Insights from Day 1 of #GENSummit

This week we’re in sunny Lisbon for three days of media innovation, learning about best practices for artificial intelligence integration in newsrooms, and discussing the future of news at the Global Editors Network’s GEN Summit. There are still two more days full of interesting presentations from industry leaders, so make sure to check back on Monday when we have the full wrap-up.

Getting in your readers’ daily routine

We heard from Mark Little about his newest venture, Neva Labs. He made a great point about how media companies have focused on social media disrupting their business model, when the real problem is that social media has gotten readers out of the daily habit of reading digital news. To succeed, publishers need to focus on getting into their readers’ daily routines–something we’ve written about before!

The routine of interacting with news is what social media destroyed, not the business model, says @marklittlenews. Rebuilding that routine is key. #GENSummit

— Catalina Albeanu (@catalinacma) May 30, 2018

Mark Little @Nevalabs We have an app for everything except for information. We need to recreate the news consumption habit and user experience learning from the likes of Spotify and Netflix #GENSummit

— Hosam E (@HosamTF) May 30, 2018

AI: not just for large publishers

While artificial intelligence is on everyone’s mind, one big concern had emerged: is AI only for big publishers? We saw that small publishers can benefit as well, with examples of newsroom integrating augmented reality in to their story telling.

Glad to hear the q about how small publishers enter AR space during discussion about Betting Big on AR at #GENSummit

Conversations about tech and journalism must always acknowledge the spectrum of newsroom resources and capacities. Innovation can't be just for big orgs.

— Heather Bryant (@HBCompass) May 30, 2018

Humans are the best technology

A theme we’ve heard across different presentations is the importance of the people behind the technology you’re developing. We heard from John Keefe, bot developer for Quartz, that behind really good bots are really good humans.

"The success to a really good bot are really good humans", says @jkeefe, Bot Developer and App Product Manager for @qz during #gensummit

— Global Editors Network (@GENinnovate) May 30, 2018

Shazna Nessa, Global Head of Visuals, Deputy Managing Editor at Wall Street Journal, ended her presentation with a quote from Alan Key: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it”.

Really good talk by @shazna on the role of culture, innovation and good visual journalism.

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it” – Alan Kay#GENSummit pic.twitter.com/D9DHowrJu9

— Mohammed Haddad (@haddadme) May 30, 2018

Still to come…

With two full days of presentations to come, we’ll be livetweeting (@twipemobile) and sending out a full review of the event on Monday morning.

Ask our speakers anything about audience growth!
This is the time for you to ask our #GENSummit speakers anything you want to know about their engagement strategies. — Reply to this tweet and we will ask them: https://t.co/i5rKmyDDEa pic.twitter.com/8OItd2TcZX

— Global Editors Network (@GENinnovate) May 30, 2018

This article was written by Mary-Katharine Phillips, Media Innovation Analyst at Twipe from 2017 – 2021.