by Rob Paterson
April 4, 2009 at 8:21 am · Filed under
BPP Diner, Bryant Park Project, NPR, News, PBS, This American Life
Last week, the Giant Pool of Money, won a Peabody award. This was a breakthrough program on many fronts. First of all it was a collaboration between two rivals – This American Life and NPR. Secondly it was web based. Thirdly it was long form. Lastly it took the POV of mystery – not only for journalists but for ALL concerned – including the regulators and the Treasury.
The show shed light for the first time on the complex crisis that confronts us. It gave birth to an entirely new kind of news show, Planet Money, that is extending all the lessons learned by the initiating show.
Here is a video of one of the co hosts – Adam Davidson (The other was Alex Blumberg of This American Life) Where Adam does his best to explain how making this show is changing his perspective on how journalists cover complex stories.
I think that in these few minutes, Adam explains the real revolution that has to take place in news.
He tells of his problem with space and time in conventional journalism. How can you talk about say a problem in mortgage backed securities in just 3 minutes when most know nothing abut them. But this is what people have to do in the time constraints of a audio or Video news program or in the space constraints available in a newspaper. Conventional news simply does not offer the time or the space to cope with complex things.
Linear news cannot inform us about complexity and complexity is our world now.
He talks about the problem of the “Authoritative Voice” the voice of God that is used. As a correspondent in Iraq, he and his wife could always tell the newbies – they were the ones who knew what was going on! It is now quite clear that even Henry Paulson did not know what was going on. So why should any journalist pretend that they did? Adam is saying that the right place for a journalist is to be a seeker on behalf of the public.
Top down voices of authority cannot illuminate complexity either. Only an invitation for conversation can unpack complexity’s meaning.
In the first few weeks of Planet Money, I talked with Adam and Laura about their plans and how they might be able to use a web based show. Here in summary is what he told me. In essence they were going to prepare a a big all you can eat buffet. It would suit every taste and would be open 24/7. (BPP was a diner)
- Daily the team would offer up nuggets, small dishes, of current and topical news that they found or that an ever expanding circle of “fans” as per BPP, would send in
- 3 – 4 times a week they would offer up a podcast, a longer form piece – a small audio magazine – this could be and is sliced and diced and added into the main magazines such as All Things Considered, News Broadcasts, Local shows, Morning Edition – what they learned with BPP is that it is better to add great new content into the blockbuster items rather than try and compete with your self. This way PM builds a wide audience by using the network effect. Adam also is a regular guest on the New Hour – thus PBS and NPR are getting closer as well
- Every 6 weeks or so – a long form show such as Giant Money in collaboration with TAL.
- The POV was always going to be – EXPLAIN! The presenters of the show would be representing us. They would start from a position of NOT KNOWING and not understanding the jargon. The irony is that even the so called experts have told Adam that they too have learned from the show. The problem being that they often know a lot about a little but also cannot see the larger whole. So the “VOICE” that we hear is a questioning, uncertain voice. When I say “Voice” I mean literally the timbre of what you hear. The deep profundo voice of God is not allowed on the show. I think key to this voice are Laura and Caitlin who sound like your favorite sisters and not your mother or some Amazonian know it all with power hair. The guys are quizzical and sound a bit like your bright university guy friend who is helping you understand calculus or statistics.
Of course everything is online so it is all available at any time. Hence the “banquet” metaphor.
I find all the hand wringing of conventional journalism a bit lame. 3 minute sound bites, 8 inches of text and the VOICE from the burning bush is actually making the world harder to comprehend.
Don’t all the problems that confront us fit this new kind of treatment? For do you really know what do do in Iraq and Afghanistan? Do you really have the answers to health or to energy? Do you know anyone that really has the answer to our education system?
Is not part of our problem that conventi0nal journalism makes it all but impossible to get to the root of these issues?
I think that the limits of “space” and “time” on conventional media do make it worse. These limits reduce all to bits and bites and give a stage and power to rabble rowsers – look at the cheerleaders in the financial sector!
Planet Money will look like the Model T Ford in 30 years time. But it will I think be seen as the Model T, as the expression of an entirely new and appropriate way of approaching the world that we now inhabit. A world that is made so complex by its vast array of interconnections.
As with all things on the web – the real shift is in relationship and hence POV. The time and space contraints of traditional media drive the top down expert/god POV. This fitted a less interconnected and hence less complex world. But with a hyper linked world, we live in much more complex times. Only a hyper linked way of gathering and offering the news will fit.
That is the revolution.
Hats off to Adam and Alex – to Ira Glass and to Ellen Weiss
by Sean McClowry
April 2, 2009 at 9:51 am · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Enterprise 2.0, FASTforward'09, FASTforward08, FISDEV, MIKE2.0
So I have been really bad about writing on the FastForward blog. While I’m as short on good excuses as posts, I have been doing some interesting things in this space that I think may be particularly valuable to this community. Some of the work has revolved around the openmethodology.org (MIKE2.0) and open-sustainability.org (FISDEV) initiatives that I mentioned in past articles.
I have also been working on omCollab, which is a platform that can be used for enterprise collaboration. The capabilities available in omCollab are driven for the business requirements to support BearingPoint’s IM Solution Suite initiative. omCollab is free and open source, so anyone can use it. We’re starting to get a nice development community going with key participants from the US, Europe and China. Feel free to use it and let us know what you think.
Part of the reason we made omCollab open source is to advance to goal of building an integrated content repository, where enterprises mashup to open content on the web and use it drive their strategy, design practices and community viewpoint of the best assets on the public web. The goal is to develop a collaborative, community-based standard. For the Enterprise Architects in the crowd, the closest approach from a content perspective is probably TOGAF although as far as I know no one has built an open and collaborative methodology or architecture framework in this fashion before. I believe the idea that had even greater relevance around sustainable development – which is why I started open-sustainability.org.
Although we’ve certainly had some good success around using the content from MIKE2.0, its has been tougher to build a collaborative community around the approach. Do you think it can work? Anything we should do differently?
by Bill Ives
April 1, 2009 at 8:38 am · Filed under
FASTforward'09
Here is an interesting question that is raised in the post, Should Software Vendors Also Sell Professional Services?, by Stewart Mader. He quotes Oliver Marks, “The reality for all ’social community’ roll outs is that the software is a relatively minor component compared to the change management required to drive uptake and usage and to weave the software into the business fabric of day to day use.” I certainly agree here and was even part of a panel at Enterprise 2.0 Conference in 2007 titled: 90% people, 10% technology.
Stewart goes on to quote Jive’s Gia Lyons, “Most of what we do could be done with almost any other social software tool, but naturally, we only make ourselves available to Jive customers.” Stewart then writes in reaction, “If most of what they do could be done with other software, then why only make themselves available to Jive customers? After all, isn’t professional services an even larger source of revenue than the software? That’s how SharePoint works. Microsoft sells a basic infrastructure on which lots of 3rd party consultants build and customize tools that meet each company’s needs.”
I would certainly agree with the last statement about revenue sources. When I was part of a large consulting firm we usually figured the system integration costs were about 3 to 5 times the software costs.
Stewart then implies that software vendors will not have the objectivity of third party implementers who can use a variety of tools. Having been on all sides of this equation, I think that this is a complex issue. I like Jon Mell’s comment to the post, “I think it’s slightly more subtle than vendors only trying to validate the sale. If a customer invests in Jive (or any other product) there is a mutual interest in making sure the solution works. If that also happens to validate the vendor’s sale it doesn’t automatically mean it’s wrong and not in the customer’s best interests.”
I would add that just because the professional services firm is independent of the software vendors, there are many alliances that will provide motivation similar to an internal services provider. I was the alliance sponsor for three portal software firms while working for a large consulting firm. There were several tiers of alliances and many wide-ranging agreements and motivations. In the end you have to be able to trust your service provider, whether they are inside or outside the official software provider and trust that there is full disclosure
I have also seen situations where the software firm’s internal people partner with a third party developer. This happen on a knowledge management project I led in the early 2000s. It worked well because the internal experts gave us their unique knowledge to help with the implementation and served as a connection to the software firm. The project was a success and promoted by both the very large software firm and the consulting firm, my employer.
In the 80s I was involved in another situation were it made sense to use the software firm’s service providers. My employer was a firm that sold CBT software. This firm originally thought that over half their income would come from selling software. I was the head of customer development and we only used our tools. What actually happen was that selling software accounted for only about 10% of our revenue. The rest came from custom development, as our clients would rather pay us to use our tools than purchase the tool themselves. Now software for learning development is a bit of a specialized case, as you need expertise in creating good learning materials as well as using the software.
In the end the answer to the question is not yes or no but the old “it depends.” There are many issues to making enterprise 2.0 work (see McKinsey Report on Making Enterprise 2.0 Work Brings Back Memories of Process Centric KM in Early 90s) and I think there is a role for software firms to engage in this implementation for everyone’s success.
What has been your experience on this issue?
