imim

Although there was Barcelona playing Chelsea on Tuesday evening, about 100 guests attended a discussion organized on the occasion of the Spanish module of the Executive MA program “International Media Innovation Management”. In Alicante’s “Club Información”, auditorium of local newspaper “Diario Información”, three international experts shared their views on media innovation:

• Romanus Otte, General Manager, “Die Welt” digital, Berlin
• Mario Tascón,  Designer & Consultant, Prodigioso Volcán, Madrid
• Andy Kaltenbrunner, Program Director “International Media Innovation Management”, Vienna
• Moderator: José Alberto García Avilés, Universidad Miguel Hernández, Elche

Mario Tascón (taking a picture in the editorial office of Diario Información, left), who led two of the biggest Spanish online media El Mundo and El País, said that hardly any media company in his country invests in R&D or innovation departments. Media manager are just not used to change. That is something they have to learn, Andy Kaltenbrunner said: “As Lars Jespersen of Danish media group Nordjyske put it: We have to change fluently.” Kaltenbrunner referred to the Austrian daily “Der Standard”: In 2011 for the first time its online edition brought a higher profit than the newspaper edition. 

Evidence of how inflexible traditional media are was brought in by the protests in Madrid last summer. “Newspapers were slow in covering. Just like during the Arab spring, social media shaped the protests”, Tascón said. He thinks that journalists should create their own brand e. g. on Twitter (left to right: Tascón, Otte, Kaltenbrunner, García). “But we also expect our journalists to use their online credibility for their company”, Romanus Otte from German publishing house Axel Springer added. Otte criticised that German journalists still want to impress the branches they are covering: “Sports journalists write for the athletes. Political journalists write for the politicians.” Though the time would be ripe to listen to the audience, to users and customers. He advises especially managers to be passionate about innovation and change: “Just do it!”

The Executive Master’s program “International Media Innovation Management” (IMIM) is carried by Berlin University for Professional Studies and fjum_forum for journalism and media in Vienna. Since Sunday, April 22, the group of young working professionals out of TIME industries (telecommunication, IT/Internet, media, creative) has been studying in Elche — Universidad Miguel Hernández, see picture — and Madrid, Spain (workshops at public broadcaster RTVE and daily El País). The participants come from all over Europe and Egypt. During their studies, they learn how to initiate, coordinate and implement innovation projects for their companies in an interdisciplinary and international context. IMIM’s next module will take place in the US, visiting e. g. The New York Times, Columbia and Fordham University and Poynter Institute/Florida.

photos: Félix Arias 
text: Patricia Käfer

The Experian Marketing Services’ annual report provides a perspective on the digital landscape and how brands can influence more meaningful connections with customers. It contains trend information, predictive benchmark data and analytical insight necessary for business leaders to maximize digital marketing opportunities and return on investment.

Insights from the report:

• 91% of today’s online adults use social media regularly
• Revenue per email averages 2x higher for ‘Friends and Family’ campaigns
• 28% of smartphone owners watch video on their phone in a typical month
• Pinterest is now the 3rd most popular social networking site behind Facebook and Twitter

You can download the “The 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report here” (after having filled a form) here:

http://go.experian.com/forms/experian-digital-marketer-2012?WT.srch=PR_EMS_DigitalMarketer2012_040412_Download?expid=yb

Best, Edith

In about two weeks time, IMIM’s students and faculty will meet again in Elche, Valencia/Spain, for our third module. José García Avilés, Fátima Navarro Maillo and Jose Luis González together with their team at Universidad Miguel Hernández (UMH) have already planned our week, including a trip to Madrid to visit e. g. El País and public broadcaster RTVE. The program will furthermore not only come up with lectures for the participants, but also with a discussion to be held on Tuesday, April 24, 8 p.m., at Club Infomación in Alicante.

Romanus Otte (Welt Online), Mario Tascón (Prodigioso Volcán), José García Avilés (UMH), Baldomero Diáz (Diario Informacíon) and IMIM’s program director Andy Kaltenbrunner will talk about “How to Shape the Future” of Media & Journalism. Please find the event’s blog here.

Clay Shirky speaks to Alan Rusbridger about the range of newspaper pay models in the UK and US. Shirky claims the fight between US newspaper publications is no longer over the business model but how they manage the relationship and what the readers do in response.

Austrian online journalist Anita Zielina — she’s a Knight Fellow at Stanford University at the moment – attended South by Southwest Festival (SXSW) in Austin, TX, this year and came back with this conclusion: “Never before did I see the gap between entrepreneurs and journalists clearer than at SXSW, and never did it seem harder to bridge.”

But: That’s “not necessarily a bad thing”.

In the latest post of her blog More than paper she not only explains her verdict, but also shares and comments on some of the most interesting online tools/applications/etc. she found out about at SXSW.

p.s. Take a look at the comments!

The annual report on the “State of the News Media” was published today by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. Very brief some of its most interesting outcomes:

• Mobile devices are also “providing a boost to long-form journalism”.
• It coins the term “makers of ‘everything’” refering to companies such as “Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and a few others”, that provide us not or not only with (aggregated) content, but with the supplying structures and devices.
• Printed news (newspapers & magazines) are the only ones that lost audience share from 2010 to 2011.