MANAGEMENT ISSUES:

Leadership, organization and daily operation of the new media effort

ISSUES INVENTORY

This listing of questions is the result of a brainstorming on the issues which must, and will, be raised as you start planning and running your new media newsroom. The highlighted questions link to a list of ideas, models, and alternatives to answering the question.

MANAGEMENT ISSUES

PERSONNEL / STAFFING:

The type of people you need, and the types of jobs they will be doing will be very different for the new media product. Managing a workforce which can live with constant change and continuous innovation is a challenge.

• How do we determine appropriate staff levels for each stage of development? What are the "work to person" ratios?
  
• How do we recruit skilled staff?
  
• How do we retain these skilled staff members and help them grow in their skills?
  
• How do we address union / guild issues? What are the guild issues in this area?
  
• How do we schedule for a production without a deadline?
  
• What salaries, benefits are appropriate compensation?
  
• Where and how do we train our staff? In or out of the department?
  
• Is it easier to train journalists to be computer jocks or for computer whizzes to be good journalists?
  
• What are the necessary roles and titles?
  
• Should we have rigid job descriptions? If so, what types of jobs are they?
  
• Where does the staff fit on the organizational chart, who reports to whom?
  
• What are the skill sets required of the next generation of journalists?
  
• Do we use other department's staff or hire our own?
  
• Do staffers cross lines between old and new media or is it better to have a dedicated staff?
  

• MONEY:
  A service does not live on clicks alone. Deciding how to budget for the service, where the funding will come from and who determines ROI can affect the design and growth of the service.
  
• What will be our revenue sources? How do we project revenue?
  
• How do we get the revenue credited to us (once we start making some)?
  
• Where does the budget come from, whose department is the budget coming from?
  
• Is this a separate P & L center or part of an existing center?
  
• What is the relationship between user fees and advertising in terms of revenue?
  
• What is an appropriate level of investment?
  
• When does the funding shift from an R & D operation to a business?
  
• How do you manage the expectations of upper management for Return On Investment?
  
• Where does the start-up money come from?
  
• What are appropriate royalty shares / agreements?
  
• How do we develop pricing models? How do we price the service?
  
• How do we budget for continuous technological upgrading?
  
• What are the training and staffing money issues?
  
• What are the budget lines for the department? Are there any which are different than the core product's?
  

• ORGANIZATION / STRUCTURE:
  The production line organization of the traditional newsroom will not work with a constantly shifting product. Deciding on the organizational structure and it's placement on the organization chart are big issues. (So big, in fact, we didn't get to it...here are a few ideas, more are requested!)
  
• What are the benefits / disadvantages of integrating new media staff with newsroom staff?
  
• What are the benefits / disadvantages of separating the new media staff and newsroom staff?
  
• What department should new media report to?
  
• Is a hierarchical or a flat organization better for working with new media?
  

• INFRASTRUCTURE:
  This is a hardware and software intensive operation, and the infrastructure is constantly changing. Gone are the days when the production system was budgeted, purchased and expected to be used for a decade or more.
  
• Who fixes the equipment when it is broken?
  
• What are our customer service responsibilities? How do you handle help our users with their equipment?
  
• Who builds the system, maintains it, and supports the ongoing needs?
  
• How important is redundancy / back-up? What are our emergency operation plans?
  
• How much downtime is acceptable?
  

• MARKET:
  If you build it, who will come? A clear focus on your target market is the foundation necessary for making decisions about staffing, budgeting and content.
  
• Who is the target market?
  
• Are we going for a mass market or a few niche markets?
  
• How do we measure actual use of the service, which areas are most popular?
  
• What is the product?
  
• How do we cut through the hype about new media and get to a reality of service?
  
• How do we educate one group about the potential of the service while trying to serve users?
  
• How will we promote our products / service?
  
• What is the user interface? How open or proprietary will it be?
  
• Should we be building for today's or for tomorrow's computer market? (modem, platform / machine)
  
• Should we go wide and shallow or deep and targeted as far as content mix?
  
• What are the appropriate distribution channels?
  
• Who can we rely on for market research?
  
• Should we be a local Internet provider?
  
• What should the advertising model look like?
  
• Who is our real competition for our market's time and money?
  
• How do we determine appropriate promotional spending / funding levels?
  
• How do we attract customers? How do we retain customers?
  
• What is our geographic market area and is it similar to the newspaper?
  
• How do we determine the lifetime value of a customer?
  

• ETHICS:
  The ethics of operation and the legal issues intersect. Here are some key questions.
  
• How do we insure the privacy of customers, yet provide meaningful feedback to advertisers?
  
• Will we sell advertising based on specific customer profiles?
  
• Do we put parental filters or not?
  
• How do we define and adhere to copyright issues?
  
• How far do we go in monitoring and / or censoring public forums?
  
• How do we best position ourselves to have First Amendment and copyright protection for content we create
  and common carrier status for the material we don't control?
  
• How will we allow anonymity / accountability to users?
  
• How do we prevent obscene content? (libel & slander) Do we have "dirty word" filters / alerts?
  
• Is it ethically correct to link to someone else's distribution rights? (i.e.: service with AP online)
  

• CULTURE:
  Leadership of the new media effort will be critical. This will require a change from command and control leadership. Fostering an atmosphere of innovation and enthusiasm will be the key.
  
• Who owns the project? Who is in charge?
  
• Why are we going to do the project? What are we going to be rallying for?
  
• What is our franchise? Is it local, national? How do we keep our goal in mind?
  
• What is our market? Who are we trying to serve, how can we keep our audience in mind?
  
• How do we educate upward and downward? Is our goal to educate or is it to provide services only?
  
• How do we measure success? How will we know what to celebrate?
  
• How do we deal with the traditional hierarchical structure Vs the flat organization culture?
  
• How do we make this change in culture and style happen? How do we manage it?
  
• How do we gain acceptance, buy-in, and support from upper management, and from others?
  
• How do we embrace the customer and manage the new feedback channels?
  
• How do we foster a sense of customer service in this intensively interactive product?
  
• How do we manage the transition to the new medium?
  

• GOALS:
  Knowing where you want to go, who you want to serve are major decisions. Important, too, is having ways to know when you've gotten there.
  
• What are the new success measurement models?
  
• What usage statistics do we need?
  
• How will we know when to stop the failures?
  
• How can we have management, and project funders, understand these new success measures?