TAKEAWAY: Don’t know about you, but all the talk about survival is making me weary. I propose that we abandon the survival mode and concentrate on doing great things now that we have “survived”. Get into a thriving mode.
Thriving mode is the new black
Twice this week I have found myself doing presentations to roomfuls of journalists, with the word “survival” cropping up every few sentences. Either I say it, or someone in the audience says it.
Enough of the survival mode, I say.
We have been on survival mode since late 2007, and most of us are still here, and so are our newspapers. That is a long run for a state of anxiety, waiting to see what happens from day to day.
If you wonder what I am talking about, yes, it is about the death of print. That was, as my pre-teen grandchildren would say “so 15 minutes ago”.
So, I don’t know about you, but, as for me, I will erase Survival from the title of my presentations, and work hard at NOT using the word.
Instead, I want to emphasize, as I did today in Goteborg, Sweden, the things we should do to print (and the rest) happily.
1. Get the best stories you can get your hands on, the rest falls into place easily.
2. Come to work as if you are in the storytelling (news) business NOT in the newspaper business.
3. Think local, and pretend that the larger world out there does not exist: think like you readers.
4. Connect where your readers connect. Think Facebook, Twitter, etc.
5. Design in a way that brings a sense of order, peace and relief to readers in a chaotic world.
6. Let your passion for the craft turn the daily miracle that is producing what we do daily very special—-better yet, make it magic.
7. Be curious about what those who read you are going to be talking about today—-and tomorrow.
8. Use all four of the platforms that you populate with information daily yourself. You can’t be a good storyteller on the tablet, or the mobile phone, if you don’t use those tools.
9. Don’t let those who spread gloom and doom in the newsroom influence you. Tell them you are busy chasing that good story, and NOT to comeback later.
10. Now that you survived, pretend your product has gotten a splendid second chance, and it is up to you to make it better than it ever was before.
Think creatively—think BIG—and you can stop surviving and start thriving
