Robert Paterson's Weblog

Making the news more relevant - Public Insight Journalism - Interview with Michael Skoler

In the week where it was rumored that CBS may be getting out of journalism and when the ABC "debate" outraged many, I called Michael Skoler of American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio, to see how he saw the opportunity for the public radio/TV system to step up to the challenge of delivering high quality news to Americans.

"Today’s journalism was born in a time when there were few alternatives to mainstream media and it was tough to gather reliable information from diverse sources.  Only a small number of organizations had the resources to gather news and to distribute it.  Journalists took on the role of finding and sharing the news that they deemed important, and many in the news business saw this as a sacred trust".

"But for twenty years, public trust in journalists has been eroding and, in some cases, lost."

I asked Michael how this trust had been lost.

Michael made the point that many news organizations have become disconnected from the people they serve.  With media consolidation, there are fewer reporters, and those reporters are asked to produce more stories, usually by phone rather than by spending time in communities.  With fewer resources, the major media increasingly rely on the same set of expert sources to explain the news – people with titles who may not have direct experience or knowledge of the news, such as the military analysts that were the subject of the recent exposé by the New York Times. 

Journalists have become more vulnerable to those that try to manipulate the news agenda.

Another trend is the fragmentation of the audience.  As the numbers of cable channels and Web news sources has expanded, it has become harder for the mass media to gain and hold a large audience. A network news show can no longer be assured of 30 million viewers a night. A city newspaper can no longer be assured of a mass readership. To get the numbers, many news organizations believe they need more flash rather than more substance.  They invest in hyping stories, fancy graphics, and celebrity coverage.  In short, they have shifted toward "entertainment".

Getting attention is often a case of a louder voice.

Michael feels the current crisis for mainstream media is a crisis of relevancy. He cites a recent Zogby Interactive poll (http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1454) where 70% of Americans acknowledged that the news is important to their quality of life.  But 67% said that traditional journalism is out of touch with what they want from their news.

I asked if this was not "good news" for public radio and TV. After all, many believe that the large increase in the audience for public radio in the last decade may well have been driven by this vacuum of relevancy and truth at the network and cable level.

Michael agrees that this might be the case, but he fears that public media is vulnerable to the same resource pressures and growing disconnection between journalists and the public.

His concern? That the newsrooms of public media are also relying too much on the usual sources of news – the officials, analysts and self-appointed spokespeople who often have their own agendas to push. "We too rely on ‘experts’. Our ranks are not very diverse. We can miss what is important to our listeners in their daily lives. We have to be careful about taking our relationship with the public for granted. 

Trust is built on understanding and that means engaging and listening to the audience. I think we compete best by becoming more relevant and more trusted."

I asked Michael, how this might work. How would relevance break through the noise of today’s media? How would his organization’s model of Public Insight Journalism, PIJ, help increase relevancy and hence trust and how it could help to deliver very high quality news at a cost that public media could afford?

Michael made it clear to me that PIJ is not about filling the airwaves with listener opinion. It is about drawing on the experience of the public to inform the news process.

How does this work?

People are invited to join the Public Insight Network serving Minnesota Public Radio and American Public Media’s national news shows.  Here is what those who join can expect:

• • Up to one e-mail a month asking for your insight on issues we plan to cover — you respond only if you have knowledge; otherwise ignore the request

• • An occasional follow-up call or e-mail to get more information, if we follow a lead you provide

• • Confidentiality: We won't quote you on the radio or the Web without your permission

• • An open line for you to tell our radio programs what stories are important to you, your family and your community and help us set our coverage priorities

• • An occasional invitation to public insight meetings we hold in your area

• • No spam, marketing calls, or requests for money — your information is private and is not shared outside of a small circle of public radio journalists

"We ask people for knowledge and experience, not their opinions. So if we are exploring the impact of rising gas prices or looking at problems with public education, we target those in the network we think will have knowledge and ask for their experience.  What they share helps us understand how people experience the issues and enables our reporters to focus on the most relevant angles and stories."

I asked how the newsroom makes sense of all of this information - how does it turn data into news?

"Our relationships with the Public Insight Network are managed by a new breed of journalists, which we call public insight analysts. Their job is to engage people and gather information on stories, and then synthesize the knowledge and experience of the network and bring that information into the editorial process. It’s a daily process that connects the newsroom to the audience."

"We aren’t turning over the reins of the newsroom to the public.  We are creating a partnership, where a journalist’s skills and judgment are still on the line.  In the PIJ model, almost nothing from the public goes direct to air or the Web.  As we gather public insight, our journalists do what they have always done – vet the information, check out multiple sources and then tell well-crafted stories that provide truth and context. 

“We have built knowledge management tools that allow just 2 1/2 analysts in Minnesota and 3 in L.A. to manage relationships with over 50,000 citizen sources.  Our tools enable us to target groups of people within the network who are likely to have knowledge on a specific issue, so we are not constantly surveying people.  We respect their time and privacy. They are sources and we don’t share their names with our membership department or anyone else. Our goal is journalism, not marketing.  If we break the trust, we would be finished."

The result is that relevancy and impact are increased, he says. Stories, or perspectives, that might have been missed in a more closed approach are often uncovered.  And trends are spotted.  For example, Michael says, his analysts first uncovered stories about the middle class squeeze from the network – before papers like the New York Times ran a series.  Recently, some in the network revealed that they plan to give their tax rebate checks to charity and that this is causing quite a stir in the charity sector. 

I asked Michael about the metrics.

He says the network now has more than 53,000 citizen sources, with about 24,000 in the upper Midwest and the others spread across every state and two dozen foreign countries. In the last few months, he says 10,000 people have responded to requests for information and 190 stories have been informed by the network across APM, MPR and 4 other public radio newsrooms that are PIJ partners – New Hampshire Public Radio, Colorado Public Radio, Oregon Public Broadcasting and North Carolina Public Radio.

The network grows by about 2,000 a month. That is a lot of people who now have a much more meaningful relationship with their stations, says Skoler.  “So not only does our news improve, but so does the overall relationship with the audience.”

I asked whether this has helped the bottom line. "MPR’s member numbers are at an all time high" was Michael's response.

So if this is working for you, what about other stations I asked.

“The 4 stations that we have trained are very happy with how their local networks are helping their journalism. New Hampshire has about 1,200 in its network, Colorado has about 2,400, North Carolina has 500 and Oregon Public Broadcasting has over 2,600.  That growth has happened in a year or less.

"We train 2 people in each station – a journalist/analyst and a news manager – and APM provides the software tools. We learned from our early mistakes and these stations can move so much faster and with greater assurance as a result.”

If you want to learn more about PIJ - here is a link to the main site that opens with an invitation for you and I to join the network.  I append the opening words in the follow-on to this post because they speak of the new relationship that is surely at the heart of a more trusted and relevant news that public media can afford.

I close in hope that this is a process that only a public model could offer. Is this not a great advantage? Conventional news can only turn up the volume and in the end defeat themselves and fail the nation.

What will happen as public media calls upon the experience of the people in this way? What will happen to the news? What will happen to the station? What might happen to American Society?

Tim Robbins at NAB - Media

Here is a link to Tim Robbins' brilliant speech to the NAB on his view of where the media has ended up and what it needs to do to redeem itself. (AR&D - on the home page now look to the right of the screen - it is in 4 parts)

The speech is a masterpiece in form and delivery. He is funny and uses story to enable us to hear who we have become without being so offended as to close our ears. Then he appeals to our better nature and asks especially those in charge to step up and to stand for what is good and is needed. (Not workplace safe if you have the volume u)

The speech was filmed by a $100 Flip camera - they are not available in Canada!!!

What do we really want - Why Public Media has edge?

Later this week I will post Part 2 of my interview with Susan Meyer at WOSU. We will talk abut the pragmatic work of making the shift from broadcasting to Public Media. Here is a bit more context.

As I have been thinking about what I really need in life - to be accepted for the person that I am by people I love - and how this idea might be translated into a competitive position for public media, I recalled an earlier post about the nature of story and I repeat some of it here.

If we do it well, public media can be about embodying the essence of the monomyth - it can offer us the opportunity to be all that we can be.

The big idea is this - That all stories with a "Happy Ending" involve a person/persons finding their true self and being accepted for that.

In the Quest, Frodo hears the call, finds helpers who accept him as a humble Hobbit, who as a group take on the evil in the world -That is usually all about power for its own sake - They triumph after nearly failing - and restore humanity.

Tragedy is the dark side of this. In tragedy, Macbeth hears not the call to serve his people but the temptation to feed his ego.

He acts on this and for a brief moment he is King - but then he loses support and has to act out even more. In the end, the tragic hero, consumed by ego, totally self centred, is alone and is caught off guard by a something that his ego focus has missed. His fall allows the human world to be restored.

In this contrasting view of story, I see the competitive landscape for the future.

In this context, commercial radio is all about the ego. It exists to exploit us to buy things that are aimed at our ego needs. If only I had this car, women would sleep with me! If only I looked like this, people would like me. If only I did this I would be rich etc. The program is a device to hold us while we can be shown ads that feed the ego.

Public radio is largely about service to the community. It is more about "service" and the "call".

It explains the meaning of the world and hence the meaning of being a human. It is, at its best, not about ego. At its best, it explains stories such as Iraq and the middle east less in say a "Balanced" manner but in a way that tells us about the human condition. This American Life tells us about who we are.

Public radio can now do ore than tell stories. It can help us become true heroes. If it adds to its mix the power of connection, then it can help us set out locally on Quests for better health etc. It can help  us as people take the voyage home again to being human by enlisting us in our own true story.

If Public Radio/TV becomes a true Trusted Space along the lines that Ideastream in Cleveland is attempting then it sets up conditions for how a citizen can act as a true hero to help her community and in so doing meet others who become fellows and  have the satisfaction of triumphing over the ego of the institutions that exist only for their own reasons.

It can enable us to find the people and the work that we need to complete us. 

What could be better than that?

What do we want the most? - WOSU and the Future of Public Media - The Context for Greatness - Susan Meyer - Part 1

I have just returned from my morning walk with the dogs. Jay and I are are hobbling along, both with shot knees. But the sun is shining and there are signs that this long winter is drawing to a close. Nearly home, I am filled with the knowledge that every walk with Jay is precious. Snow, wind, rain or sun - soon would come the day when we will never do this ever again.

As we shuffled to the steps of the house, I asked myself "What do I really want?" Knowing for sure that all this will end - maybe sooner that I had ever hoped - "What do I really want?"

The answer came to me immediately. "I want to love and I want to be loved". "I want to be connected to people whom I love and who will love me for whom I am - not for who I should be but for whom I am. I want to be loved for my whole self."

So what have these fears and hopes of a middle-aged man got to do with Public Radio and TV?

I think everything.

Yes a lot of the value of the social web is that it can connect us to ideas, to music and to shows that we like. Yes, a lot of its value is that the web can ensure that we experience these things on our own terms and on our own time. But underneath all the content and the flexibility, is another connection.

As Luis and I talked, he reminded me that the web has the power to connect us to those special few in the entire world who are our match.

It was therefore a moment of great synchronicity that as I talked soon after with my friend Susan Meyer at WOSU about how she saw the future at WOSU, that we found ourselves talking about this.

(Susan and her niece Samantha)

Talking about the very nature of the human connections that I think only public radio and TV has the trust to facilitate. Talking about the nature of the human connections that we think are the centerpiece of the future for the system. Talking about really fulfilling "What we really want" rather than its proxies such as stuff and money.

Susan's mandate at WOSU is to build a community of relevance. Sounds good, even noble. You too may have such a mandate. But.....

How do you really "Facilitate Community?" How do you make it "Relevant?" Can you build community anyway? Is this a conceit? What would providing the tools to do this really mean? What would helping Ohio that has all sorts of complex economic social and structural problems mean? How could any of this help the future of the Station?

None of the questions offered any answers that helped. Susan was stumped. Most of us are asking these same questions and most of us are also stumped.

So as she wrestled in the blackness, like Beowulf with Grendel's mother, she started to feel the pull of an idea. We also all have been playing with this idea, but Susan has gone further than any of us that I know of.  The idea is that the most important attribute that public TV and Radio have is Trust.

We all give lip-service to this. But how can this Trust become the key to the kingdom?

Susan sees it like this. The web is not only establishing the Long Tail of content - content will be infinite and there will be that special item item that captures my full attention. So in this world of infinite content, filtering and finding the special content for me is true value.

But it also sets up the Long Tail of human relationships as well. Her focus is becoming the human relationship part of the puzzle. For not only are we now exposed to infinite amounts of content that has to be filtered and found but also to infinite numbers of people. The same process of filtering and finding for content will have to apply for people as well. The content and the people are also entwined.

Making sense of this vast universe of content and people is where a lot of value can be found. But Susan goes further. The key is the people. Here is how she sees this.

Until now, we chose those we became close to by geography. Our blood families. The Kids in our class. The kids on our street. Our co-workers. The parents of our kids friends and so on. With such small pools, we get the best match that we can. For most of us, it's not that powerful a match. It's just the best we can have. Most are situational. When, we move we end it.

The one great social flash in our lives is when some of us go to university. Here we can meet people who are from a much larger pool. Here we get a closer match to the soul mates that we seek. Here we have the time to invest in each other. Here is where many make the long term friends that last for life. The whole environment of university is set up as a social space that makes this possible. Then sadly, it is all down hill. Our lives get busy. We move, we have kids, work overwhelms. Keeping attached to our university friends gets harder and harder. We also change. Small differences in values when we are 20 can become chasms when we are 50.

As we get older, we get more exposed to being deeply lonely. Even in many marriages, the "shoulds" and habits prevail. Who loves us for us? What does "us" mean? Susan told me that she sees us as complex beings who have many parts.

• We have our intellectual needs
• We have our emotional needs
• We have our physical needs
• We have our spiritual needs
• We have our values

"Us" is all of these. It is unlikely that we will find any ONE person who has a perfect match for us in all of these. It is unlikely that we will find any person who lives near us who has any of these matches. The local pool is just too small.

For those of us who are fortunate to go to university,  the immense bump in the size of the pool - opens up the chances of getting much better matches than we had coped with at home. When we leave university, we also leave the Space that makes this work and we default into a life that progressively shuts us off from making these matches.

Until now.

When I started blogging in 2002 something special happened to me. I found myself back at Oxford as a freshman. Suddenly I was exposed to thousands of people. I began to make friends again as I had done nearly 40 years ago.  Also like university, blogging and now Twitter allowed me to hang out with them as I had in college. Social software's mundane side is its main social power. It enables us to be students again and just hang out. So we have the time with each other to make the bonds real.

In 6 years, I have never been disappointed. When I finally meet in the flesh the person that I have grown to like and often to love online, the reality holds true.

The social web has the power to answer my opening question about what do I really want. It is filling my life with a group of people who give me what I need in all parts of my life.

As each special person cuts a facet in my being, more light enters and more light shines back out. As I look forward to the last part of my life, I no longer fear that I will be progressively more isolated. I feel the opposite. I see the last years of my life as being complete. I look forward with joy in my heart to deepening these special bonds that I am making with a special group of people.

But there is a problem with my story. I joined the social web when it was a village. There were maybe 60,000 of us back in 2002. As on PEI, we all "Knew" each other. There might have been no more than 2 degrees of separation between us all. How many are involved now? 150 million? How many in 10 years time - a billion?

The good news is that as the pool expands, the chances of each of us finding a perfect match in every segment that makes up our "Whole self"gets better. The bad news is that just as with content, there will be so much social noise out there that it may be difficult to find the match.

Susan's aha is this. If finding this match is what we really want. If the web offers us the potential to makes these matches. Then Public Radio and TV can use their greatest asset, Trust, to find a way of helping us find each other. Finding our soul mates is the true work of our lives. Our soul mates are also our filter for the rest of the world as we experience it. In a world of infinite content, it will be my friend's opinion that draws me to content not a digg rating. Content will be special, a social object, when I share it with a real friend.

eBay's business model was built on Trust. It created an ecology where I can trust a stranger to do business with me. In so doing it opened up my world of Trust and hence economic opportunity from my small geographic circle to the world.

This is Susan's big idea. Public Radio and TV can be the "University" kind of place where we can safely find people that are a match and then deepen the match into friendship and then love.

So with this as context, where is she heading on a day to day basis? What is she doing? What can we all learn from this so far?

In part 2 we will find out

The Future of Public Broadcasting - The 3 Musketeers on Up to Date on KCUR

Todd Mundt, Andy Carvin and I being interviewed on what is going on in public media by Stephen Steigman

Contact versus Content

....... we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the heropath. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the centre of our existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world." Joseph Campbell

Both how she speaks and what she says illustrates what I mean by Contact vs Content.

Why did Dr Taylor rock TED this year? Because she showed us the difference. She starts where we are all most comfortable - using the left brain. She offers us a lecture. But then she switches. She shifts to her right brain and then magic happens - we are invited in. She makes contact. The room becomes one. I the video watcher also join her and I am shaken. She becomes what she is talking about and I became part of her.

I have been so moved that I have kept returning in my self to the place that she created at the end of her talk. The experience keeps reverberating.

Why is this important? Because we want to rebalance ourselves to be also able to connect. Julian Jaynes asked why all our older stories have Gods speaking to us and then after a while they stop. His answer is this. That when we learned to read, we had to give our left brain prominence. Perhaps prior to reading, our right brain was the lead. Now after 10,000 years of literacy, the left brain is triumphant. Hence mayabe our disconnection to ourselves and to all others.

What is the real difference between Senator Obama and Senator Clinton? Left vs Right hemisphere - Connection vs Distinction.

What I am hearing is a deep yearning for many to reconnect. Why - because it feels good BUT also because our problems are so complex that they cannot be solved by a linear left brain process. Why do so many fear and hate Obama - because this is an alien concept.

What will be the future of public radio and TV? Those that can connect and those that cannot. We live at a time when content = noise now. Only by turning up the volume can any thing be heard. None of our problems can be solved either in this world of separateness.

The great opportunity to connect is to make contact. The great opportunity to make a difference is to make contact.

Dr Taylor shows me that this means - what about you?

The Meaning of the Model T - Future of Public Media

Why do I claim that NPR's new Get my Vote Platform is like a Model T?

The Model T looks like any car that you could have bought in 1905 but the ideas behind it were not.

Until Ford, cars were handcrafted luxury items made by experts for the elite.

The huge idea behind the Model T was that Ford set up a process where a complex item such as a car could be built by regular people and sold at a price that regular people could afford. He created a virtuous circle where as the process got the price own, more could buy and he could afford to pay wages that enabled even his workers to buy the car.

Media today is a handcrafted business where programs are made by experts and distributed via very expensive channels.

A platform like Get My Vote has a innovative process behind it that enables regular people to create content at a cost a fraction of traditional media content. It allows for the creation of a very flexible product that can be used by anyone and any station and it has zero distribution costs.

Like the Model T - you can expand the complexity and features of such a platform for a long time.

Everyone wins and no one toes are stubbed.

NPR gets a vast and bubbling social source of content and fans - it has its own WOW. The local Stations can use this to establish better relationships in their local areas. The public get a voice. The politicians get a better connection. Democracy wins

Euan Semple, Naked people and NPR

Find out why Euan, naked people and NPR are all connected - here

Getting from Here to There in Public Media - Kit Jensen at Ideastream

Two years ago, during New Realities, I interviewed Kit. Then she and her colleagues were doing something that appeared to be very radical - they had collapsed the traditional silos of Radio, TV and Print and formed one organization, ideastream®, that was dedicated to serving their city and their community by helping it work through its challenges.  Here is a key snip from that 2006 interview:

Our research (The Listening Project) picked up that our listeners and viewers loved our shows and the stations, but they expected and wanted more from us.

The need that was revealed is for us (ideastream) to help them mobilize to help themselves get through our challenges and to celebrate successes as a community/region.

They wanted more than good reporting on what was going on and good features. They needed a neutral body to "Convene" the community so that it could itself explore what was going on more deeply and decide amongst itself what best to do.

For it is becoming clear to many that issues such as health, education and development cannot be dictated nor are improvements easily found in the normal political and business channels. Wide spread partnerships are required and the question was who will call the meeting and who will hold the space? We are finding that the answer is a partnership that includes public radio and TV, other content providers and other media.

So I wanted to find out how ideastream was doing? How is the integration working? How is the idea of a "Trusted Space" working? What have been the hard won lessons about how to get from "Here" to "There"?

Looks like a regular meeting, right? Yes and no.

The meeting was a community meeting all about defining and then getting the skills that the young of Northeast Ohio would need to make it in the world we live in now. The education community and the business community, who normally would never meet each other, were working these ideas out with each other - convened by ideastream.

In my terms, ideastream was offering "Trusted Space" that enabled parts of the community that would normally never meet, to come together safely to work on ideas that could make a major difference in the city.  For me this is so important. In our polarized world, who else can be so trusted as public radio and TV? Who else can offer this kind of space so that complex issues can be worked though?

Are you making progress here too? Does this role of convener matter to your station?

There is more though than the offer of Trusted Space - Note the camera in the shot. What was also happening was that a large amount of community content was being created. ideastream Editors in Web, Print, Radio and TV mine this content and then can use the power of their multiplatform to play this back to Northeast Ohio in a coherent way where each part helps the other. This integration and this ease of linking from one platform to the other is the other side of the ideastream experiment.

It is now normal at ideastream to extract content from community. It is now normal to create content that can be used in any of the outlets that are now called public media. So print, audio and video are seen as interchangeable. As at KETC and Vocalo, the station is lending its megaphone to the community.

How is this going at your station? How are you offering your megaphone to your community?

For me, this one meeting illustrates the reality of how public media can get from here to there. It shows me how a station can forge deep connections with its local community and be part of its health and growth. It shows me the reality of public "Media".   How it can seamlessly use each part of the media platform to support the other.

But how is it really going? What is going on under the water as the Swan swims majestically on the pond? This was the point of my talking to Kit.

First she offered a big caution -

"As you can see we have made a lot of progress from the ideas to the practice, but this is still early days,  and we don’t have everything worked out or smooth yet"

But how I asked had she made this kind of progress anyway - even if it was still early days? How does she keep the fear and the resistance at workable levels?

"We have a set of principles that we try and use when ever we try something new.

We approach initiatives as experiments.  Then we use the idea of limited expeditions into the future to keep both the risks and the fear down to levels that we can all live with.

We deliberately do not aim for "Perfection".

We always root what we intend to do in the expected outcomes and measure the result.  Above all, we do our best to be practical. Does this work better? Is this easier? Can anyone do this? Those kind of tests."

I asked for an example.

"Let's think about the web page.

Many organizations spend endless amounts of time and effort on the look of their home page. Eventually we may, too. In the meantime though, we acknowledge that functionality trumps style. That few people come in through the front door of the site anyway -- what matters most to them is can they find what they want.

As we found this to be true, we could then think about the value of cross promotion. So then we could consider that we might be able to host/convene a space online rather than to have to own it all. This is what we have now done with our election coverage.

If you look at our election page you will see that it is designed to offer the full and rich combination of all the resources of Public Media - Radio/TV. Local/ Regional/National. Sure we have a logo on the page, but don't you feel that the functionality of having the full power of all of public media there is helpful?

This idea of offering functionality versus silos on the election page is a good illustration of how we now move more easily to offer more integrated and functional programming in other areas."

Is taking small expeditionary steps enough to keep the fear and the natural resistance down?

"No it's not. We all have deep seated fears. Those fears are real.  We all have them, and they do get in the way.  Fears are a real barrier. One technique that helps us all is to meet among ourselves and to talk about these fears."

A bit like group therapy? I commented.

"Yes, I suppose so. When we can name our fears and when we can all see that we have them, we can help each other. Then it is less about the brave and the fearful. Then we can all be in it together."

Talking about fears, one of the areas that many station leaders fear the most is getting out too far ahead of their boards. Many have told me that their boards are way behind in their understanding of what is really at stake. Their fear of the board self censors their ideas, plans and actions. How is it with your board?

"Our board is a source of inspiration and solace. We are very fortunate in having a board that really does get it."

How has this happened I asked.

"We have been fortunate that good members attract good members.  We also work hard to stay connected. Jerry and I spend a lot of time with them - they invest in us and we in them. Trust has built up over time and with experience. Our investment in time and in engagement with the board has been well worth it.

But even then I think you have to learn how to walk the plank a few times. If you don't go to the edge with the board and your staff, I am not sure that you can make progress."

As she was speaking about the backing of her board and of the stretch that she and Jerry have to make on occasion, I kept thinking back to the metaphor of Lewis & Clark.

When you set out on a dangerous and uncertain expedition, it helps to have behind you a sponsor who has "bought" the future and who has given you the backing to do your best. What would America have been like without Jefferson?

What will your station be like without a board that does not get it? If it does not get it - what do you have to do to ensure that they do?

Thanks Kit.

As I talk to more of you again after a 2 year break, it is clear that there is no ONE WAY to "there" from "here". But I am starting to see some common principles - aren't you? Please let me know what you see.

Next WOSU - Susan Meyer tells us about how WOSU is working with the local Columbus Bloggers

Making real progress in Public Media - Acknowledging the Innovator's Dilemma

I have a little vignette in The Innovator’s Dilemma about how people were trying to fly in the Middle Ages by fabricating wings, strapping them onto their arms, jumping and flapping real hard. For centuries subsequent innovators framed the problem as: The guys who died just didn’t flap hard enough. Yet it still never worked.

Once they understood that there were some basic laws of nature that they needed to account for, once Bernoulli understood fluid mechanics well enough to articulate his principle, then there was a law of nature we could actually harness.

I think that to some degree prior to my research, a lot of good managers were flapping their wings. They were working very hard to fight some fundamental laws of organization nature. (CC)

In my last meeting with the Board of NPR back in 2006 I ended my review of what I thought might be the lessons of the New Realities Process with a reminder of the truth of Clayton Christenson's research.

If the change that you have to pull off is disruptive - you will fail if you locate it inside the organization that it has to disrupt.

This is not an unproved theory but a Law Of Nature!

I have just had the pleasure of re-interviewing Torey Malatia. And I am beating myself up for overlooking my own advice.

I don't think that John Proffitt is alone when on returning from IMA08, he felt let down. Not with the valiant efforts of Mark - but with himself and his colleagues in public radio and TV. Why was there so little to show for years of effort?

I think that the answer is found in the reality of the Innovator's Dilemma. That most are trying to build the new inside the old.

Think of this for a minute. You are Martin Luther. You now know that you can speak to God direct and do not need the institution of the church to intermediate. How can you try and convince the church of this?

You are Galileo - you can prove that the Earth is not the centre of the universe. How can you get all those who believe the opposite and who by the way can kill you that you are right?

You are Charles Darwin and now think that the Earth is very old and that life evolves. Do you think that you can convince the fundamentalists?

So my friends - why should we expect to make a lot of progress towards a web based, person centred and participative world for public media when all the power owned by a system that operates under the opposite rules?

I am not saying that all in the system are bad - I am saying that you cannot innovate inside the system All you can hope for is incremental change and that is not what will win.

So what to do?

Put the new inside another container as Torey has with Vocalo

In that vein - I woke up at 4am today with this thought. Why not at NPR put Bryant Park and NPR Music and other new stuff in a new organization. Run it out of a different city - New York? Put an innovator in charge.

Think of what you all could do to relocate the new into a new container.

What do you think? Am I onto something?