All too often when I ask a colleague at another media company what their monetization strategy is (in general or regarding a specific product) the response I’m given is akin to “that’s not my station.” To me, that answer epitomizes the problems we’re seeing at too many media companies – too many people passing the proverbial buck.

Now, for those of you who have previously read my blog, you know that I’m a proponent of transparency and when it comes to an issue like monetization, I think companies need to increase transparency to lessen the impact of employees who believe that making money isn’t their problem.

Years ago, I worked for a company that had a gainsharing program.  The idea was that when the company was successful and earned revenue above a certain target, the results were share with employees. When business didn’t go well, those results were also shared with employees who wound up referred to the program as “painsharing.” More then anything, the program made it clear to all employees that everything had a cost and that if there was an expense, there needed to be revenue.

Now that didn’t make reporters report any less, nor did it make editors assign fewer stories or photographers shoot fewer photos, but it did make nearly everyone pause and think.  For example, editors asked if there was someone else already on duty instead of a reporter working overtime to cover a meeting and designers took a closer look at how much space they needed for a special section. But don’t get me wrong, the program did not suddenly erase waste nor make everyone more frugal.

With the economy being what it is, one would be hard pressed to find a company still running a gainsharing program. But I think the broader lessons are just as relevant in these difficult times.

I’m not proposing that everyone should follow the Dallas model (and yes I know that they say advertising is not really setting strategy), but I do think a better job needs to occur with making building revenue everyone’s problem and where that is already successfully happening in print, it needs to be extended to online.

So if I’m not calling for a Dallas approach, then what do I mean?

Simply put, I think there needs to be an approach that provides a seat at the table for all relevant parties not just advertising and/or content. I would suggest that from the start you involve people from your tech, business development, advertising and content and design teams. Make it clear not only what the goals are, but also what are the expenses. And make sure not to overlook any expenses, for example even the use of open source software can have associated expenses.

How often does advertising come up with an idea for a special section that content readily can’t fill? Or how often does content decide to create a special package that ignore advertising or sponsorship opportunities? Occurrences like those and many others happen in many different types media companies.

While an approach that treats everything as a product and is inclusive in its creation doesn’t guarantee a revenue positive effort, the alternative just doesn’t seem to be working.

What’s the approach at your company? Drop a comment and let me know.

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.

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.

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?

The Palm Beach Post has decided to actually do what so many people in journalism have only been willing to talk about. But with the exception of a few blog posts including one from Erica Smith of graphicdesignr.net fame, that news has largely gone ignored.

Just about a week ago, Managing Editor Bill Rose announced in a memo, “it’s time to change.” Rose went on to make a compelling argument:

“For too long, we’ve stuck with a structure that was designed to serve a print newspaper. We’ve sort of grafted the Internet onto that and it’s worked, but not nearly well enough. Especially in this time of economic uncertainty, we cannot continue to do things the same way we’ve done them for decades upon decades. The Internet now represents a significant and growing source of revenue at a time when our revenue is not what it used to be. For us to make the Web an afterthought would be pretty foolhardy.”

Highlights of what they are doing include:

• Metro now called the Breaking News Department.
• Reporters and editors in the former metro department first priority will be to file all breaking news to the Web as soon as possible.
• A print editor will supervise production of the Local section and the preparation of print stories for the newspaper.
• Most Metro editors and reporters will be working much earlier shifts, while several other editors and reporters will work even later shifts to handle print stories.
• A new Enterprise Department will be created, whose primary responsibility is serving the print newspaper. The enterprise team will produce a steady diet of investigative, enterprise and trend stories. It will also produce well-written “reads” or feature stories. Its stories should be aimed at Page One.
• Continue to hire more people into the Digital Department (Online), from inside — and outside — the building and will focus on not only beefing up and improving the daily production of our site but will increase focus on developing new products and other niche ideas.
• Business and Sports and Features will create Web pods within their own departments.The
  Features pod will initially consist of two producers for Accent and A&E.
• Studying the feasibility of a universal copy desk.
• Ultimately, begin to merge our print and online production operations. Traditional way of “putting out the newspaper” will eventually give way to a 24/7 production desk for the entire newsroom. Editors would simultaneously produce print and Web products.

I definitely think the Post’s efforts should be applauded and encouraged by everyone in the newspaper industry. We need more newsroom leaders who are willing to take the steps that Rose and his team are undertaking. And I think that in the coming weeks and months we all should take advantage of the opportunity to learn from their decisions. For today, I wanted to bring their ideas and approaches to your attention and hopefully get you thinking about this I approach, I know I am.

Maybe newsrooms need to take a page from websites and use the “private beta mode” approach to introduce new hardware or software. There is nothing like watching the excitement as online users scramble to try and get an invite to a recently launched site. And the buzz those efforts creates amount to viral marketing that is hard to put a price tag on. So why couldn’t this work for your newsroom?

Traditionally, new initiatives are announced at a staff meeting or by memo, a timeline is attached, training sessions are scheduled and staffers are told that rollover will occur on X date. There is absolutely nothing exciting about that. Actually, no amount of kitch (you know the mouse pads, mini footballs, mugs, or pens that offer accompany these efforts) will excite a staff and truly engage them in the effort.

Now in the “private beta mode” approach there would be no distracting staff meetings or memos (that few actually entirely read). Instead, introduction would happen more subtly. Let’s say, for example, you want all reporters to start shooting their own video and plan to supply them with Nokia N95s (feel free to include me in that distribution by the way!). In this approach, you might select a core group of staffers (maybe some who are already tech savvy) and quietly corral them, explain that they are part of the “private beta” and provide them the new devices.

These staffers, won’t focus on having to shoot their own video and instead will be excited to be part of a select group chosen to use a new technology. You can tell them that they will help shape the program, that other reporters will be able to get the devices as the program develops and that you are excited to hear their thoughts and get their feedback. And this scales — you can do this in a small newsroom with one or two reporters and in a large newsroom with a dozen or more reporters.

In either case, members of the “private beta” will infect some with their excitement. They will show off, in this case, the device and what it can do. Others will be attracted by their excitement or by witnessing what these reporters are now capable of doing. After a period of time, you can implement a way for others to sign-up to be part of the program and then rollout the next round. Excitement will continue to grow and best of all, it will happen organically.

While this may sound like it will take longer then the traditional approach, I would maintain that it won’t. And in the end, even if it takes just as long, more staffers will be fully engaged when rollout is complete. As a whole, staffers will feel more ownership of the program and a sense of control that will infect the rest of their work.

This approach can work for everything from new phones and cameras to a new CMS or bookmarking software. And best of all, you can try it and if you decide it doesn’t work for your newsroom, you can still return to the traditional approach. But I think you’ll find that the viral nature of “private beta” will work for your newsroom just as it does for sites across the Internet.

OK, judging from the response I received to the recent team building tech and postmortem posts, maybe it would help to step back and focus on something more personal, perhaps something that assistant editors can use to help themselves.

I know first-hand how much the computer systems at many newspapers leave you wanting something more. I had a computer once that physically shimmied and shook if I tried to work on a spreadsheet at the same time that I was on the Internet. But try telling the executive editor that you need a new computer; you’re likely to get laughed out of their office.

Thankfully at most newspapers, Internet access is no longer an issue. Gone are the days when there was only one or two machines connected to the Net. Additionally most newsrooms have left behind dial-up and embraced faster connectivity. So what does any of this mean for our assistant editor with the circa 1980 machine who has no hope for new hardware and whose software is an even bigger joke. Where can they turn? What other tech options do they have?

While the Internet is full of content that can be used to waste time (my personal favorite is Desktop Tower Defense), it also offers lots of productivity and organization tools. There are two companies in particular that I think can provide the most assistance in this instance.

The most familiar would be Google Docs. The company, known for Internet search, email and instant messaging, has developed a suite of applications including an online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation program (think PowerPoint, but not). One of the things that’s great about these online tools is just that, they’re online, so you can use them wherever you have access to an Internet connection. And you can easily transfer documents from one of these applications to Microsoft Word or Excel and vice-versa. As such, moving content from say Google Documents (their version of Word) to your editorial or CMS would also likely be simple. Additionally, all these applications allow for great collaboration. For example, at Ottaway, I will frequently use Google Spreadsheet instead of Excel. I can work on it wherever I am and my colleagues can contribute, even when I’ve already got the spreadsheet open.

The other option comes from the folks at 37signals. What they have to offer is really a organizational tool. Backpack is “a simple web-based service that allows you to make pages with to-do lists, notes, files, and images … also features a Calendar and Reminders that can be sent via email or to your cell phone at predefined times.” There is nothing to say that you can’t use Backpack in conjunction with Google Docs. Get organized with Backpack and stay productive with Google Docs.

While both of these are free, Backpack does offer paid upgrades for added functionality.

You’ll have to decide what works for you. For example, you might just want to start with Google Documents, since it will allow you to work at home on reviews and that weekend package. Or you may want to use Google Spreadsheet to plan the holiday rotation. On the other hand, a to-do list tied in with email reminders might be just what you need to ensure that you get your timesheet in on time or expense reports filed before the deadline.

Best of all, since these are online applications, no one has to know you are using them, they’ll just marvel at your increased productivity and organizational skills.