Substitute the name “Smithsonian” below with the name of your favorite Print Newspaper and we may have something to work with towards effecting positive change in the newspaper industry. *Note my hyperlinks and bolding added for emphasis. Note also that not once do they whine about the destructive or disruptive nature of the internet on their business model, they embrace it and seek to leverage it for furthering their mission.
Smithsonian 2.0: A Gathering to Re-Imagine the Smithsonian in the Digital Age
Twenty-four million visitors come through the Smithsonian’s doors each year to view our collections and to learn about science, technology, history, art and culture. We host 175 million (more than seven times the number of our physical visitors) through the Web. As digital technology accelerates and the Web becomes an even more essential part of our everyday lives, that number will grow, possibly reaching billions.
As part of Secretary Wayne Clough’s strategic planning initiative, the Institution will host “Smithsonian 2.0: A Gathering to Re-Imagine the Smithsonian in the Digital Age”—a two-day conference on Jan. 23 and 24, supported by the Smithsonian National Board. Smithsonian 2.0 will bring more than 30 creative leaders from the Web, digital and new media worlds (chosen for their engagement of large audiences, including youth) to meet with a core group of Smithsonian staff to look at our vision, our challenges, and our current level of achievement in Web and new media. This group will try to identify how to move the Smithsonian forward toward a “Smithsonian 2.0.”
How does the Smithsonian effectively serve its growing virtual visitors? How does it deliver to those visitors the 137 million artifacts, works of art and scientific specimens in its collections along with the expertise that goes with them? How does it do so in an engaging, educational manner that evokes the power and inspiration of its finest exhibitions and presentations? How does the Smithsonian interpret its mission, “the increase and diffusion of knowledge” in a 21st century digital environment and use its resources to generate and support research, as well as engage, educate and inspire Americans and those around the world?
Answering these questions is vital to the future of the Smithsonian. With a new Secretary and the Institution embarking on a new strategic plan, now is the time to start formulating an answer to these questions.
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I recommend everyone go to the multimedia page and watch all the conference keynote webcasts. If you only have time for one, watch Clay Shirky’s keynote entitled “The Smithsonian for Everybody”. Highlights from his keynote:
- His five word synopsis of his book Here Comes Everybody “Group action just got easier”.
- Arranging data and navigation into categories, one has to be a fortune teller you, has to be a mind reader, to get it right. On the flip side, metadata like tag clouds make the data implicit, contained in the nature of the tags.
- “When transaction costs fall, they fall for everybody”. Newspapers didn’t get this in the beginning, some still don’t get it. Moving online is not a competitive advantage if everyone is doing it.
Most importantly, the internet is an enabling technology which plays into the mission of the Smithsonian “the increase and diffusion of knowledge”. The newspaper industry, whose business model is built on “the control and distribution of knowledge”, is now completely at odds with the new information paradigm. My advice to newspaper publishers going forward is, as it has always been, find out what need you are fulfilling in light of the internet paradigm.
In the big picture / long term newspapers must figure out what unmet need they are now fulfilling while operating in the internet paradigm and how much money they can realistically expect to generate. In “The Newspaper Publishers’ Dilemma – Is $179 Million the New $890 Million?“ I show that it is very hard to monetize a large general information news site. Niche publications like IBD, and WSJ have an easier time. http://metaprinter.com/?p=1419 But even more impressive is the rise of cash flow positive, owner-operated news sites. Above all, these businesses have embraced the enabling technologies of the internet to increase and diffuse knowledge into their communities.
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