Alan Rusbridger & Torin Douglas

“One of my big take aways is that success for organisations in the
digital space is about good leadership and grown up attitudes to risk.

AR had clearly enabled and encouraged his people to develop their
individual profiles and networks and told them that he can live with
the consequences of a mistake- ie getting sued – which he sees as an inevitable by-product. The rules of the game are clearly (currently) different for civil servants and politicians. Will it change? It is difficult to see it happening in the short term, however, much greater transparency and openness-supported by the freedom of information act – may create a more mature and less febrile environment in which it will be possible for civil servants and politicians to ‘be themselves’.

Another big take away is that The Guardian is engaged in a rolling
experiment and learning all the time. This may be at odds with a
culture in which ROI is (mis)understood to mean “justify everything
with numbers and results”. The COI has to be careful that ROI is not misused to crush experimentation. Smart companies put aside a proportion of their spend for experimentation in communications (this is my experience of Unilever) just as they put a % of brand funds into product/service NPD. Perhaps by benchmarking against these best in class companies we can create a rule of thumb that (say) 15 % of spend should be spent on innovation.”

Julian Saunders, The Joined Up Company

blog editor says:

June 23, 2009 at 12:06 pm

I thought this was a very thought provoking session and enjoyed it. I wonder what will happen to the Guardian brand…? As Alan said, its not possible to “edit” all the material. So, what will the paper come to represent? And what are the consumers buying? Where is the truth and authenticity of the paper that consumers have bought into?

amyers says:

June 23, 2009 at 3:07 pm

First, thanks for organising this Mark, Julian, Janet.

Second, the brand integrity point ocurred to me too Amanda: the ‘open to all contributors’ approach wobbled wikipedia but i think people have learned from that. Perhaps with a bit of extra help from those inside the wall, the Guardian community at large will be good brand custodians.

Third, impressive though the Guardian’s internet presence is, i think as an approach it’s less applicable to what we do in Government than say the Economist’s. People buy the Economist for impartiality, analysis and opinion. It’s not really a community peopled by lively postering, blogging and twittering folks, and we do not know the individual author of each piece. So perhaps it should be for government. Listening, trusted and decisive, not emergent, multi-faceted and individualistic.

Finally and of-course-ly, the proportion of Govt’s ‘customers’ who use interactive channels to interface with it is small relative to the Guardian’s (though i’ll be castigated for overlooking the high volume transactions such as vehicle licence renewal and JCP / benefits / tax). So let’s spend more of our time thinking about how we reach the digitally excluded and the really can’t be bothereds. Next speaker – Poundstretcher’s insight director?

kconi says:

June 23, 2009 at 5:37 pm

Loved the Alan Rusbridger session, many thanks for arranging. It struck me that Guardian readers are “a certain type” and as discussed in the Q&A some of our audiences are harder to engage. I would be quite interested in understanding what some of the tabloids are doing in this area – how do they engage their readers in policy issues. Are any of the regional press succeeding with local engagement and how?

Catherine Blizzard

blog editor says:

June 25, 2009 at 11:38 am

Alan Rusbridger has just given the annual Hugh Cudlipp lecture. This is a fascinating and closely argued discussion of the future of newspapers in the internet age that builds on many of the themes Alan talked to us about and addresses directly the hot issue about pay walls or not.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jan/25/cudlipp-lecture-alan-rusbridger