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SA media businesses left behind by digital wave? 10/29/2009

After two days of lecturing on digital strategies for the print media to a class of mainly print media journalism interns I mentioned on Twitter and Facebook that my experience of South African media companies confirms a recent Forrester Consulting survey which shows a clear need for print media to catch up to consumer behavior. My engagement with the interns underscored this opinion.

The reaction I got was two-fold, one being that it reflects badly on the quality of the interns; two, that it reflects badly on the educational institutions the (2008 graduated) interns come from. Many a seasoned journalist and ex-colleague were quick to jump to the conclusion that I (also) think the new generation of reporters joining their ranks are not fit for the job – i.e. they can’t spell, and they are ignorant and lazy.

Although one or both inferences could be made from my cryptic comment and it might even be true in some instances, that is actually not the real reason for my concern. Because the interns are not to be blamed for their lack of understanding of the digital challenges facing the industry they have chosen to join.

Maybe I have expected young people of the so-called digital native generation to be ready for the new challenges just because they are young and all happen to have mobile phones and a Facebook page. That is a flawed assumption.

The real culprits in this tragic state of affairs of an industry that was once at the forefront of the digital wave in the late nineties, are manifold. And, yes it is somewhat unfair to generalise by including the entire SA media in my criticism. But what I do know from my experience with the majority of media companies in South Africa is that they are at this point way behind the digital wave sweeping the world. Sometimes I wonder if they will ever catch up again.

It is not so much about the technology or creating websites and mobi sites and Facebook groups and twitter accounts, but their ability to grasp the social dynamic in the markets they operate in. It is about moving with the consumers, with their readers, and their ability to resonate with the digital natives.

I can count on one hand the newspapers and magazines that have a well developed digital strategy and execute on it. By digital I include all digital platforms and channels available, some for more than a decade, others for the past two or three years.

What really disturbed me as a “media native” was to see how little a grasp these young interns had of the changing media landscape, the real threat of collapse of media giants, the imminent closure of more newspaper and magazine, and the challenges facing journalism. Most alarming was their lack of skills to utilise the abundance of new digital tools, and their outdated “old school” mindsets.

And that is a sad reflection on the institutions which call themselves journalism schools and academies, many who have lost contact with reality.

And it is even more of a reflection on the media companies itself who do not take the lead in showing the way. They simply do not inspire or lead these young interns to face these challenges. After several years of tertiary education and journalism training, and in this specific case, six months of exposure (i.e. hands-on work at print publications) these prospective journalists should have had a basic grasp of all things media and an understanding of the dynamics they will have to deal with.

And even if they somehow get up to speed in months to come before they are formally employed and enter the newsrooms, what will their experiences (frustrations) be in those newsrooms which have failed to inspire them in the first place?

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Digital Translators 09/30/2009

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I have seen the expression on so many faces over the past fifteen years. Confused, but too embarassed, or even worse, too scared to ask.
   So many a media manager, editor, journalist, copy-editor, marketing guru, ad sales rep, and company MD or CEO or Financial Director, have sat around a board room meeting with me and other digital types with no comprehension of the technical language flying between the four walls, in the numerous slick Powerpoint presentations and tabulated in the new digital business plans.
   Sometimes it is so blatantly obvious that the people that need to make very important decisions on new digital strategies do not have the faintest idea of what the demands were going to be on their staff and the culture of their business. But they are just too confused (and embarassed) to ask the very basic questions in order to get up to speed.
   Being a journalist myself and not a technical expert on all things digital at the time I know that feeling of anxiety when things are not as clear as it used to be before the "IT people" were invited into the board rooms to tell us where the world is heading. I have learned since - you just have to ask the questions and understand this new world or else you get left behind very quickly. That was 15 years ago when the World Wide Web was the buzz all around town.
   Today it is the "engineers" and "developers" - all more or less the short side of 25 years old - that occupy the board rooms. Their digital jargon is even more unintelligible to the management types. They are miles apart. In fact, they are worlds, universes apart in many ways. And often they are employees within the same company. The digital divide runs deep even within one company.
   So many businesses need someone to "translate" that jargon for them. That "translation process" starts long before the first meeting with the developers to make sure that management have some sort of a basic grip on the new environment they are supposed to enter. Then you must ensure that there are "interpreters" present in the meeting to guide management through the Powerpoint presentation. That is an art in itself.
   And afterwards you have a "private" meeting with management to explain all the implications of the decisions they have made in the board room meeting.
   You either smile when you read this because you have experienced this board room scene at least once before, or you nod your head in agreement with the scenario, because that is exactly how you feel about the current situation in your own business and the pressure you are under to do something "digital" fast, but you don't quite know how to make sense of all the proposals and options.
   The good news is that there are "translators" and "interpreters" around - people like us who have made the transition over time and now span the divide. We are not Digital Immigrants anymore (after at least fifteen years at the forefront of the digital revolution), but don't fit the definition of Digital Natives either (simply because of our date of birth, pre-1980). Call us Digital Translators.
    Yes, maybe we won't come up with the next Facebook or Twitter or Whatever, but we shall be the first to adopt it, learn to understand the application, apply it in different environments and even figure out, eventually, how to make money from it.
    And we shall be ready to guide some of the slower adopters and companies through the Next New Thing which threatens to make their businesses obsolete.

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