Technology and Innovation in the Newsroom: Lessons from the Frontlines and Beyond

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Technology and Innovation in the Newsroom
Lessons from the Frontlines and Beyond

• Chad Dickerson
• Yahoo!

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Some personal background

• Wayward English major turned technologist
• First real job out of college News Research
  Dept. at the News Observer in Raleigh NC
  (1993-95)
• Became self-taught software developer, inspired
  in part by
• front-row seat for computer-assisted reporting
  work that contributed to the 1996 Pulitzer at the
  News Observer (http//www.pulitzer.org/year/1996
  /public-service/)
• fascination with early social applications
  (USENET, listserv, even gopher)
• open source software ethic
• 1st webmaster at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
  (1995), then on to CNN, Sports Illustrated,
  Salon, InfoWorld (IDG), and Yahoo!

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Some critics of the term innovation. . . .
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• Instead of asking "How can we be innovative?",
  a toothless and vague question with mostly
  useless answers, we should be asking "How can we
  make great things?"

Scott Berkun, Why Innovation is
Overrated http//discussionleader.hbsp.com/berkun
/2008/07/why-innovation-is-overrated.html
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If innovation is about making great new things,
how do you identify great things?
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Pay attention to

• Unchallenged orthodoxies the widely held
  industry beliefs that blind incumbents to new
  opportunities.
• Underleveraged competencies the invisible
  assets and competencies, locked up in moribund
  businesses, that can be repurposed as new growth
  platforms
• Underappreciated trends the nascent
  discontinuities that can be harnessed to
  reinvigorate old business models and create new
  ones.
• Unarticulated needs the frustrations and
  inconveniences that customers take for granted,
  and industry stalwarts have thus far failed to
  address.

Gary Hamel, Innovation Hackerhttp//discussionle
ader.hbsp.com/hamel/2008/01/innovation_hacker.html
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Be careful about errors of omission

• I think most big strategic errors are errors
  of omission rather than errors of commission.
  They are the ones that companies never get held
  to account for the times when they were in a
  position to notice something and act on it, had
  the skills and competencies or could have
  acquired them, and yet failed to do so.
• Its the opposite of sticking to your
  knitting Its when you shouldnt have stuck to
  your knitting but you did.

Jeff Bezos, The Institutional Yes, Harvard
Business Review, Oct. 2007 photo
http//flickr.com/photos/jdlasica/153327601/
(Creative Commons licensed)
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Democratizing innovation Hack Day at Yahoo!
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Definition of Hack

• Hacking might be characterized as an
  appropriate application of ingenuity. Whether
  the result is a quick-and-dirty patchwork job or
  a carefully crafted work of art, you have to
  admire the cleverness that went into it.

Source Eric Raymond, The Jargon File,
http//www.catb.org/esr/jargon/html/meaning-of-ha
ck.html Image http//www.theadvocates.org/celebri
ties/images/eric-raymond2.jpg
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The Hacker Ethic

• Access to computersand anything which might
  teach you something about the way the world
  worksshould be unlimited and total. Always yield
  to the Hands-on Imperative!
• All information should be free.
• Mistrust authoritypromote decentralization.
• Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not
  bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or
  position.
• You can create art and beauty on a computer.
• Computers can change your life for the better.

Source Stephen Levy, Hackers Heroes of the
Computer Revolution, http//www.gutenberg.org/dirs
/etext96/hckrs10.txt Image licensed from
istockphoto.com (file 1111173)
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Hack Day the two rules

• build something that can be taken from idea to
  working prototype in one day
• at the end of the day, we will celebrate what
  youve done on Hack Day with demos of your hacks
  and awards for the coolest ones

Image http//www.flickr.com/photos/bmacphoto/1176
50987/
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Inspired, self-directed projects

• Every good work of software starts by
  scratching a developer's personal itch.
• -- Eric Raymond, The Cathedral and the
  Bazaar

Source http//www.catb.org/esr/writings/cathedra
l-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/
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Hack Yahoo! general principles

• Turning angst into action
• No excuses Mashup or shut up
• Prototypes are better than ideas
• Engineers are artists
• Intentional lack of structure leave room for
  emergence
• The org chart means nothing
• Failure is ok

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Takeaways

• Focus on great products, not purely on
  innovation
• Systematically challenge core assumptions - this
  can lead to new product / business approaches
• Decentralize innovation -- teach everyone how to
  innovate
• Create simple organizational mechanisms and
  practices that unlock latent creativity

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Thank you! / Questions?

• Email chad_at_chaddickerson.com
• Work blog http//next.yahoo.com/
• Blog http//www.chaddickerson.com/blog/
• Del.icio.us http//del.icio.us/chadd/
• FriendFeed http//friendfeed.com/chadd