves. Second, the readers really cared about the subjects being covered.

Going forward, crowdfunding will work for the same reasons, with a few twists. In the beginning, people will pony up dollars because they're excited about the topic. In the long run, however, contributors will continue to fund the work of specific journalists whose work they really like, the same way television watchers vote with their remotes by tuning in to Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert. Those audiences are not tuning in because of any particular story either show is covering. Instead, they're tuning in because they like Stewart or Colbert's points of view, the way they talk about what's going on in the world.

A few more things will help make crowdfunding work. The more Spot.Us works to make contributors feel invested in and a part of the work, the more likely they'll have repeat customers. How do you do this?

• Reporters will need to let their readers get to know them as people, by talking about who they are and why they care about the stories they're reporting on.
  
  
• Reporters will also need to bring their readers along as they're doing the reporting, not only posting regular blog-like updates about their latest research, but by engaging in a coversation with funders, letting the funders help them think about what parts of the story are important, about where to find various pieces of information, and possibly even help them actually do some of the reporting.
  
  
• And lastly, reporters will need to share the success of the story with their funders. When they're finally done, the journalists will need to celebrate with their funders, cementing the feeling that they were all--journalist and contributors alike--in the project together.

People today participate in group endeavors not just because they believe in the endeavor itself. In our increasingly lonely society, people also participate in order to feel connected to others. The more Spot.Us reporters can make their funders feel like they're part of a grand endeavour, rather than just wallets on the sidelines, the more funding they will attract in the long-run.

Crowdfunding will not be the panacea to the financial challenges journalism faces as a whole. But it will be one solution that will enable some of the reporting we--and our readers--care about to continue.

Photo courtesy of striatic. Creative Commons license.

Who's your competition? (Part 3)

My previous two posts talked about reasons why newspapers should not view each other as competitors and instead should collaborate to discover new methods to generate and deliver news. Here's the last reason.

When I talk to friends at newspapers, I get the sense they think that discovering those new methods will give them a competitive advantage over other news outlets. If they discover some clever new way to direct traffic from Google to their news sites, they'll be ahead of the game.

If I've learned anything from my time in Silicon Valley, however, I've learned that this is not the case.

Anyone who discovers a nifty new way of doing something has a competitive advantage for a few short moments. And then everyone else figures out how to do the thing the first company did. And then that new method becomes standard. At this point, having access to the method doesn't give anyone a competitive advantage. It's how different companies apply the method that puts them ahead.

Take printing presses, broadsheets, and photography. Those are all methods. Every newspaper uses them. No one has a competitive advantage simply in the use of the tools. What differentiates them is how they put them to use. The New York Times and the Podunk Review both use printing presses, broadsheets, and photography. Yet it's how the New York Times puts those to use that sets it above the rest.

All of which is to say: Not joining forces to discover the new tools and methods is a fatally short-sighted strategy. Smart news organizations will join forces with others during this phase. Then, once the industry as a whole has figured out how to generate and deliver news in an economically viable way in the new environment, only then will it make sense to start competing against each other again.

Photo courtesy of Herkie. Creative Commons license.

Who's your competition? (Part 2)

A fundamental principle of free market economics, as I noted on Monday, is that businesses succeed when they offer a better product or service than their competitors. Because of this, businesses keep their cards close to their chests, especially when they're developing new offerings. Not only do they want to be the first to market. They also don't want to give away their "secret sauce."

Normally, this approach makes sense. There's one situation where it doesn't: The case in which an entire industry might collapse before any one organization with in it can find a new offering that will save its skin.

This is the situation the newspaper industry finds itself in today. Every news organization is scrambling to try to figure out how to survive the onslaught of challenges that has them slashing staffs and cutting back on coverage. Isolated experiments in new ways of delivering news are taking place here and there. But for the most part, there's very little cross-organization collaboration to find new ideas.

Newspapers are still caught up in the old idea that other news organizations are their competition. Historically, newspapers have taken a firm stand against collaborating with each other. This makes sense when you're vying for scoops on a presidential campaign trail. Or even from your local city council. It doesn't make a lot of sense when your entire survival is at stake.

Remember the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster? The one Jon Krakauer wrote about in Into Thin Air? The two climbing outfitters on the mountain that season--Adventure Consultants and Mountain Madness--were die-hard competitors, perpetually vying for high-end clients to take the top of the world. When disaster struck, however, they didn't hesitate to do what needed to be done. The teams joined forces to save as many lives as possible.

It's easy to see what needs to be done when someone's life is at stake right in front of you. It's harder when the concept seems more abstract and slightly removed. But the situation the news industry faces is no less dire. Its entire existence is at stake, unless it can find its way forward.

Facing a challenge of this proportion--how to reinvent news coverage and delivery so as to ensure the industry's economic survival--requires a massive R&D effort, mainly because most experiments will fail. It's only through the collective effort that the new methods will be discovered.

I remain baffled at why there's so little collaboration between news organizations on this question. When I talk to friends in the news business, the answer seems to lie in the fact that the old mindset prevails. Instead of looking at the magnitude of the challenge and saying, "We better join forces," the competition mindset has become all the more entrenched, as news organizations seem themselves vying over the crumbs of reader clicks.

This is a short-sighted strategy. Individual organizations may prevail over others in the short run. But in the long-term, they will all go down. As Ben Franklin once said, "We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately."

Photo courtesy of Kappa Wayfarer. Creative commons license.

Who's your competition? (Part 1)

One of the core ideas in free market economics is that businesses succeed when they deliver a better product or service than their competition. OK, fine. So then the question becomes: Who's your competition?

Newspapers have traditionally thought of their competition as other newspapers. Maybe also TV news. But essentially, other purveyors of news. Because, after all, everyone reads or watches the news. So you'll get the most readers if you have the best news. Right?

Not anymore.

Newspapers' competition today is not other news organizations. It's anything else someone might do with their free time, other than reading the news. YouTube, MySpace, blogs, Epicurious, World of Warcraft, MarketWatch.com, Second Life, and so on.

Staying on top of the news is no longer a priority for many Americans. It's possible it never was. It's possible many people read the newspaper for other reasons: Habit, entertainment, the desire to feel connected to other human beings, the desire to feel a part of a community.

Let's take those last three for a moment: entertainment, the desire to feel connected, the desire to feel part of a community. Today, thanks to the Internet and other forms of digital entertainment, it's possible to satisfy those needs without ever touching a newspaper or any other news entity.

So as the news business tries to find its way forward, as it tries to preserve and grow its audience, it needs to be asking itself not just: How can we deliver the best possible news, better than anyone else who might be delivering news? But: How can we deliver an experience so great that the average person will choose spend time with us, rather than doodling around on Facebook, trying to up their score on "Madden NFL," or catching up on old episodes of "Desperate Housewives."

It's an odd thought, of course. And by no means am I suggesting that newspapers have to develop Desperate Housewives-type serials in order to attract readers. Instead, the idea is this: Newspapers have to ask themselves: How can we make the experience of reading the news as enjoyable as catching up on an old episode of DH. Or playing Madden NFL. Or updating your profile on Facebook.

Photo courtesy of Auburnxc. Creative Commons license.

Who, in fact, is the problem?

In a recent Esquire article, Newark mayor Cory Booker paraphrases Martin Luther King:

"The problems of today are not the vitriolic words and the evil actions of the bad people, but the appalling silence and inaction of the good people."

These words could apply to the news business as well.

The problems that the news business faces today are not solely the responsibility of the Sam Zells and others who are slashing and burning journalism staffs. The Sam Zells are not the only villains in our current drama. The problems are the responsibility of every person in the industry, from the top muckety mucks to the lowly scribes. And so, as the old saying goes, if you're not working on the solution, you're part of the problem.

The past does not exist anymore. The future has to be created. This is a scary reality to face. It means we're all bobbing out at sea, with no map to guide us. We all have to help the business find its way.

If you're a reporter, and all you want to do is to do the same old job you always did--get up in the morning, pound out a story or two, and go home--you're part of the problem. Every person needs to devote some portion of their waking hours to teasing out the answer to the question: "How, going forward, can we attract and retain readers?"

I know this is not a comfortable thought. I know it's not what most journalists want to do. But it is the reality. If you're not comfortable with it, for whatever reason, consider leaving the business. If you need job security, you need to find another job. If you have no interest in experimentation, find a job where you can do whatever part of this job it is that you love to do. There are many jobs out there where you can exercise your writing skills, your reporting skills, your love of art, sports, politics, or business. But the bottom line is this: If you're not willing to pick up an oar and help row, you're just dead weight and you need to get out.

On the other hand, if you love the business, then you need to strap on some courage and take some risks. The business is in a crisis. And crises require good men and women to extend themselves, to take risks, to try things they never thought they could do. It's going to be a rocky period, one full of uncertainty, and you might not survive it. For all you do, you still might get the ax. But that is a risk one takes to save something one loves. And it's the responsiblity of every single one of us. It would be nice if this were a simple problem that the higher ups could fix with a little spread-sheet rejiggering. But it's not. It requires a complete re-invention of the business. The ideas on how to do that will not come from the boardroom. They will come from this odd corner or that. From this experiment that succeeded, and even from that one that failed.

The problems that the news business faces today are not solely the responsibility of the "evil business people" tearing newsrooms to shreds. They are the responsibility of every person working in the business. And so are the solutions.

Photo courtesy of Bombardier. Creative Commons license.