I need your help. No, I was not robbed while on vacation and am not trapped in some foreign city – I just need your vote. That’s right, your VOTE.

Kevin Sablan of the Orange County Register and Bill Adee of the Chicago Tribune and myself (representing Philadelphia Media Network) are trying to get our panel “Survivalist News: How Far WIll You Go for Readers” accepted for SXSW 2012.

Organized by Sheigh Crabtree of Perfect Market, this is one of a bunch of panels attempting to focus on the news industry, but in my unbiased estimation, the very best. Here’s a description of what we’ll attempt to do:

The Survivalist Newsroom: How Far Will You Go to Get Readers? In today’s frenetic media world, it’s never been more difficult for media companies to attract readers. They’ve used sophisticated search technologies, content seeding, social media, promotions, and splashy homepages to try to lure the most eyeballs possible to their sites. But how far would you go to get readers? In this session, hear from one newspaper that decided to sell Android tablets with its content pre-loaded at a massive discount, juts to get readers in the door. Hear how they also used games, giveaways, and sophisticated data-mining content management techniques to successfully increase readership.

Not bad, right?

Well here is where you come in. This year, with nearly 4,000 sessions submitted for the week (March 9-18), your votes and comments will account for about 30% of the decision-making process. The balance of the decision comes from the SXSW Advisory Board, which is a group of industry professionals from across the US and around the world and finally, the input of the SXSW staff. So please, vote. You can learn more about how to vote here. You can see the full description of our panel here.

So do Kevin, Bill and me a favor and show your support and vote and, while you’re at it, feel free to express your enthusiasm about the session on the comments portion of the page

I spent part of my Sunday morning visiting dozens of newspaper websites and by the time I was done I found myself wanting to scream. WAKE UP! LOOK AT WHAT YOU ARE DOING!

Too many of the sites I visited looked as if they’re frozen in time or, at the very least, not working with any sense of urgency. When I tweeted my observation:

“Where’s the innovation? Where’s the experimentation? Don’t see most newspaper sites doing anything different or new. What happened?”

Steve Yelvington came back with this on-point response:

“Biggest risk of organizational (i.e., newsroom) convergence is a loss of imagination and innovative spirit.”

While I agree with his comment, I just don’t feel like any of these sites can afford to rest on their laurels or to be stuck in neutral. With marketing budgets at many newspapers shrinking or disappearing altogether, for the most part, it’s up to the individual web staffs to increase metrics such as page views, time or site and return visitors (for example).

What concerns me even more is that I’m not sure the people at any of these sites realize that they have a problem. On too many occasions I’ve heard the cliché “if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”.

I once worked for a VP who said something along the lines of “if you’ve been doing it for the past 20 years, then it’s time to change what you’ve been doing.” With that in mind, I’ve got a suggestion for all the online staffers out there – consider this a low tech intervention. Take a piece of paper, or create a document and number the lines 1 through 10. Then, on each line, list something that you have done in the past three to six months at your site that you consider innovative or experimental.

For example:

1. Experimented with commenting
2. Incorporated user generated galleries
3. Staffed the site overnight, etc.

Now if you don’t want to do this brief exercise or if your list contains only one or two items, then I would suggest that you have a problem. I would even go so far as to predict that your site (barring the occasional Druge or Fark) is seeing traffic hold steady. While that might seem like a good thing, it really, really isn’t.

With print products struggling just to maintain their depleted numbers, online growth must occur and innovation and experimentation, I believe, is key to that growth.

Now before you run off and put floating eyeballs on your site, I would suggest first of all setting, at the very least, a monthly traffic goal. This will help you gauge the effectiveness of what you attempt and justify those changes or alterations to those you work with.

Once you have that done, try something. It doesn’t have to cost money even, as there is plenty of free tech that you can leverage. Want chats? Try CoveritLive. Want widgets that you can centrally update? Try SproutBuilder. The list goes on and on.

And as you go, share your successes and your stumbles. Just like we’re seeing more cooperation on the content side between news outlets, we need to see more cooperation on the tech side (more on this another time).

Now lets get down to innovating and experimenting and be sure to let me know how it goes.

Recently, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about Ron Popeil. An American inventor, Popeil is responsible for such gadgets as the Chop-O-Matic, the Veg-O-Matic, Hair in a Can Spray and the Showtime Rotisserie Oven which he hocked on many late night infomercials. It was this last product that has been on my mind much of late.

Popeil claimed that it was so easy to cook whole chickens in the Showtime Rotisserie Oven that all you had to do was “set it and forget it.” This phrase popped into my head recently while I was trying to explain my approach to website management.

Too many online staffs treat their websites like the Showtime Rotisserie Oven. They, say it with me, “Set it and Forget it.” Enamored with automation, they design sites that is chock full of headline pulls, RSS feeds and automated dayparting, Flash galleries, etc.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a technophobe, but the problem I have is that all the automation becomes an excuse to not deal with their site unless there is a problem or special project. They never stop to ask, are the right stories are being presented at the right time? Is the best photo being featured? Are our visitors being best served? They never ask because well, it’s all automated.

To me, that just spells missed opportunities.

I believe that the pages on your site should showcase not just the best, but the most appropriate and appealing content that your visitors would want at a given moment. And yes, that means change comes often.

My approach is to use metrics to help plot a roadmap and then use your journalistic sense, your common sense to make the right choices. Are there places for automation? Of course, but your site won’t grow automatically it requires your constant attention.

So if you want to cook a chicken follow Popeil’s advice. But if you want to grow your site, take my advice and do the work yourself.

OK, here’s a prime example of a lost linking opportunity that actually annoyed at least one reader (me).

On Sunday, the New York Times posted a story “Dancers in the Crowd Bring Back ‘Thriller’.” It’s an interesting and entertaining piece about how Sony BMG has used viral marketing as part of the 25th anniversary of the release of Michael Jackson’s Thriller album. Central to the story is that videos of paid dancers breaking into “spontaneous” zombie dances aboard trains and on city streets have become very popular on YouTube, the video sharing site.

Although I’m familiar with the Jackson inspired dance (not that I can do it myself), I found the idea of a video of “zombies” dancing on board a London subway car an entertaining enough idea to check out. The article has visible links to Sony, Kanye West and Fergie (artists who both appear on the a Thriller tribute album) and Tesco. And thanks to their partnership with Answer.com, you can double-click on any term or word for a definition. But nowhere were there any links to the videos on YouTube, nor did the Times decide to embed them.

Instead, the Times forced me to open a new browser window go to YouTube and then search for the videos myself. A rather annoying endeavor that I felt was unnecessary and took up time that I really didn’t want to spend. See, as a reader of the Times, I expect them to be comprehensive in their reporting AND in their print and online presentation. To me, not providing the related links is the Times disrespecting me and frankly, being lazy after all, how big is their online staff?

My guess is, that your readers would feel the same way if you did this to them. But something else to think of, because the Times drove me to find the videos on YouTube myself, I didn’t return to their site. My visit that might have encompassed say half a dozen page views, stopped with that single one. In a time when we’re talking about how to further engage our readers and how to get them to spend more time, is this an opportunity any of us can afford to overlook?

Want to see the videos yourself? Here they are:

Feel free to provide links to others as you come across them.

I believe that the phrase “no one can do it all and frankly no one should” must be part of the discussion at any newspaper serious about their online operation.

As I wrote in a previous post, there is a growing sentiment at many papers that there are just too few people to tackle what seems like ever-growing to-do lists. What concerns me about that reaction is that I fear it reflects organizations who are only considering the first “no one can do it all” part of the above phrase.

While organizations can keep on increasing the responsibilities for their reporters, editors, photographers or producers, the reality is quality will suffer and morale will decline. In my mind, it should not be a case of simply adding, but of adding and subtracting. I would encourage you to look for redundancies or places where you can leverage either your existing print or online operation.

For example:

• Is the same content being entered twice, once for print and once for online?
• Is there work that either readers can do or that technology can assist with? For example can letter to the editor be scanned rather then manually entered in your editorial system or can readers be encouraged to complete an online form?
• Could reporters provide a list of the websites they used to research a story to help enhance it when it appears online?
• Can copy editors provide a web headline when they come up with the print headline?

I know these are rather basic suggestions, but my point is — if you look at your process before you simply start handing out new responsibilities, you might find that either you can replace existing duties or that someone is already doing it, but in a way you didn’t see. In a time when being efficient is key, it’s inefficient to blindly hand out new tasks.

Honestly, I don’t understand newspapers who present their stories online as if they were publishing them on a printed page. It’s not just that lack of subheads in a 37-inch long story that frustrates me; it’s the complete ignorance of any web tools that could enhance story presentation and increase the amount of time readers spend on the site.

Sadly, far too many newspapers continue to treat their websites as simply the online version of their printed papers. I thought that it was widely understood at this point that you will never grow your online audience if all your do is reprint only what is in your daily newspaper.

Take this story from The Journal News (Yonkers, NY) about the increasing frequency with which local police are arresting mothers who are driving while intoxicated.

“There has been an increase in the number of mothers arrested for driving while intoxicated with children in the car, said Bob Watson, supervising probation officer for Westchester County’s DWI enforcement unit. He said that more mothers than fathers are on probation for the offense.”

I would say that this is an important story that deserves attention. So lets look at how it was presented.

To begin with, the article comes in at 1,164 words or 31.45-inches (using the 37-words-per-column-inch equation). While that is not a huge story (a front-page New York Times story on presidential campaign fundraising comes in 600 words longer), it is not a quick read.

My immediate thought is that the story does needs subheads. During my initial read, I counted four places where subheads could have been used to help the reader navigate the story and to emphasize key points.

In addition to those two points, the story lacks any outbound links. I counted nearly a dozen instances where links to external sites could have enhanced the story including:

• Alcoholics Anonymous
• National Council on Alcoholism & Drug Dependence
• Westchester County Police

Perhaps even more important then outbound links, the story has no internal links. Given that the reporter cited about 10 recent cases, I would believe that the newspaper has written about more then just a few of them. And actually a look through their (paid) archives saw at least 20 links to just one of those cases.

And finally, along the same line, additional photos from previous stories.

I would argue that these suggestions only scratch the surface. An argument could have also been made, for example, for a video or audio-only interview(s) or even the inclusion of a poll.

Lohud is not alone, visit newspaper websites across the country, and you’ll find many similar examples of sites failing to engage readers. It’s a problem, I would offer, that has an easy fix. This is the type of issue that needs to be consciously built into the workflow, one possibility is to even make it the responsibility of one or a few people.

Don’t think that you can make all of the changes to add all the components I’ve suggested? Well, start by picking just one, perhaps previous stories and once you’ve got that a regular part of the process, add another.

No matter what you decide, don’t just offer the same old; that’s a mistake you might find you won’t be able to make for much longer.

I have a question for the “underpaid, overworked, frustrated, pissed off and ignored media professionals” who are “publicly and anonymously” venting their anger on angryjournalist.com. I would like to know what each of you are doing in your own newsroom or news organization to change…anything? What effort(s) are you making to help improve the conditions you feel so compelled to complain about? What suggestions have your brought to the table? What new ideas have you offered?

I’m all for “venting” and blowing off steam. But, I would note that this is a precarious moment for newspapers and what our newsrooms need are more leaders willing to make to take a stand and not more followers lining up to simple add their complaints.

So which are you and what are you doing?

When was the last time that you went through your closet? Is there a chance you still have a Members Only jacket or a pair of parachute pants? Over the years have you added new pieces to your wardrobe without getting rid of the old? Are you at a point where you just don’t know what you have?

Well, minus the jacket, pants and maybe denim overalls, the same description can also be applied to many newspaper websites.

Over the years many sites new content, features, sections and even navigation are added only to be pushed to the virtual back and forgotten. The situation is further complicated by staffing churns that strip newsrooms of institutional memory, so what is old is quickly forgotten. Approaches such as site audits or even Spring Cleanings aren’t commonly practiced. So everything just builds and builds and builds.

As a reader of these sites, I’ve come across special sections for three-year-old events, coverage of previous elections or long forgotten education issues. Seeing this type of outdated content causes me to question the reliability and quality of the entire site. While I understand that in theory online space is unlimited, that doesn’t mean that you never have to thrown anything away.

To help you avoid this problem, here are some ideas for avoiding online clutter:

• Create a sitemap for your website and update it often. This will allow you to keep track of what you have and where, on the site, it’s living.
• Use a calendar to note when new or special sections go live.
• Schedule periodic site audits (refer back to your calendar or sitemap) to review your site and discuss how to handle outdated content.

So those are a few suggestions from me, what are your approaches to dealing with this issue and when are you going to get rid of that Members Only jacket?