Newspapers – Is Your Industry Next?

The newspaper industry is heading south because of the Internet. Young people are not reading the paper versions anymore – and advertisers are abandoning newspapers in favor of something called Gargle, Groovle, Google?!! Don’t laugh, because you’re next.

Albert Maruggi’s blog article, PR Practitioners Should Plan for the Next Newsroom Today, led us to Chris O’Brien’s NextNewsroom.

Albert summarizes Chris’ ideas in five main themes that we think fit almost every industry. Albert says they also apply to public relations practitioners. We think they apply to almost all professional species.

Because we’re speakers, and trying desperately not to become extinct, we thought we’d steal Chris’ five main themes (as summarized by Albert) and apply them to the speaking industry.

1. Integrated – Speakers must be fully integrated across blogs and multimedia. They should embrace all platforms. Adapt a consumption model where their audiences will become so intrigued that they lose track of time as they are immersed in the information.

2. Innovation – Speakers must be a center for innovation. They are now in an era of constant change.

3. Collaborative – Speakers must have interactions with other groups outside of their own comfort zone. Cross pollination is a good thing to expand knowledge and create areas where they will meet each other.

4. Adaptable – Speakers must allow for flexibility in assignments, creating movable content that can be quickly reconfigured to meet a project need.

5. Transparency – Speakers need to be open to the community, creating the ability for a dialogue. Changing from a one way medium to a two way organ of information.

OK, even with a bit of editing, Albert’s five themes sound a tad clunky when you substitute the word “speakers” for “newsrooms.” But, you get the idea, right?

If you’re a speaker, ask yourself if you’re preparing yourself for “NextSpeaker.” If you’re in a different industry (speaker agency, real estate agent, insurance professional, coach, etc.) substitute your profession and test yourself against the five themes.

And, while we’re on the topic of “NextSpeaker,” when we were in Indiana a couple of weeks ago, we ran into Michelle Payn-Knoper who is an active member of something called NSANext.

Go take a look at it. It’s hosted on a new online platform called Ning, which is the same platform that NextNewsroom is using. Ning allows Chris and newspaper folks, and Michelle and younger NSA members, to create their own social network. Their own – but they don’t mind you visiting!

We’ll ask Michelle, or one of the other NSANexters, to write a guest article for us here – and tell us more about how it’s working. From what we’ve seen so far, they seem to be “embracing all platforms.”

Are you?