It is an annoying computerized voice. But congrats for trying.

Best
Adrian

That is an awesome comment.

More employees need to just start doing things. Generally, they won’t get in big trouble for trying something new, and they might get a lot of praise.

There is a fundamental lack of innovation at newspapers. It’s a huge reason why they are dying right now.

The problem is simple: there is no culture of innovation. Innovation isn’t rewarded, because most editors and publishers don’t want to deal with an inevitable side-effect of an innovative culture — failure.

Most newspapers are horribly risk averse. Top managers are hanging on to retirement. They want to do just enough to keep their jobs, so they can ride out into the sunset while the industry dies. If they risk too much, they risk getting fired and losing that golden parachute. In a culture of fear, which newspapers are firmly in, innovation can never be fomented.

But innovation is the only path to salvation. That’s the fundamental paradox of newspapers. They’re in a death spiral, and because of this spiral they cannot innovate, but it is their lack of innovation that is causing this death spiral.

Most writers and editors are just barely getting by, producing that daily miracle. The only “innovation” any of them have ever known is marginally redesigning the print product every 5-10 years.

But the Web demands real innovation and a fundamental paradigm shift. It demands rapid and swift action, not the glacial change that newspapers are accustomed to. It requires people who are willing to let go of everything they have ever held on to.

Do we really think all those newspaper employees who started before the Web was born really get that culture? Do we honestly expect them — most of today’s managers — to take risks on a medium that many of them barely understand? Of course not.

It is up to owners to get the right managers and employees in place to take the necessary risks. And owners must empower publisher to spend money on new ventures. Innovation can never happen in a culture of cost cutting. At some point, newspapers will have to spend money to make money.

And they’ll have to do something that most old-school journalist loathe to admit — print resources will have to be drastically cut back to beef up new, innovative Web and mobile initiatives.

What’s the No. 1 complaint I have about my job? A lack of innovation. The culture just isn’t there. It would make my job a lot more enjoyable, and would ultimately improve my newspaper.

But hey, why do newspapers need to innovate anyway? Right?

This is true for the Web in a way it is not for print in a few interesting ways.

1) The look and feel of the print paper is by-and-large the result of 100+ years of tradition, standards, best practices, style rules, beat configurations, staffing levels and edicts laid down by editors and publishers perhaps long past for reasons long forgotten. In short – a lot of what dictates the creation of the print paper is beyond the influence of the staff on a daily basis. Not because no one cares to change, there is just a lot of institutional inertia involved. This is also a strength as positive momentum can sustain a paper through circ declines and budget cuts.

2) Most newspaper Web sites are less than 10-years old. Few were taken seriously until the last 3 – 4 years. There is probably a new design every year, new tools almost monthly, new content weekly. If there are any best practices in place they are recent and probably fluid due to the frequent changes on the site. In short – the state of your Web site is a direct result of the talents and strategies of people who are probably still on staff. This can also be a weakness if inertia is all that is inherited from the print culture.

So, if your Web site is boring shovelware with no reader interactivity, poor or no multimedia, and is updated once-per-day and always AFTER the print edition is on the street, you are probably working in a newsroom with a rigid bureaucracy, a publisher still upset that the Web is free, a capital budget that is not investing in multimedia gear and a staff that is likely too worried about layoffs to get involved in innovation.

But, if your Web site is a focus of community conversation, is creating new and engaging ways to display the news, is experimenting with audio and video projects, is attracting advertisers, is pursuing non-news audiences and has newsroom staffers blogging, podcasting, and Digg-ing, you likely have an enlightened publisher (or at least benign neglect), an editor who understands the Web is not Print, a capital strategy that invests in digital priorities, a training program the newsroom believes in and an atmosphere where the best idea wins, regardless of who proposes it.

Bottom line, the Web is changing too quickly to allow us to fake sincerity. It is changing too quickly for us to wait for the ‘answer’ to be handed down from on high – be that the latest story in a trade mag, or the latest hype from a conference speaker. It is changing too quickly to rely on the internal tools and processes that have made newspapers successful for 200 years.

To stay ahead of the curve the entire newspaper (not just the newsroom) needs to abandon the comfort of institutional inertia, hire the right people to work online and give them the freedom and resources to make your Web site work with and for your readership.