(Michael P. Smith)

I am not stalking Anne Kirah, the dean of 180-degrees Academy in Denmark. She and I have crossed paths four times in 12 months – from Moscow to Paris – sometimes sitting on the same dais.

Kirah is a cultural anthropologist who worked for Microsoft before engaging in innovation training with the academy in Copenhagen. She brings a different perspective the media and a high level of energy. Her message has been consistent over the last year – in order for traditional media companies to be successful in the future, they must break through barriers that inhibit engagement with customers. These barriers include communication, culture, emotion and location. Her experience at Microsoft establishes one of her core principles – innovation and new product development come from teamwork, not individuals. I could quibble or debate some of her conclusions or, more specifically, her generalizations about newspapers, but I won’t dwell on them. Her heart is in the right place, and I like any perspective that shows hope for newspapers.

Here are some key points from Anne’s presentation to the International Newspaper Marketing Association’s meeting in Paris:

• Innovation begins when we take off our blinders in our business and think of aspirations and motivations of people in their daily lives
• We must speak the same language and culture of the people we are innovating for
• Stop thinking newspapers for a moment

She also said innovation comes from:

• Chaos and discomfort, being out of your comfort zone
• Learning to see things through new lenses
• Observing ordinary people and their everyday lives
• A willingness to build with these people
• Being humble and practicing humility
• Taking risks

She said her experiences points to a set of things that prevent companies from innovating:

• We are blinded by our education and our company culture
• Company cultures are toxic
• We have difficulties adapting to the rapidly paced world
• We ask the wrong questions

She says newspapers are not dying, they are changing – something we have been preaching at MMC for quite a while. She predicts that they can be more successful if they pay attention to the typical person's "pain points" – the dead time during the day in a person's life when they could really use a newspaper. She described a two-hour train ride in which she needed something to read as a personal pain point. She actually goes beyond that. The way she explains it makes it sound very similar to the NewspaperNext and Clayton M. Christensen approach using the phrase "jobs to be done." Both Kirah and N2 are very customer-focused in their approaches.

Like I said, I could argue her conclusions or points. I give her a lot of leeway because it is hard making a presentation for 300 people from different countries with the newspapers in all different stages of maturity.

I appreciate her customer-centric approach. She has said many times, that newspapers (and all businesses) need to let the customer create the product.

While our research may lead us to slightly different conclusions, my biggest point of departure is her use of the term "toxic culture." My academic friends refer to a body of literature that includes the toxic culture affect on parenting, education, marriage and other institutions. I am not that brainy. I react to the phrase as a defensive journalist. Kirah does not say it but the inference is that newsrooms are poison. I don't agree. I hate it when people blame newsrooms for the lack of growth or change. Newsrooms are resistant, they are perfectionist and they are skeptical, but not poison.

Those familiar with the volumes of research from the Readership Institute on newspaper cultures will find support for my point on newspaper culture. I would never call it toxic. Our years of research shows that it clearly is resistant – but newspapers made it that way. And now they have to remake it. On that point (and on many others) Kirah and I agree.

(Michael P. Smith)

I am being gently chided by friends in the business for comments I made in an industry report about leadership. I suggested in an interview that newspaper leaders have to believe in their product - the core product the way readers do - and exude a confident-yet-informed optimism in their leadership and communications.

(This is where media bloggers I respect say that I am an ostrich.)

I also said that you cannot manage decline. This coincides with an INMA column (membership required) by Len Kubas and Chris Kubas that questions whether newspaper executives really are convinced that newspapers can be saved from eventual decline. They ask where exactly is the confidence in the core product:

One of the biggest challenges facing our industry in most of the industrialized world is not the Internet or decline in circulation or readership. The challenge is the loss of confidence by some publishing executives, and their belief that print newspapers are no longer relevant in today’s fast changing media world.

In calling for publishers to rebuild confidence in the core, they write:

Newspapers have the resources, the talent, and core competence to restore vitality to the print product while simultaneously growing the internet or digital side of the business. It is not an "either-or" situation, but a strategy that recognizes that a healthy future depends upon strong print operations.

There are examples in the western world where a leader with optimism and confidence in the core has actually turned things around. One example often cited is the Guardian in the United Kingdom. Here at MMC we salute the efforts of the Globe and Mail in Toronto and the Spectator in Hamilton, Ontario. At INMA, I learned of the turn around at the Sydney Morning Herald.

Robert Whitehead, director of sales and marketing of Fairfax Media, was frank in reasons why the Morning Herald turned things around. The most important cause, he said, was a change at the top. A new CEO came in believing in the core product and believing that the newspaper could again be successful. He established a set of tactics that led to their success:

• He introduced a grow-the-newspaper mandate.
• He introduced a clear decision-making process.
• He set circulation growth targets.
• He put marketing and circulation together.
• He ended branding campaigns.
• He established clear print and digital product guidelines for growth.

While this was going on, the newspaper concentrated on serving its customers. New flexible subscription programs were implemented. The newspaper became very involved in public service campaigns.

(Michael P. Smith)

I have always hated the whining out of the journalists of Philadelphia, but always wished I had their sense of humor.

My friends at the Inquirer and Daily News have been very upbeat and positive about the change of ownership there since local marketing guru Brian Tierney purchased Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. The legendary Philly sense of humor has survived the change in ownership.

With their report in circulation increases last week, the Philly papers published a special supplement around the theme "pigs fly." You can view a video here.

Maybe there is something to this idea that leaders need to believe in growth.