Everyone in the news business has firsthand experience of how commercial pressures have forced change. Yet few organizations have developed the capacity to constantly learn, adapt, and thrive on it.
2018 will be the year when the smartest digital publishers will reorient themselves for volatility. How adaptive is your organization?
Tactics come and go, but leadership must set an unequivocal mission that inspires, addresses everyone, and remains constant. Is it clear who and what your organization stands for? Are activities between teams connected and pointed in the same direction?
In the search for answers, there’s a tendency to look up to management, or even outside. But great insights are often just across the room. The age of automatic deference in the workplace is over. Are individuals able to speak up and be heard? Do managers and colleagues alike reach deep into teams to collect ideas and exploit expertise? Has a culture of experimentation permeated everywhere?
To address an opportunity or issue, you first have to see it. This requires making sure information gets in front of people who can act upon it. Analytics and audience data are now commonplace but can give the false impression of paying attention. What are you doing to truly learn about readers? Are you asking questions to serve them or sell them?
Deliberate differentiation means having the stomach to stand apart and resist dogma. Today’s best practice may turn out to be bad practice or irrelevant to your strategy. When you gravitate towards opportunities, do you stay grounded in your mission? To what extent is your success dependent on someone else?
Required skills and knowledge are changing faster than job descriptions. How fast are you adapting roles and providing the necessary development opportunities to keep staff up to speed? Does every discipline have a path for career progression and possibility of lateral moves?
Everyone wishes for resources they do not have, but strong organizations know how to make difficult decisions. How good are you at establishing priorities and avoiding distractions? Are decisions made quickly and decisively?
Changing course is painful because it brings loss and disorientation. Yet giving something up also means freeing resources to try something else in service of the same mission. Indeed, if you push through difficult change, your reward is a competitive differentiator. How long do you hold on to something that is not working? When changing course, is the rationale clear?
Turbulence is here to stay. The difference between those that ready for change and those that suffer it will be decisive in 2018.
Jassim Ahmad is global head of multimedia innovation for Reuters.
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
An Xiao Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more