Presentation by Sam Ford of the Slow Innovation Strategy at Fusion Media. Held at the Media Days Munich 2017.

1. Focusing on Slow Innovation in the
Newsroom
@Sam_Ford
http://samford.wordpress.com/

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5. Mission: To keep FMG/UCI focused on continuously honing and
evolving its approach to telling compelling stories across media
platforms; taking an audience-centered approach to everything
we do; and dedicating ourselves to building meaningful,
sustained relationships that encourages and values our
audience’s participation.

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4 key questions that we considered the realm of
slow innovation:
• How do you keep a focus on issues that may be
“No. 6 on the list”?
• How do you make sustained progress on the
things that may not impact you this quarter, but
are important for the medium term?
• How do you continuously look critically at your
current dominant models for measuring
success, and explore alternative logics — while
the machine is still running 24/7?
• How do you foster a spirit of innovation and
experimentation across the organization, rather
than quarantining it only in your group?

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How can we learn from new approaches to telling nonfiction
stories?

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In what small, sustainable ways can we bring more young
voices onto our channels?

12. What are the benefits of partnerships with universities,
nonprofits, startups, and smaller organizations?

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What are the benefits of partnerships with universities,
nonprofits, startups, and smaller organizations?

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What are the benefits of partnerships with universities,
nonprofits, startups, and smaller organizations?

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What are the benefits of partnerships with universities,
nonprofits, startups, and smaller organizations?

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What new co-production approaches can we develop?

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What new co-production approaches can we develop?

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How does it change our strategies—and how we measure
success—if we focus on serving engaged, dedicated
audiences, rather than overall numbers?

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What new workflows should be established for managing
relationships with those dedicated audiences?

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In what small, sustainable ways can we bring more young
voices onto our channels?

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Challenges for Focusing on Slow Innovation:
• Slow innovation efforts are hard to detect from the outside.
• Slow innovation work can get “written out of the narrative.”
• Unlikely to impact business this quarter/year and requires
steady (even if small) focus on things that are not current
operational priorities. (We didn’t not bring in any significant
revenue over our 2 years.)
• May involve investigating new paradigms that challenge
current business logic, when business is going well currently.
• Hard for internal clients to justify the time when it isn’t about
this quarter, but requires cultural buy in to take root.

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Lessons for Focusing on Slow Innovation:
• Set internal expectations carefully.
• Claim your wins.
• Invest in relationship building internally.
• Know that the best “slow innovation” work may come
through partnerships.
• Keep budgets lean.
• Remember that seeing isn’t observing, and hearing
isn’t listening.
• Be rigorous about fostering serendipity.

28. Showing the Story of Slow Innovation
@Sam_Ford
http://samford.wordpress.com/