Service principles for the postmodern news organisation

Service principles encapsulate the way a service creates, captures and sustains value for customers and shareholders.

They’re a useful benchmark in making decisions in unfamiliar territory, (eg. ‘‘Should we retain a proprietary or open service platform?’. ‘Does this process deliver value to the customer or simply make life easier for the business?’, ‘What limit should we place on advertising that interrupts the customer experience?).

This is a remade set of service principles we originally created for a client, a specialist financial newspaper behind a paywall (hence the first and second in the list, which we shouldn’t get too hung up about) and which we’ve since adapted quite heavily to work for a generic organisation we’ve called The Newspaper embarking on the treacherous journey from industrial to post-modern media.

See what you think. The list must have lots of holes – are there any big ones? – and it’s much too long at an unmemorable 15! – how should we shorten it?  - and it shifts between strategic and tactical issues – does that matter? How should we reorder them to reflect importance? It’s an unformed lump of clay, published on the principle ‘just get it out there’. Please weigh in, feel free. Here goes:

1. Shape the business model to sustain print subscriptions and build new revenue sources

This is very specific to paid subscription services where there’s a print legacy, and it’s hard to do; it reflects the reality that print circulation matters hugely because it determines the value of the biggest source of advertising revenue. How do you make the transition to new revenue streams without killing the old ones? Digital revenues tend to cannibalise print revenues, yet you might need to demonstrate the explicit value of digital. Ask Rupert. There’s more than one answer as to how to do it: charging a stupidly small amount of money for print for a short period of time is one way, or a stupidly high amount for premium online services is another. . Here’s an example of the no brainer ‘get print too’ deal (not our client).

2. Make regular assessments of what should be inside or outside the paywall

Paid-for news services only work in a niche market with exclusive value. Things move quickly on the internet and what’s exclusive to The Newspaper one day may not be the next. When charging for content or services, ask: Is it essential for its intended audience? Is it exclusively or first available at The Newspaper? Is it more conveniently delivered; does it enable the audience to create value themselves? If none of these apply then the offer has become commodified – put it outside the paywall.

3. Launch against yourself (in a controlled way)

The Newspaper brand strengthens our ability to create new revenue streams, but The Newspaper legacy restricts our scope for action. We should act to limit these restrictions by thinking creatively, changing culture and ‘failing fast’ in a Laboratory environment; this will enable The Newspaper to confront digital native start-ups at lower risk to our existing business.

4. Establish online and mobile as integral components of The Newspaper’s valued services, not just an add-on

This principle has implications for everything we do and especially the way we organise and reward individuals and teams. The value of online content and commercial revenues should be re-evaluated and the status of achieving online financial and editorial success raised.  (In other words, don’t save the story for the front page, get it online; and stop the ad team giving away free online ads to sell juicy full page print display)

5. The Newspaper online is a service as well as a product, and this means treating readers as partners, not consumers

Service-not-product means that the brand, the services, the organisation (especially journalists and editors) come into more direct and frequent contact with customers and they should act as solicitous and considerate hosts; it means that The Newspaper is involved in more parts of the value chain between a customer’s desires and their fulfillment, including interactions in which the customer is a participant, not a consumer. This has an impact on design, culture and on resources, especially the editorial culture that says “put the copy on the spike and move on”. Here’s an example of services (in green) around different content types (in pink) and their valuable bi-produts (in blue). Remember, value lies in the service around the content, not just the content itself.

6. Users may create the most valued content for each other

So give them the tools to make it. And add services to our content that enable our customers to increase its value – as above.

7. Give customers a voice; their voice has value

Services that enable customers to express opinion (vote, rate, comment, share) create trend data and customer data with value in its own right that can be played back to the audience and/or sold on to premium subscribers, advertisers or corporate customers. And likewise, we no longer have a monopoly of privileged sources or information: our readers may know more than we do or better than we do, let’s use their knowledge.

8. Services that enable users to personalize and store data encourage loyalty

The audience has invested time to obtain utility, as well as generating useful customer information with value to advertisers. They won’t want to waste that effort.

9. Creating valued niche products is vital to online success

The Newspaper as one big package doesn’t translate online. The Newspaper online need not and should not be one thing for all customers. Digital enables products and services to be packaged and sold and deconstructed with infinite variety, according to need, to niche markets; The Newspaper can and should vary the scope, scale and voice of the proposition for different audiences within the boundaries of quality set by the brand. We might want to create a portfolio of service brands to reflect this.

10. Foster synergies between channels and recognise channel differences

The print edition is the brand champion; the web has infinite depth and breadth; mobile offers ubiquity and convenience. So each product niche can exploit multiple channels and each channel can point to the others (eg. a permalink for every newspaper page).

11. The Newspaper is not of itself merely ‘a newspaper’ – The Newspaper is a brand and that’s where its value lies

We’ve built a reputation that represents a point of view and a set of values over the past [insert number] years. Under our imprint and around our content we offer all sorts of products and services that fit with our point of view and values. The brand can be extended into any area where its qualities – such as, for example, inside knowledge, professional network, good with money, political nouse – have value. So funnily enough it’s not content that’s king, it’s the brand.

12. Protect and build the value of The Newspaper brand

There’s a tried and tested set of commercial and professional standards in newspapers. Everyone knows the rules (around the separation of advertising and editorial, for example) that preserved the integrity of the old editorial product. In digital, where fact and opinion and product and purchase start to merge dangerously into each other, new principles are needed and especially around commercial recommendations. Readers don’t mind being sold too if they’ve chosen to express an interest, and they’ll buy because they trust us so long as what we sell fits with how they perceive us at our best. In short, we mustn’t enter into partnerships that make short term commercial sense but destroy the value of our reputation (it’s amazing how often companies do this, especially where individuals are paid commissions for short term gain).

13. Print web first

It’s not sustainable to behave as though the newspaper is the one and only place where important news can be published.

14. We have unlimited space online, use it

This means opening up the filing cabinet and putting it online, replacing the news pyramid with the news iceberg that goes deep down into the waters. Use the web to publish or link to everything we have: background, archive, source material, images – become a curator of stories and themes.

15. Connect to the rest of the web openly

The Newspaper’s content and tools will live as effectively outside its URL as inside. If we make our content available widely, paid or unpaid, we raise our profile and increase our reach internationally and domestically; we also undercut clippings agencies and other copier/reusers. Remember, the value is in the service around the content, not just the content itself. So, use rss, third party feeds, The Newspaper API(s) and widgets to give people access to The Newspaper, paid for or free, as we decide, outside The Newspaper.com. If in doubt, we give it out, because we treat people who share and re-use our content as friends not threats.

That’s enough principles [Ed.]