Learn these 7 things from the best newsrooms and you will light up the world with your content5/12/2016  Communication units have learned a lot in recent years about leveraging social media, but if they really want to supercharge their messaging they should adopt the best behaviours of modern newsrooms. Newsrooms have the attributes, processes and energy that power content for ultimate audience engagement. Over 30 years, I’ve run or worked in dozens of newsrooms in Australia and New Zealand - the biggest and smallest. I’ve also seen how exceptional operations like The Sun and The Guardian in London, and the Chicago Tribune and Boston Globe have operated. Each of those newsrooms have a personality and idiosyncrasies that exude their target market. Like any organisation, no one newsroom does everything superbly. But here’s 10 traits of newsrooms, compiled from the best of the best, that comms teams could use as a checklist when considering how to better position themselves.
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 I’m still shaking my head. Yes, that Donald Trump was elected President. But also at the staggering and anachronistic decision by New Zealand’s competition watchdog to reject the proposed NZME and Fairfax NZ merger. In a 195-page draft determination, the Commerce Commission found the merger would substantially lessen competition in the market. The commission stated NZ would only be behind China for concentration of newspaper ownership. A merged company would account for 90 per cent of daily newspaper sales in the country - a far more dominant position than Rupert Murdoch has across Australian media. On every front, from a reduction in competition in discrete local markets through to the impact on ad buyers, the report paints a grim picture post-merger. It is particularly damning of how the merger would materially diminish the plurality of views across NZ.  Mobile-mad: 80 per cent of the world's population will have a smart phone by 2020. Keeping up with the information revolution is an exhausting exercise - but taking advantage of five forces will put smart operators at the head of the communications pack. Never before have there been so many ways to communicate and never has it been so complex - lots of social media platforms, tools, apps and methods to send you bonkers. Whether you're a business or a personal brand, cutting through the claptrap requires a simple, strategic and sustainable approach. Couple that with the right intel about the communications battlefront, and you're on your way. Be it with our work with big media undergoing transformation or with small companies seeking to establish a DIY newsroom approach, some common themes are apparent. Here's five of them - forces we believe will drive content success into 2017: 5 things Muhammad Ali personified, New Zealand did - and you can do too - to become a world beater6/6/2016  Muhammad Ali's passing should remind us that not only did he redefine boxing, but he was the consummate innovator - a man who provides lessons to anyone who wants to survive and thrive in a dog-eat-dog world. Ali teaches us that innovation is not about iteration - it's about blazing trails. "I don't have to be what you want me to be, " Ali told reporters after the bout against Sonny Liston in 1964 that launched his career. "I'm free to be what I want." Publishers, who have suffered an unprecedented pummelling in recent years, could do with some of that self-belief. One media organisation that is displaying its own brand of magic is Fairfax Media New Zealand. Like a young Cassius Clay, the Fairfax team is willing to do things its own way. For the past 18 months, Flame Tree Media has helped design and implement the company's signature editorial transformation program News Rewired. In May, Fairfax NZ won the award for corporate innovation at the International News Media Association (INMA) awards in London - along with best in show for Asia/Pacific. In all, Fairfax NZ won four first places - more than any media brand. In the world. So, what are the Kiwis doing that others aren't? Five traits are common to those who become world beaters.  One of the best aspects of running your own company is the ability to put your money where your mouth is by supporting not-for-profit ventures or by performing pro bono work. At the big end of town, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) is all the rage. For some companies that makes for a nice feel-good story and pictures for the annual report. Other blue-chip companies take a more serious approach with dedicated staff, programs and KPIs. Running a boutique communications start-up, I'd encourage small companies to identify how they too can donate skills and services. This can be a stretch when pulling revenue in the door is the priority and time is precious. But, in business parlance, the ROI is real. And who wouldn't want to spread some love in this increasingly corporatised world? Here's six tips for making the experience work for both you and the not-for-profit. 5 tips to save your business from Storm Troopers, Orcs, Dementors and, oh yeah, social media Trolls13/2/2016  The trolls are coming, the trolls are coming - and, if they haven't already, they are about to take your social media, turn it back on you and blast you to high heaven.
Think of them as the Storm Troopers who hunt out easy prey and raze Jakku in the Star Wars epic The Force Awakens. Or the hulking Orcs who obliterate everything in their path in Lord of the Rings. Or the Dementors who suck the life and soul from the good hearted in Harry Potter. You get the picture. They're nasty. But it need not be apocalyptic. You can repel them, or in the least mitigate damage by observing five basic tips. |
AuthorStuart Howie is a communications and media consultant. He runs Flame Tree Media and is the author of The DIY Newsroom. Stuart has worked in media and publishing for more than 30 years as an executive, editor and strategist. 
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