imim

International Media Innovation Management imim (90 ECTS) was a post-graduate part-time program for working professionals. The program was carried out until 2016 by Steinbeis Hochschule/Berlin University for Professional Studies and fjum_forum journalism and media Vienna with the support of and in cooperation with further international media training institutes (Poynter Institute, St. Petersburg/USA; Universidad Miguel Hernández, Elche/Spain).

Application to the program is no longer possible.

This website documents activities, faculty and alumni of the master’s program. 

Last week we celebrated the second graduation of our Master’s program. The graduation speech was given by Bill Horn, Deputy Editor of The New York Times’ Video Desk. Bill, who has been accompanying the program since the very beginning, pointed out the importance of focussing on your operation’s core values.

14 new Masters of “International Media Innovation Management” celebrated after 2 years of studies in Austria, Germany, Spain, USA the end of their adventure journey. Hitch-hiking through the new media universe – guided by principles of academic research, and in best company of wonderful colleagues. Archive innovation management, the role of innovation labs in media outlets all over the world or the ethics of content marketing: These are just some of the topics of Master’s theses written by this cohort’s imim students. The imim-team says thank you to students, partner organizations and faculty!

Buzzfeed, Vice, The Guardian, Quartz and The New York Times: they all are considered role models – but do they deserve it? Lucy Küng, a research fellow at Oxford University’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and outstanding lecturer in our Master’s program, had a close look at the bunch of digital news operations in order to answer this question. Her analysis which “highlights precepts, concepts, and approaches which may be of value to other organisations facing similar challenges” has now been published (Innovators in Digital News) – there is no “recipe”, though.

Still, Lucy Küng identifies seven “interlinked elements” whose “power lies in their combination, in the virtuous circle that is created when all are present and function together”:

1. “A singularity of purpose about the role of the organisation and the ‘value’ [...] it creates for its users”; 
2. “High calibre leadership from smart individuals” who have credibility within their organisation;
3. “A clear and unequivocal strategy that sets boundaries, allows prioritisation, and avoids distractions”;
4. “A blending of [...] competencies” integrating journalistic, technological, and commercial processes;
5. “A ‘pro-digital culture‘ that views the digital news arena as an opportunity (albeit a highly competitive field)”;
6. Number six is hard to replicate: “An early start [...] in the digital field”;
7. “The ability to innovate and respond as directly as possible to opportunities and threats” – which is “directly influenced by ownership arrangements and [...] financial resources”.

All quotes taken from Küng, Lucy (2015): Innovators in Digital News. London/New York: I.B. Tauris in association with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford. pp. vii-xi.

After the last attendance block in Berlin last week, imim students are taking their final sprints in writing up their Master’s theses. In these, they treat diverse topics – from mobile apps for radio stations to investigative journalism in a multi-media newsroom and innovation management in media archives. The students seek to answer questions such as: what are the ethics of content marketing? Can user generated content contribute to journalistic quality? Or: what can telecoms and media enterprises learn from one another?

After presenting their preliminary results in Berlin, imim students visited two companies they have already been to at the beginning of their studies:

• They visited C3 – hosted by Managing Director Lukas Kircher and Burkhard Tewinkel (CEO) — which was established only in autumn 2014 and was formerly known as KircherBurkhardt, one of the most creative content marketing agencies in Europe.
• Die Welt which, back in January 2014 when the group was there for the first time, had just moved into its new newsroom in the Springer building close to Checkpoint Charlie. After bringing its print and online editions closer together, Die Welt is now about to integrate news channel N24 which still operates in its own newsroom at Potsdamer Platz, though.

Besides, the deadline for applications for imim’s next cohort has now passed. The international faculty is currently designing the outline for the innovation focus of the MA programme and a schedule for attendance modules over the summer and will inform candidates as soon as possible.

The Executive Master’s program “International Media Innovation Management“ (IMIM) is being conducted in close collaboration with experts and executives from academia and business in the value chain of media production. Partners among those companies impact the curriculum by bringing in challenges from their daily business life. Those can be:

• corporate innovation projects as well as
• projects of start-up entrepreneurs, freelance journalists, media developers or designers applying for IMIM individually.

Students and their mentors take to these challenges.

IMIM partners either present their personal application as an entrepreneur/journalist/designer/developer/etc. or send a student coming from their corporate environment. They then have the opportunity to suggest real-life projects to be implemented in the company and harness the know-how of IMIM in dealing with particular challenges. Furthermore, there is also the chance to send an executive as guest lecturer to the program.

Student fees are € 20.000/year. Please request your application form here. Applications of potential business partners and experienced individual entrepreneurs and freelancers of the sector are welcome. The application for scholarships ended already.

All over the world, media companies are looking for solutions in order to adapt to the constantly changing digital environment. Do you want to be able to steer these change and innovation processes? And qualify for that by pursuing relevant knowledge and by establishing an international network? Then request your application form for our Master’s program in International Media Innovation Management here. Applicants for scholarships are invited to send in their applications by March 31, 2015. Applications of potential business partners and individual entrepreneurs of the media sector are still welcome after that day.

The program is aimed at high-potentials from the media and creative industries – with different positions in their respective value chains: development, financing, content, production, distribution, regulation/legislation. During the two-year study, the students pool their forces together into a media innovation think tank. With lecturers from all over the world and seminars in Austria, Germany, Spain, the US and online, they work together in an international network. The students deal with real-life situations submitted by participating enterprises. Thus, companies participating in the program have a say in the structuring of the syllabus. “The students’ collaboration with academics, management trainers, journalists and business managers is crucial to the program’s sustainable success”, says Program Director Andy Kaltenbrunner, “innovation is to be established as the main currency of exchange in an international team.”

Lecturers are international experts in media, journalism, technology, and change management — some from academia, others within the industry — incl. Wolfgang Blau (The Guardian), Lucy Küng (Reuters Institute, Univ. St. Gallen), Bill Horn (The New York Times), Klaus Meier (Univ. Eichstätt-Ingolstadt), Romanus Otte (Die Welt), José García Avilés (Univ. Miguel Hernández) and many more. A list of lecturers can be found here.

The curriculum is divided into five one-week compulsory attendance blocks (taking place in Austria, Germany, Spain and the US), complemented with e-learning and language courses. Furthermore, the students will carry out projects in international teams. They are required to write and present a Master’s thesis at the end of the program.

For further information please visit our website or facebook.com/imim.master. If you are interested in a business partnership please contact office@imim-master.com. 

Please request your application form here. Applicants for scholarships are invited to send in their applications by March 31, 2015. Applications of potential business partners and individual entrepreneurs of the media sector are still welcome after that day.

Having spent a week at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in Florida, and thus weather-spoilt, we were greeted by icy winds upon landing in New York City. But the next days’ schedule turned the heat up, starting with a day at The New York Times, hosted by Bill Horn, deputy editor of the Times’ video desk.

He brought in Paul Smurl, General Manager of Core Digital Products, as well as Adam Ellick and Jon Galinsky who both are in charge of implementing the recommendations of the innovation report. Next came a visit to the Times’ R & D department, one of the most prestigious innovation labs in the media industry.

Chartbeat provides sophisticated analytics of online content for media and advertisers, or anyone else interested in their audiences’ behaviours. Our group was introduced to Chartbeat’s working methods: They assess content quality based on numbers of users and amount of time spent on a website – the longer users stay, the assumption goes, the higher the probability that the content is good and will draw them back.

At the Journalism School of the City University of New York (CUNY), Jeremy Caplan organised three presentations for the group, delivered by the founders and CEOs of the media start-ups Informerly, Wiser and Narratively.

Before a tour of the New York City office of Google, John Paton, CEO of Digital First Media (DFM), second-largest publishing company in the US, gave a talk to the students and told them: Whereas legacy media companies like newspapers are making progress in transition, transformation comes mostly from companies which start from scratch. That is why DFM has partnered with pioneering companies like Tout for video and Rumble for mobile, he added. Paton’s newspaper group is currently up for sale.

At Story Worldwide and at an evening talk with Jeff Mignon, CEO of ad agency RevSquare, the group was drawn into a discussion on the topic of content marketing also known as native advertising or corporate publishing. “Brands are stories” is the mantra of this new approach towards advertising.

The last visit of the trip brought the students to the digital office of the Metropolitan Museum where they were hosted by Chief Digital Officer Sree Sreenivasan, formerly in the same position at Columbia University, who also coordinates the museum’s social media activities. The Metropolitan has just tried to ride Kim Kardashian’s coat tails on Twitter.

Sree wrapped the imim trip up with his presentation – and corporate communication tips, such as: “Everyone wants a peek behind the scenes.” That is why the museum’s conservators blogged about the restauration of a 17^th-century family portrait. And Sree knows how to tell a story: The picture contains what might be one of the world’s first “selfies” – the painter in a mirror in the painting’s background.

(edited on March 24, 2015)

Some of us are still struggling with jetlag, but the others have arrived at having great conversations at Poynter: For this week’s attendance block in the USA, the 14 Master’s students are being coached by several members of Poynter’s faculty and affiliates in St. Petersburg, Florida. Kelly McBride started the group off with her session, reminding them of the fact that journalists more and more become their own paperboys, being responsible for getting the content to the audience. That perfectly pointed to the week’s theme “Your Content Needs a Strategy”.

Carol Mitchell worked on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator with them, finding out whether they are more introverts or extraverts and how they make their decisions. At lunch break, Poynter’s recently appointed president Tim Franklin has revealed his 100-day plan of re-inventing the institute to the students. At this very moment, leadership trainer Jill Geisler enthuses the students about giving and accepting feedback. And Roy Peter Clark promised to even roll a piano into the seminar room for his session on Friday…

Follow the group on Twitter — next week visiting the New York Times, Chartbeat, Story Worldwide, Google etc.