This INNOVATION thing
Everyone wants innovation. Everyone wants to make more money. And everyone knows the new tools and platforms present tremendous opportunity.
But the question remains: to do what?
No matter the seismic changes to the news industry there is always a constant. Connection.
People want to connect to information. To their community. To their anchor. To each other.
The playground these days often centers on social media - like Google Plus hangouts and Livestreams behind the scenes.
My colleague Sarah Hill has been in a two way video chat exchange for months with Google Plus. She is nearing a million followers as a local news anchor in mid-Missouri.
I’ve connected with 120 thousand during four years of streaming chatting and posting.
Despite the different tools we use Sarah and I know what no researcher can seem to poll - yet.
The power of a one way or two way video peel back of the curtain with your TV audience is transformative. There is nothing like it to fire up your journalism.
People learn about journalism. We are the folks who check and double check facts. We take all tips. But all tips don’t get on TV. They SEE why.
They learn about the news process and jargon.
They learn about the anchors and see a sense of humor and compassion that TV producing rarely conveys.
The reason we innovate seems to grow out of that need to connect with our customers. To think about their world of information consumption. Their habits. And take a risk. We jump into the places where we find them. We create experiences that connect.
On the way to the Reynolds Journalism Institute’s Innovation Week I came across another out of the box connector. A guy who could make a mint making dresses and call it a day.
Jason Wu, the young fashion designer, was quoted in the Delta in flight magazine about all the areas he has moved into to meet customer needs. He’s even in candles.
He said: “A lot of my peers don’t think about collaborating the way I do. My approach is to imagine my world. The Jason Wu woman isn’t just floating around in a beautiful dress. I like to know where she’s going, what she is doing. I’m not just in the fashion business. I’m in the lifestyle business.”
And so are we! Think about all those second screens. All those phones and tablets and laptops on the couch or the bedside table during a broadcast. How do you plan to connect?
