2. An in depth look at theory
Theories of
management
Micro Macro
The focus is on The focus is on
individual organizations and
elements of an other elements
organization. within an industry.
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
3. Recap: The different roles of
managers
• Entrepreneur
Decision- • Resource allocator
making • Disturbance handler
• Negotiator
• Planning
• Organizing • Monitor
• Informati-
Leading • Disseminator
onal
• Controlling • Spokesperson
• Leader
Inter-
• Figurehead
personal
• Liaison
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
4. Recap: The challenge of
convergence
"the flow of content across multiple
media platforms, the cooperation
between multiple media
industries, and the migratory
behaviour of media audiences."
Henry Jenkins, DeFlorz Professor of Humanities and the Founder
and Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT.
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
5. Recap: The challenge of
convergence
communica
cultural corporate
Trends: forms
tions
ownership
systems
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
6. Recap: The challenge of
convergence
story
Marketing job
Levels: alliances description
telling
techniques
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
7. Recap: The challenge of
convergence
Existing business models are no longer
viable
Changing requirements for skill sets
Changing requirements for
organizational structure
Changing market alignment
Changing profile of customers
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
9. Recap: manager profile
The tragedy of media
managers is that they tend to get
promoted to managerial positions
because they are “really good
reporters”.
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
10. Recap: Major schools of thought
Classical
Scientific management (Frederic Taylor)
Bureaucratic
(Administrative)
management
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
11. Recap: Major schools of thought
Behavioral
Behavioral science
Human relations
• (Douglas McGregor)
Theory of attitude
and attitude change
• Management as the
facilitator of development.
• Behaviorist vs. internalist position
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
12. Recap: Major schools of thought
Contingency school
Arguably, an organic organization is more
responsive to change and has more
chances of survival in conditions of high
environmental uncertainty.
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
15. An in depth look at theory
Theories of
management
Micro Macro
The focus is on The focus is on
individual organizations and
elements of an other elements
organization. within an industry.
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
16. The micro view
“Media management is a simple
task since it involves only two
resources: people and money”.
Clark Pollack, retired board member of
Nationwide Communications.
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
17. The micro view:
management skills
Technical
• Content production
• Content presentation
• Marketing; audience management; research; advertising
Human
• Organizing
• Motivating
• Hiring and developing
• Forging alliances
Conceptual
• Problem solving
• Decision makingAlex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
18. The micro view: Functions & roles
• Entrepreneur
Decision- • Resource allocator
making • Disturbance handler
• Negotiator
• Planning
• Organizing • Monitor
• Informati-
Leading • Disseminator
onal
• Controlling • Spokesperson
• Leader
Inter-
• Figurehead
personal
• Liaison
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
20. Management functions: Planning
Revision Goals
Built-in
feedback Planning Objectives
mechanism
Built-in controls Sequence of
steps
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
21. Management functions: Planning
Retain the status quo
Expand within the industry
Diversify into a related industry
Diversify into a new industry
Divest or “sell out”
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
26. Management functions: Leading
Developing
Revising organizational
philosophy
Innovating
Leading Setting
the goals
Staffing Motivating
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
29. Management functions: Controlling
Designing the
Revising feedback loop
Correcting / Establishing
using Controlling standards /
deviations metrics
Measuring Communicating
performance standards / metrics
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
30. How they manage: X, Y and Z
Z
= relationships
+ authority
Y
= the X
“human = absolute
needs” authority
approach
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
31. Theory X (Douglas McGregor, 1960)
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
32. Theory Y (Douglas McGregor, 1960)
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
33. Theory Z (William Ouchi, 1987)
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
34. Relevant to a media company?
Z
= “the family”
Y
X
= “the
= “absolute
empowered
authority”
employee”
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
36. An in depth look at theory
Theories of
management
Micro Macro
The focus is on The focus is on
individual organizations and
elements of an other elements
organization. within an industry.
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
37. The macro view
Management is optimizing for
“market structure, market conduct
and market performance”.
Richard Caves, 1987.
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
38. MN: the convergent newsroom is…
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
39. Recap: Business models
Historically:
Advertising only
Combination of advertising, subscription and
retail sales
Subscription only
Combination of sponsorship,
membership/subscription, grants/public
funding
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
40. Recap: Enter participatory media
• Author /
audience
model
The "free - • News
for profit" aggregator
axis model
• News agency
model
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
41. Recap: Enter participatory media
• Publisher
The model
"professiona • Audience
l media - ecosystem
participatory model
media" axis
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
42. Recap: Enter participatory media
Author / Audience model
Publisher Audience
model ecosystem
model
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
Author / Audience model
43. The macro view
X Y
Z
Internal factors External factors
• Ownership
• Budget / Financial
Management • Consumer dynamic
• Distribution
• Structural / Employee • Competitors
• Programming • Regulation
• Marketing / Sales • Labour unions
• PR • Industry groups
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
44. Industry analysis
Media industry
Market components
Market
Market Market
perfor-
structure conduct
mance
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
45. Market structure
Market structure
Economic features of a market which affect the behaviour of the
industry supplying this market.
Example: Broadcasting vs. Cable.
Example: Google..?
Elements of market structure
Seller concentration
Product differentiation
Barriers to entry
Buyer concentration
Costs
Demand
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
46. Market conduct
Market conduct
Company policies toward its consumers and competitors
Elements of market conduct
Price-setting
Competitive policies
Quality control
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
47. Market performance
Market performance
Comparing the performance of a company (or industry) with its
potential in:
Efficiency in
Growth using
resource
Stability of
Fairness
prices
Stability of
employment
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
49. David Gillespie: Digital Strangelove
Main ideas:
Is David right?
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. | Tweet me: @Doc_G_
50. For Week 3 session:
Be prepared to discuss Chapter 1 of Redmond and Trager.
Pay special attention to the major changes in technology and the
social fabric, that shaped each of the traditional media industries in
the U. S. Make a timeline of such changes (categorized as either
tech. or social) for one chosen industry, and be prepared to discuss
it.
Read and watch the Lessons from the Rocky Mountain
News presentation by John Temple, the former editor of the
Rocky Mountain News, which folded in Feb. 2009, after a
century and a half of consecutive operation.
Prepare an 800 words briefing of the RMN case. Concentrate on 1).
A summary of the main events described in the presentation; 2).
management miscalculations that, in your opinion, contributed to the
demise of the newspaper; 3) three “lessons” that were the most
relevant to your career or career| aspirations.
Alex Gorelik, Ph. D. Tweet me: @Doc_G_
Notes de l'éditeur
hilosophic perspectivesFunctionalist (the Machine metaphor)Forms organizations take are both indispensable and inevitable, as dictated by:Resources;Size;Product;Market.Manager's functions:Planning;Controlling;Organizing;Staffing;Innovating.Positivist (the Agent metaphor)Employees are driven by recognized self-interest. Organization is the realized sum of vectors of self-interest.Manager's functions:Interpersonal;Informational;Decisional.
Wired.com harnesses readers to produce better contentWired.com has some of the most techno-savvy readers of any publication, and editor in chief Evan Hansen is not afraid to use them.As it turns out, the online publication has fostered symbiotic relationships with its blog readers in a variety of different ways, all of which have been beneficial both to Wired.com and to its sharp-minded readers.“You have the ability to reveal the story in progress, this sort of ‘process-is-content’ notion,” Hansen explained about blogging. “You reveal what you have, as it comes in, and then you invite the readers and the public to help you finish the story.”This method of reporting has improved blogging at Wired.com, particularly when Hansen and his colleagues have taken experimental risks that have become incredibly successful. Most prominent among these experiments is the Geekdad blog, which features posts from self-proclaimed “geek” dads and moms. The contributors submit one or two posts a week, typically about science or technology topics that appeal to parents and kids alike.Nintendo, NASA, and Legos are all fair game. Originally, the blog was run solely by Chris Anderson, but it became too much for one person to handle, so Anderson reached out to readers and asked whether any of them wanted to contribute.“He found some people who were very qualified to do it, and he took that chance,” Hansen said, “and it worked out.”“Worked out” is putting it mildly. Geekdad is now one of the most popular blogs on the site, and its contributors write posts for free — yes, free! — from all over the country. The blog’s unpaid editor, Ken Denmead, now has a book deal in the works as a direct result of the blog.As of April 15, 2009, Denmead has sent out a call for more contributors. If the past is any indication, he’s going to get responses from plenty of enthusiastic, knowledgeable participants — just the sort of people who fuel the content of Geekdad.As an editor who entrusts readers with blog content, Hansen laughed and said, “You’ve got to close your eyes a little bit and kind of just have faith that stuff that comes out is going to be in line with your brand and your sense of quality. It was a leap of faith, but it really turned out well. It’s an interesting and eclectic and, I think, very high quality publication now.”Hansen estimates that 20-25 percent of what gets blogged about at Wired.com either starts with or includes tips from readers. The site uses a feedback tool developed by Reddit specifically for Wired.com blogs that allows users to upload text and pictures and also assists with sorting the content offered by readers. When Cal Tech grad student Virgil Griffith introduced the Wikiscanner in 2007, the Threat Level blog at Wired.com asked readers to submit IP addresses of Wikipedia users who were editing the online encyclopedia to suit their own agenda.Using the Reddit tool to upload their findings to Threat Level, readers exposed hundreds of instances of corporate whitewashing on Wikipedia and then voted to determine the most appalling ones. In 2008, the project earned Wired.com a Knight-Batten award for innovation in journalism; Wired.com gave the $10,000 award to Wikiscanner creator Virgil Griffith.The kind of reader/blog interaction that changes journalism is, of course, only available on the Internet. Hansen emphasized that Wired.com has the advantage of being a stand-alone Web site with original content, as opposed to being an offshoot of a print publication. Although Conde Nast now owns both Wired magazine and Wired.com, the two publications remain separate in terms of staff and news stories.“The marriage back with the magazine has been very beneficial financially and otherwise,” Hansen said. “But, again, the structure here is that the Web site is considered to be its own business. We are very collaborative, and we share a brand, and we’re very respectful of the magazine…but we’re not the red-headed stepchild of a print publication.”While the magazine and the Web site have different modes of operation, Hansen observed that the fundamentals of journalism apply to both.“The most surprising thing is that the more we got into blogging, the more we realized it’s not all that different from ordinary news gathering,” he said. “The same rules apply in terms of accuracy, confirming information.”For the blogs, Hansen said the goal is not to be an aggregation site but rather to do original reporting.“Which means that you’ve got to pick up the phone,” he said. “You’ve got to talk to people. You’ve got to chase down facts and not just link to other people.”And, it seems, it also helps if you’re something of a risk-taker — with very smart readers.
The “Myth” of the manager
The “Myth” of the manager
hilosophic perspectivesFunctionalist (the Machine metaphor)Forms organizations take are both indispensable and inevitable, as dictated by:Resources;Size;Product;Market.Manager's functions:Planning;Controlling;Organizing;Staffing;Innovating.Positivist (the Agent metaphor)Employees are driven by recognized self-interest. Organization is the realized sum of vectors of self-interest.Manager's functions:Interpersonal;Informational;Decisional.
hilosophic perspectivesFunctionalist (the Machine metaphor)Forms organizations take are both indispensable and inevitable, as dictated by:Resources;Size;Product;Market.Manager's functions:Planning;Controlling;Organizing;Staffing;Innovating.Positivist (the Agent metaphor)Employees are driven by recognized self-interest. Organization is the realized sum of vectors of self-interest.Manager's functions:Interpersonal;Informational;Decisional.
hilosophic perspectivesFunctionalist (the Machine metaphor)Forms organizations take are both indispensable and inevitable, as dictated by:Resources;Size;Product;Market.Manager's functions:Planning;Controlling;Organizing;Staffing;Innovating.Positivist (the Agent metaphor)Employees are driven by recognized self-interest. Organization is the realized sum of vectors of self-interest.Manager's functions:Interpersonal;Informational;Decisional.
hilosophic perspectivesFunctionalist (the Machine metaphor)Forms organizations take are both indispensable and inevitable, as dictated by:Resources;Size;Product;Market.Manager's functions:Planning;Controlling;Organizing;Staffing;Innovating.Positivist (the Agent metaphor)Employees are driven by recognized self-interest. Organization is the realized sum of vectors of self-interest.Manager's functions:Interpersonal;Informational;Decisional.
hilosophic perspectivesFunctionalist (the Machine metaphor)Forms organizations take are both indispensable and inevitable, as dictated by:Resources;Size;Product;Market.Manager's functions:Planning;Controlling;Organizing;Staffing;Innovating.Positivist (the Agent metaphor)Employees are driven by recognized self-interest. Organization is the realized sum of vectors of self-interest.Manager's functions:Interpersonal;Informational;Decisional.
hilosophic perspectivesFunctionalist (the Machine metaphor)Forms organizations take are both indispensable and inevitable, as dictated by:Resources;Size;Product;Market.Manager's functions:Planning;Controlling;Organizing;Staffing;Innovating.Positivist (the Agent metaphor)Employees are driven by recognized self-interest. Organization is the realized sum of vectors of self-interest.Manager's functions:Interpersonal;Informational;Decisional.
The BackgroundI'll try to summarize things as quickly as possible, but it's all rather complicated so bear with me! Also keep in mind that I heard about this the same way a lot of people did - Digg, YouTube, Google, and some scattered mainstream Media coverage - so there may be holes in the story.Around January 16th 2008 some part of a back-alley online community titled Anonymous (aptly named because it is composed only of nameless members - they have no pseudonyms, aliases, or digital identities) decided that they were frustrated with the way The Church of Scientology has handled itself as an organization. They decided to try to do something about this frustration and pulled out the digital battle drums - which I assume involved a post on their community's site announcing the problems with Scientology and looking to see if anyone wanted to help do something about it.On January 21st someone uploaded a video to YouTube which ominously listed Anonymous' complaints and announced an Internet led "war" on the Church of Scientology (note the 2 million + views). Because Anonymous is anonymous I can't even try to guess how many people were involved at this point, but apparently it was enough to cause a decent amount of online buzz.The message was spread through various channels of the Internet - YouTube, Digg, online community forums, etc. They also got a blip or two on the mainstream media radar. The interesting part is that efforts weren't being organized by "leaders" - they were being organized completely via anonymous individuals using a public wiki, meaning anyone could change anything (much like you see on Wikipedia).Over the next few weeks members of Anonymous began to harass Scientology and continued to make the occasional "press release". More importantly, though, vloggers, bloggers, and countless other individuals gave their two cents through response videos on YouTube, comments on Digg, and contributions to the blogosphere. Some supported the movement, some just felt it was going to be interesting to watch, and some condemned Anonymous as misguided "cyber-terrorists", unscrupulous, or simply boring; however it seemed their cause was resonating with people, generating attention, and even starting to be discussed outside of the Internet.At this point a few more Internet-focused mainstream media folks took notice and mentioned it in various segments. Known critics of the Church of Scientology like Mark Bunker also chimed in and offered advice and criticisms of the anonymous efforts. After listening to the Internet response and gaining support, the anonymous digital harassment changed to legal, more traditional methods. Someone else uploaded a video to YouTube announcing plans for international protests on February 10th.For me these "real life" protests, where 6000+ people protested in 70+ different cities around the world, are what pushed this whole debacle from "interesting to watch" to "what can we learn from this". This takes us to today, where another round of protests is being planned for March 15th.One of Anonymous' forums has a compiled list of links to local and national news coverage. I would definitely recommend watching some of the news reports if you want to learn more.Key Success FactorsThat's the story as I've seen it, so the question to ask now is how did they do it? How did a fairly small group of completely anonymous individuals manage to generate several million views worth of buzz on the internet? And finally, how did they actually bridge the gap and apply that buzz into real, physical world protests? Thinking about it may help inspire thoughts about where digital media is now, where it can go, and what would improve it.Google in the middleApril 10, 2009Three truths:1. Google is a middleman made of software. It's a very, very large middleman made of software. Think of what Goliath or the Cyclops or Godzilla would look like if they were made of software. That's Google.2. The middleman acts in the middleman's interest.3. The broader the span of the middleman's control over the exchanges that take place in a market, the greater the middleman's power and the lesser the power of the suppliers.For much of the first decade of the Web's existence, we were told that the Web, by efficiently connecting buyer and seller, or provider and user, would destroy middlemen. Middlemen were friction, and the Web was a friction-removing machine.We were misinformed. The Web didn't kill mediators. It made them stronger. The way a company makes big money on the Web is by skimming little bits of money off a huge number of transactions, with each click counting as a transaction. (Think trillions of transactions.) The reality of the web is hypermediation, and Google, with its search and search-ad monopolies, is the king of the hypermediators.Which brings us to everybody's favorite business: the news. Newspapers, or news syndicators like the Associated Press, bemoan the power of the middlemen, or aggregators, to get between them and their readers. They particularly bemoan the power of Google, because Google wields, by far, the greatest power. The editor of the Wall Street Journal, Robert Thomson, calls Google a "tapeworm." His boss, Rupert Murdoch, says Google is engaged in "stealing copyrights."Others see Thomson and Murdoch as hypocritical crybabies. To them, Google is the good guy, the benevolent middleman that fairly parcels out traffic, by the trillions of page views, to a multitude of hungry web sites. It's the mommy bird dropping little worm fragments into the mouths of all the baby birds. Scott Rosenberg points out that Google makes it simple for newspapers or any other site operators to opt out of its general search engine and all of its subsidiary search services, including Google News. "Participation in Google is voluntary," he writes. Yet no one opts out. Participation is not only voluntary but "is also pretty much universal, because of the benefits. When users are seeking what you have, it’s good to be found."Rosenberg is correct, but he misses, or chooses not to acknowledge, the larger point. When a middleman controls a market, the supplier has no real choice but to work with the middleman - even if the middleman makes it impossible for the supplier to make money. Given the choice, most people will choose to die of a slow wasting disease rather than to have their head blown off with a bazooka. But that doesn't mean that dying of a slow wasting disease is pleasant.As Tom Sleeexplains, Google's role as the dominant middleman in the digital content business resembles Wal-Mart's role as the dominant middleman in the consumer products business. Because of the vastness of Wal-Mart's market share, consumer goods companies have little choice but to sell their wares through the retailing giant, even if the retailing giant squeezes their profit margin to zilch. It's called leverage: Play by our rules, or die.Sometimes "voluntary" isn't really "voluntary."When it comes to Google and other aggregators, newspapers face a sort of prisoners' dilemma. If one of them escapes, their competitors will pick up the traffic they lose. But if all of them stay, none of them will ever get enough traffic to make sufficient money. So they all stay in the prison, occasionally yelling insults at their jailer through the bars on the door.None of this, by the way, should be taken as criticism of Google. Google is simply pursuing its own interests - those interests just happen to be very different from the interests of the news companies. What Google can, and should, be criticized for is its disingenuousness. In an official response to the recent criticism of its control over news-seeking traffic, Google rolled out one of its lawyers, who put on his happy face and wrote: "Users like me are sent from different Google sites to newspaper websites at a rate of more than a billion clicks per month. These clicks go to news publishers large and small, domestic and international - day and night. And once a reader is on the newspaper's site, we work hard to help them earn revenue. Our AdSense program pays out millions of dollars to newspapers that place ads on their sites."Wow. "A billion clicks." "Millions of dollars." Such big numbers. What Google doesn't mention is that the billions of clicks and the millions of ad dollars are so fragmented among so many thousands of sites that no one site earns enough to have a decent online business. Where the real money ends up is at the one point in the system where traffic is concentrated: the Google search engine. Google's overriding interest is to (a) maximize the amount and velocity of the traffic flowing through the web and (b) ensure that as large a percentage of that traffic as possible goes through its search engine and is exposed to its ads. One of the most important ways it accomplishes that goal is to promote the distribution of as much free content as possible through as many sites as possible on the web. For Google, any concentration of traffic at content sites is anathema; it would represent a shift of power from the middleman to the supplier. Google wants to keep that traffic fragmented. The suppliers of news have precisely the opposite goal.Take a look at the top topic on Google News right now:Look, in particular, at the number of stories on this topic that Google already has in its database: 11,264. That's a staggeringly large number. To Google, it's a beautiful number. To the 11,264 news sites competing for a measly little page view, and the infinitesimal fraction of a penny the view represents, it's death.As I've written before, the essential problem facing the online news business is oversupply. The cure isn't pretty. It requires, first, a massive reduction of production capacity - ie, the consolidation or disappearance of lots of news outlets. Second, and dependent on that reduction of production capacity, it requires news organizations to begin to impose controls on their content. By that, I don't mean preventing bloggers from posting fair-use snippets of articles. I mean curbing the rampant syndication, authorized or not, of full-text articles. Syndication makes sense when articles remain on the paper they were printed on. It doesn't make sense when articles float freely across the global web. (Take note, AP.)Once the news business reduces supply, it can begin to consolidate traffic, which in turn consolidates ad revenues and, not least, opens opportunities to charge subscription fees of one sort or another - opportunities that today, given the structure of the industry, seem impossible. With less supply, the supplier gains market power at the expense of the middleman.The fundamental problem facing the news business today does not lie in Google's search engine. It lies in the structure of the news business itself.http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/live-blogging-the-new-hampshire-debate/