From now on, you can find me at http://alexkniess.com
See you all there!
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what's money? by Alex Kniess is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
An assignment in my interactive media class: solve the news paper industry in one page. Here’s what I said:
Solving the newspaper industry in one page – here we go:
I’d like to start my solution by drawing a parallel to an often-discussed failure of great American industry: the American rail system. Not too long ago, the United States had the best, most advanced, and most prolific rail system in the world. But when the automobile came along, and later the plane, no one traveled over rail anymore. Now the US rail system lags far behind more advanced systems in other parts of the world. Although it may not have been avoidable, most historians attribute the railroad industry’s failure to the companies’ stubborn thinking that they were railroad companies. In actuality though, they were transportation companies. They were in the business of moving people and things.
The same confusion can be seen in the newspaper industry. They all think that they are simply newspaper companies, when in actuality they are simply communication and story-telling companies. Once they get over this imaginary barrier, then newspapers can start to embrace the changes around them and adapt their business model in order to continue communicating and selling stories.
However, these changes need to be in alignment with the new medium. Currently, newspapers are merely porting their content onto the web. In my mind, that’s akin to the first television news programs merely being people reading newspapers. The new interactive Internet requires new interactive solutions to deliver stories.
Here are some ideas:
Transition away from print. The reality is that there are still a lot of people online, but not enough to pay the bills. It’s time to transition completely away from the print medium – it will drastically reduce overhead and simplify the process of telling stories.
Invite collaboration. Gone are the days of telling people the news. With new technologies, news can be broken and reported by anyone. Embrace the feedback and credibility of independent stories and make partnerships with the best content generators.
Act like bloggers. Be the credible voice that other bloggers reference, but in this new age there are no print deadlines, and news still happens 24 hours a day. Make every reporter proficient at multimedia blogging. The most popular posts make it to the top and all content is portable to other areas to the net under creative commons licensing.
Stay local. You still own local news and local advertising. It’s time to revamp how you manage these valuable ad spaces. Look to Google for insight on how to build contextual advertisements that you can sell to anyone through a sleek interface. By partnering with other local beats, you increase your selling power and can better control ad revenue.
Become the portal for all information. Maybe you start by cultivating feeds from other sources, but there is no reason why newspapers can’t own a city’s story. Become the destination for user-generated reviews of restaurants, plays, etc. Own the city you cover and all the information available to it.
Hello world, myself and fellow UO student, Tyler Kirsch have been lucky enough to be named 2009 Bedbury Scholars. That means that we have been sent by the UO and Scott Bedbury to the 2009 SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, TX. Follow our learnings, insights and experiences at http://ducksxsw.wordpress.com/.
You can also follow my updates on Twitter.
I graduate from the University of Oregon this June. So, naturally I am getting a lot of questions about my plans when I graduate.
Here’s what I know so far:
I’m not going straight to work. That doesn’t mean that I’m not going to work, or that I’m going to take a year off. Who knows how long it will be until I work. But I do know for certain that I wont even consider working until mid-July at the absolute earliest. And even then, there has got to be a pretty awesome opportunity to make me go to work before mid-August.
I am going to travel. I don’t know how far or for how long, but I do know that I will spend my first two weeks of post-graduation bliss with my girfriend. Maybe we will go to Hawaii with my parents, or maybe we will go on a road trip. After that trip, I’m going to spend at least a week at the beginning of July on a road trip to the Grand Canyon with my mom and my brother. We have all wanted to do this forever, and this may be the last chance for such an adventure. And then… if I still don’t have a job…
I am going to own a motorcycle. I really hope I don’t have to sell it at the end of the summer because of wherever I’m going to be living (aka NYC…). If all goes according to plan, I will be embarking on a month-long ride across the country with two friends from high school. I’ve always wanted to go on a road trip across the country, and frankly, I don’t see a better way to do it than on a bike.
I’m going to sell as much of my stuff as possible in order to finance these decisions. Working my ass off since I was 16 and having the luxury to save most of it for just such an opportunity will take care of the rest.
Other than, that… I have no idea what I’ll be doing or where I’ll be come August.
I tend to get really passionately into things from time to time. Sometimes they stick and I remain obsessed forever. Other times though, I live and breath it for a week or so and then it fizzles out and dies. One thing is for certain though, when I get obsessed with something, I spend way too much time researching it and fantasizing about it. Hell, I even dream about it.
So what’s the newest thing on my mind? A motorcycle ride across the country.
Here’s what I know so far:
- It would have to last at least a month. Hopefully two.
- I would definitely need a friend to come along.
- I would camp everyday… except a couple.
- I want to see a million things, and imagine it being at least 10,000 miles.
- I’m not interested in looking cool and popping wheelies’, but I’ll need a really comfy bike.
- I don’t own a motorcycle.
- I have absolutely no idea how to ride a motorcycle.
So I’ve been working through all the necessary steps, scenarios and half-answers to try and satisfy all of the above.
I’m really excited about it. But I wonder if its really that practical of a thing to do right now. I mean, I’ve never even been on a motorcycle before. Maybe this is one of the obsessions that will quickly fade? Or maybe, just maybe, I will start to ride motorcylces… When else in my life could I do such an adventure?
Keep tuning in to see how long this obsession plays out…
So apparently the content “isn’t that bad”, but this is a 300 level college business course here…
If only for the UO image, please find another text book…
I know that its ironic that my last post promised that I was still alive, yet I have yet to post anything since. Whatever.
School has been going great. New things: I have been doing my blog thing as a contributor to Advertising Age’s new GenNext blog. Check that out if you want to see me at least once a week. I can’t promise the same on here.
I hope to keep this thing more updated, as I force myself to think more and meander less. I must admit though, that an idea struck me not too long ago that has since consumed my life. I can’t think of much else but it, and everyday that passes, it becomes more and more apparent that it may just work out. I have hoped forever for that one idea that could change my life forever, and maybe, just maybe, I’ve found it.
Well it’s been a long time since my last post and a lot has happened since then. The final presentation for BBH is done and over with. It went really really well too. Everyone presented beautifully and we blew the expectations of senior managment away. It felt great.
The difficulties of working with all the different interns are over with and in the end they didn’t matter. For the most part, everyone was happy with their work and proud that it was a job well done.
Two of the interns who were already graduated even got job offers. Who knows, maybe I will be a third one of these days.
Now I’m back in Oregon and it’s a little bittersweet to be honest. I love Oregon for all the reasons that I hate NYC. But I love NYC for all the reasons that I hate Oregon.
The dry heat of an Oregon summer is great and seeing friends and family is awesome. But life certainly happens at a much slower pace here and I miss the limitless entertainment and fun that can be had in NYC.
I wonder when I’ll be back in the Big Apple…
In addition to our normal daily work, us interns were tasked with completing a summer-long collaborative project. So, over the course of the summer, we have been creating a campaign to launch a new product for one of BBH’s clients. There are ten of us, representing all of the major disciplines. We present to the entire agency on Friday at 10:00am.
So as you can imagine, this week has been pretty busy. I’ve already worked 40 hours and its only Wednesday. But I didn’t even work this weekend, like some people did, so I can’t complain.
Presenting in front of the entire agency on the last day of your internship is obviously a pretty big deal. There are 10 different egos, and 10 different people all working and arguing to make the best product possible. Everyone wants to shine.
Its an incredible opportunity though. We are doing real work for a real client in a setting full of resources and expertise that may mean that we will all see a real campaign in a couple months. And since every discipline is represented, every process and step is taken – and what results is a real live campaign. Even though it may also come with real live drama and frustrations.
I’ll let you know how it goes. I’ve learned a lot this week, and will share it all as soon as I get some sleep.
As a preview, I’ll leave you with the best quote of the week (so far):
“Leave the creative to the creatives”.
