Counterintuitive Ways of Working
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Funders and investors are already cautious of funding experiments since most fail. Counterintuitive ways of doing business and producing content may seem even more risky, but they can also be the biggest game changers.
Counterintuitive Ways of Doing Business
Many organizations in both the for-profit and non-profit world view competition for resources as a “zero sum” game rather than a way to lift the tide for everyone. As a result, organizations have embraced the idea of “co-opetition.” Instead of competing in all aspects of their business, organizations cooperate in areas where they do not have competitive advantage.
For a long time, publishers avoided including hyperlinks to other websites for fear that they would simply lead readers away. However, publishers now see how important these links are to improving search engine optimization.
The secret to co-opetition is for organizations to define very clearly where they are competing and where they should work together. New ways of working that now seem counterintuitive will emerge.
Counterintuitive Ways of Reporting News
Cyber-cascades and superdistribution may lead journalists to counterintuitive reporting practices. Journalism organizations that make news more entertaining and enjoyable will have much farther reach. According to a 2008 Pew Research Center survey, “Enjoyment of the news has consistently been associated with higher levels of both news interest and news consumption.” In fact, the report claims that no single attitude is more important.
It is no surprise that The Daily Show and the Colbert Report are so popular, particularly with young people. Despite the fact that many debate whether these shows are journalism, Stewart often asks tougher-minded questions than hosts of “serious” TV news shows. In fact, The Daily Show viewers are more well-informed than those who watch CNN, even though a larger proportion of CNN viewers are college graduates and the cable channel has double the portion of viewers over age 50 than The Daily Show.
Instead of shunning entertainment value, journalism could succeed by emphasizing it more.
The metaphor of “gossip” is another notion that runs counter to traditional journalism. Some reporters and editors may view this approach as too low-brow, but they will lose ground to those who master the social dynamics of gossip to break important stories. Shows such as The Soup, The Dish, and Tosh 2.0, as well as sites like The Daily Beast, Drudge Report and Wonkette capture audiences with cheeky, gossip-driven coverage salted with political and social commentary.
“Google Wave,” a new approach to online communication and collaboration, could also be a promising tool for journalists. Its founders say Google Wave would be how email would work if it were invented today rather than 40 years ago. Jeff Jarvis, journalist and creator of BuzzMachine, claimed, “Wave is what news can be if we invent it today, as we must.”
This blog is an excerpt from The Big Thaw, a guide to the evolution of independent media, written by Tony Deifell of Q Media Labs and produced by The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets. Learn how your organization can use this report. For more information and recommendations from the study, click here.
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