Tag: Digital Media

  • Understanding the Role of Product in Media Companies and Tech Companies

    I enumerated the role of product management in my earlier article titled The Many Hats of Product Managers: Their Indispensable Hands-On Roles as Individual Contributors. I described the Roles and Responsibilities for Digital Product Development Teams to discuss the interplay of product management, software engineering, design & user research, data, and technology operations. One of…

  • My Interview in TheMarker Magazine

    During my recent visit to Tel Aviv, I was interviewed by the well-respected Israeli business and technology journalist Inbal Orpaz for TheMarker Magazine. Our conversation was an engaging and insightful exploration of the future of media and journalism in the digital age. Although the article was published in Hebrew, in this blog post, I discuss…

  • 9 Reasons Why News Media Web Sites Should Consider Moving to HTTPS in 2015

    If you work in news media and are interested in technology, you may enjoy my article listing 9 Reasons Why News Media Web Sites Should Consider Moving to HTTPS in 2015. I co-authored it with Eitan Konigsburg and Elena Kvochko, two colleagues with expertise, deep knowledge and passion for cyber security, privacy and technology. It is published on the Times Open Blog…

  • 3 Dimensions of a Technology Team

    Organizing Software Engineering Teams to Balance Products, Partners & Professions This organizational design for a technology department aims to optimally blend the need for the technology team to be an engine of innovation, a customer-service organization and technically excellent. It views the staff, roles and responsibilities in three dimensions: products, partnerships, and professions. Organization by…

  • Three Pillars of a Media/Publishing Company

    Questions: Where should product be depicted? Is product an extension of the journalism (newsroom)? In this way of thinking, all products including Web, mobile and all other digital products are primarily newsroom products. Or: Is product part of technology and development? In this way of thinking, product is primarily product development. Or: Is product a…

  • 5 Productivity Tips for Executives in Leadership & Management Roles

    Here are 5 productivity tips for executives in leadership & management roles. Each tip involves the number 5. Every morning (or the night before), make a prioritized list of the top 5 things you plan to accomplish that day. These are your must-do tasks for the day. At the day’s end (or when making the…

  • Management & Technical Career Growth Tracks (v2)

    This second version of the diagram illustrating technical career tracks reflects the following updates since version one: A product management track is now included. (Future updates may include other tracks like design, editorial and marketing.) There is no longer a contributor-level position on the people-management track. This is because most organizations do not have an…

  • Future of Content Management for News Media for Web sites

    Content on Web sites should be managed using systems that were designed from the ground up for the Web. Traditional content management systems with a legacy of features and workflows used for paper-based print products like newspapers and magazines are unsuitable for Web sites. The future of news media content management for Web sites is…

  • The Evolution of Web Sites

    Over the past 15 years, as the Web has evolved, the web sites have gone through these generations. What’s likely to be next in the future of what the Web will be? This article describes the Web so far and what form it will likely assume. 1993-1997: Generation 1.0 These web sites can essentially be…

  • Sometimes extra steps in workflows are good

    When implementing a content management system or other product, customers often ask for workflows that require the least number of steps required to any given complete task. At first, this seems to make perfect sense; however consider this example of a car: Before you can get inside your car and start driving you have to…

  • Integrating Legacy Technologies With Web Systems at Newspapers

    The topic of integrating print technology systems with web technology systems often comes up in the newspaper, magazine and book publishing industries. There is a key difference between Content Companies (e.g. newspapers, magazines) and Other Companies (e.g. pharmaceuticals). With the World Wide Web and information technology (IT) becoming part of everyday life, every company is…

  • Consistency in Labeling Ads as “advertisements” on Content Sites

    Some newspaper and magazine web sites visibly label some ads on their web pages as “advertisements” but don’t mark other ads including their own in-house ads on the same pages. Their intentions are journalistic: They want to visibly differentiate their editorial content from ads. (Though that doesn’t explain why they don’t label their own in-house…