As the summer holidays come to an end, it is a great time to go back to the office with fresh ideas and new inspiration for the projects that can drive your newsroom forwards. To get you started, we bring you our selection of must-read media innovation books and articles to help you go back to the workplace and hit the ground running.
1. The offer they can’t refuse
Engaging customers and encouraging them to stay loyal is going to be a challenge facing publishers across the world. With the sheer amount of subscription offers available, convincing customers that their news subscriptions are as worthy as Netflix and Spotify is vital. To be able to do this, understanding your customer and their mindset is fundamental. So is being able to provide your customer with the offer they can’t refuse.
Listed by Forbes as one of the top 10 must read business books for 2020, “The Offer You Can’t Refuse” by Steven van Belleghem, is the perfect tool to provide you with new ideas on how to win over your customers. Steven is the Keynote Speaker at our Digital Growth Summit, if you haven’t booked your ticket, make sure to do so today. By analysing customer behaviour and experiences, van Belleghem looks into the argument that customers want more than just “excellent service”. By staying “relevant” through technology, personal involvement and social commitment, businesses have a better chance of success. For those looking to maximise subscriber revenue and understand their customers, this one is for you.
2. Rebundling the news
As we are seeing a transition towards digital news, the role of product and innovation has never been more important. Whilst news publishers are used to printing the stories of the day in their daily edition, the need to adapt this for their digital product is of paramount importance. After all, the newspaper alone may not be enough to encourage loyal subscribers to go digital.
Steve Dempsey, Group Director of Publishing Products at Mediahuis Ireland, explores how publishers can rebundle the news. The article uncovers the different roles and jobs of news and how these jobs can be done. On top of this, Dempsey looks at whether these jobs can be done simultaneously or whether greater attention and a process of “unbundling” is really needed. The piece is an insightful long-read and will be sure to provide you with burning questions for your digital strategy.
Steve will also be joining us at our Digital Growth Summit leading a break-out session on this very topic. Don’t miss out!
3. The Future is Faster than you think
Technology has evolved rapidly for many years. Since 2007, for example, there has been 12 generations of iPhone’s. This digital acceleration is happening more rapidly than anyone could have imagined or predicted. 2 questions that often go under the radar are:
- How are these technologies impacting our daily lives?
- How will these technologies continue to affect our lives in the future?
“The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives”is the third book in the Exponential Technology Series from Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler. The futurists look at the science of technological convergence to uncover how technology will evolve and reinvent every part of our lives, thus taking humanity and the world as we know it into uncharted territories. Their book will not only make you rethink the role of digital, but also help you get ahead of the rest in planning for the future customer.
4. The GAFA threat
Whilst the pandemic had devastating impacts on businesses and publishers across the world, the big tech giants continued to thrive. Their financial dominance and corporate muscle are threatening the survival of the biosphere of businesses across the world. We have already seen some of the major players making their way into the news and journalism market and taking a bigger slice of the cake, but do we need to be wary of them?
Pierre Louette, CEO of Les Échos/Le Parisien, looks at the broken promises of the GAFA (Google, Apple Facebook and Amazon) to make the world a better place in “Des géants et des hommes”. In his book, Louette looks back at a mixture of arguments and personal experiences in his plethora of high-level positions and uncovers why it is time to act against the domination of the tech giants and what we must do in society to play our part.
Pierre Louette will speak further on the topic and the challenges ahead for publishers at our Digital Growth Summit.
5. To dream is to do
Innovation is a term used increasingly within the publishing industry. Whilst innovation is key for publishers to generate new ideas, it is often difficult to know who innovators are?
For Virginia Stagni, these innovators are intrapeneurs. In her book “Dreamers who do: Intrapeneurship and Innovation in the Media World”, Stagni writes about how to be an intrapeneur in a media company. Stagni demonstrates why the need for traditional businesses, such as publishing, to have hybrid roles such as the that of the intrapeneur has never been so strong. In the book, she also presents interesting cases of intrapeneurs turning from the disrupted into the disruptors. The role of these disruptors is of paramount importance for future success. “Dreamers who do” is released 30th September so be sure to keep eyes open.
Virginia will be joining us as a breakout host at our Digital Growth Summit. Don’t miss your chance to hear from her that!
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