Thoughtful piece by Guardian Unlimited supremo Neil McIntosh, prompted by the lack of outcome from The Economist’s Project Red Stripe. McIntosh uses the success of the iPod as the basis for an argument that success can come via seemingly small steps that, taken in the right sequence, can form a much larger whole.
The lessons for news organisations? We needn’t make innovation hard by insisting the end product is always huge and/or high-profile. We shouldn’t think that innovation is something that can be outsourced, either to a small team or to a software vendor (the latter being a surprisingly popular choice for many newspaper publishers). And we needn’t necessarily worry that we’re not having enough ideas. If you ask around, you’ll probably find it’s not ideas we’re lacking. What’s tricky (I know – this is my job) is capturing the best ideas, mapping them to strategic goals, and delivering them in a way that makes them successful.
Complete Tosh, by Neil McIntosh: It’s hard to see the future from there
Tags: management, Web Business
