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.
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
An Xiao Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic