bill mitchell session #1 imim 2013: the why of project innovation

International Media Innovation Management

Session #1, Project Innovation: The Why Bill Mitchell, bmitch@gmail.com

@bmitch on Twitter30 September, 2013

Vienna

What we’ll explore today & tomorrow• This morning: The Why– Some preliminaries– Audience problem as foundation of media ventures – Innovation as solution

• This afternoon: The What – Media innovation trends– Media innovation tools

• Tuesday morning: The How– Six principles of successful project innovation– Introduction to project management

Ground rules, Logistics

• What happens in Vegas (or Vienna) stays there• Tweets (instructors are on the record)• Photos – alert Patricia if you object• Talkers and listeners• A 20 minute break about half way through (but

leave as you need to)

Questions, concerns?

International Media Innovation Management

Your understanding or definition of Innovation?

“Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship… the act that endows resources

with a new capacity to create wealth.”

-- Peter Drucker

Innovation = “creation of new value”

-- The Economics and Financing of Media Companies,

By Robert Picard, 2010

Innovation = “Significant positive change”

-- The Myths of Innovation, By Scott Berkun, 2010

“Innovation is the creation of something that improves the way we live our lives”

Barack Obama, Business Week, 2007

“Innovation is not the result of thinking differently. It is the result of thinking deliberately (in specific ways) about existing problems and unmet needs.”

Razeghi, Andrew. The Riddle, 2008

--Josh Makower, CEO of ExploraMed, Entrepreneur Thought Leader Lecture,

Stanford University, July 2010

Innovation and its consequences:

“Creative destruction is the essential fact about capitalism.” -- Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, 1942

“News organizations today are experiencing a continuing crisis of value destruction …They must find ways to create new value to replace that which is being destroyed. If they do not, they risk their demise.” -- American economist Robert G. Picard, 2006

Potential provocations of innovation?

Stumbling into my first encounter with media innovation

The provocation? Desperation!

Stumbling into my first

encounter with media innovation

Innovation lesson

Simplify AND conceptualize

International Media Innovation Management

Your working definition of Media?

Three considerations

1. Your passion

Three considerations

1. Your passion2. Your capacity

Getting in touch with your capacity

Three considerations

1. Your passion2. Your capacity3. Audience need

Three circles and a sweet spot:Your life in a Venn diagram

Draw your own circles

Coach one another in small groupsReport back to full group

Break

The changing role of audience(s)

Audience: Its digital role

Audience as… community

not just consumers of media, not just spectators…

Let’s think of the people “formerly known as the audience” as

a community of media co-creators

Research into the relationships between media and their audiences

• Four measurable dimensions:1. Membership2. Influence3. Integration and fulfillment4. Shared emotional connection

-- McMillian & Chavis, 1980; assessed by Davis, 2010

Describe your audience(work in teams)

GeographicallyDemographically

TopicallyHow else?

On the importance of discerning audience problem:

“If there’s no problem, there’s no solution. And no company.”

-- Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems

“Go to the problem, and imagine a world where

that problem has been removed and then say,

‘how many steps are there from this world to that world?’”

-- Geoffrey Moore, author of “Crossing the Chasm”

New value creation: Begins with understanding problem(s) to be addressed

• Something that, if it could be solved, would make life better in one way or another

• Get specific!• Don’t jump too quickly to the solution. Focus

on the problem for a while.• Focus on problems that might be addressed

with media of some sort

Describe an audience problem to be addressed

(work individually)

Sentence completion: (Description of audience member) needs (description of her need) but cannot because (description of problem).

What’s the audience? What’s the problem?:

A case study

Imagine that the founder of Amazon.com is thinking about acquiring a media company.

He needs to make a presentation to his board explaining what innovations from

Amazon.com he’ll apply (one way or another) to the media venture. The

presentation is later today. He’s given your team 20 minutes to come up with your best

ideas.

Report to full group