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.
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Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
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Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
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Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
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Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
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Mariano Blejman News games rule
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
AX Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age