"There are no more creative places than a newsroom."

Brad Dennison
Vice President
News & Interactive Division
GateHouse Media

By Deb Shaw
Editor, Suburban Publisher

‘How often should I update my website?’ was just one of many questions that stemmed from the wildly popular recent webinar on the topic of Content Differentiation: How to Drive Online Audience without Cannibalizing Print. A practically standing room only crowd, figuratively speaking of course, logged in on a steamy June Thursday morning to hear what GateHouse Media’s Brad Dennison, Vice President, News & Interactive Division and his colleague David Arkin, Executive Director of the division, had to share on the topic and absolutely no one went away disappointed.

With follow up comments like “best webinar ever”, “this sheds tremendous light on important web strategy” and “super useful stuff here”, the webinar-sponsor SNA Foundation knew they hit a home run with this one and a huge debt of gratitude goes to Brad and David. There were many lessons like what content belongs online (and what does not), setting and managing online expectations, how analytics and page views help drive strategy and a quick trip around an open access resource found at www.ghnewsroom.com. We’ll report on different webinar lessons in the future with todays focus having to do with updates.

Full Article | Comments (0)

Shona Mattingly

By Tanya Henderson
Advertising & Membership Relations Director, SNA

SNA always includes panels of national advertisers and agencies during our yearly Publishers’ and Ad Directors’ conference (you’ll get to meet a bunch of them in Philly this fall). At the SNA Boot Camp in conjunction with the E&P Interactive Conference last week, it was only slightly different. The panel was all about online advertising and how to get more of it for newspaper’s web sites.

Shona Mattingly, Publisher of Inquiries & Visits with Centro and Spencer Griffith, Assistant Media Planner/Interactive Producer with R&R Partners discussed a number of issues when working with newspapers.

Some we’ve heard before with the print agencies — communication and standardization — although Mattingly had said she’s seen some positive movement with standardization with the introduction of the IAB ad sizes.

Full Article | Comments (0)

The SNA Local Community Web Site Contest represents the top Web initiatives from community and suburban newspapers across North America. Entries for this year's contest did not fail to disappoint. We're extremely proud of all the Web sites that entered the contest and recognize the hard work and innovation that goes into creating a winning site. And the winners are...

Full Article | Comments (0)

Innovation & Ideas Vault Media Companies to New Heights

Mark Weber, General Manager, Southwest Newspapers

By Deb Shaw
Editor, Suburban Publisher

Two very different companies but similarly minded initiatives are helping these newspaper companies transform. The key ingredients to both — employee involvement and management gets out of the way.

Innovation At Work

Early in the New Year, the SNA Foundation hosted a webinar featuring Mark Briggs, co-author of the Foundation’s latest e-course Innovation at Work: Making New Ideas Succeed. Briggs took center stage to introduce the course and the guiding principles behind the process of creating an innovative culture in the workplace. (Access his presentation here)

Among the 140 registrants drawn to this webinar was Southwest Newspapers (MN) General Manager Mark Weber, who was inspired by Briggs’ suggestion to launch innovation-minded work groups in your company to help push the process of innovation along.

Briggs’ advice: Start small. Think divide and conquer and seed each team with folks with varied areas of expertise. Establish 2 or 3 small groups and give them the authority to launch anything that the whole team agrees they should try. Give them the power to fail. Take care to pick the right people. “Avoid planners,” says Briggs. “You want do-ers.”

Full Article | Comments (0)

What should and should not go online

GateHouse Media Vice President of News & Interactive Brad Dennison, left, and Director of News & Interactive David Arkin in the division’s Chicago-based offices. The GateHouse News & Interactive Division provides a wide range of training, services and support to the company’s hundreds of properties across the country. (Photo by John Cox)

With content direction responsibility for GateHouse Media, Brad Dennison has his hands in a wide range of projects but none gets a higher priority than driving and engaging audience in print and online. “Everything we do within the division is ultimately aimed at supporting that mission in some way,” says Dennison, VP of News & Interactive.

Just over a year ago, GateHouse recalibrated their digital strategy to focus on three key components: Constant updating, multimedia and reader involvement. That became a full program called “Web Cube” — a multi-dimensional approach to driving audience, executed in a consistent way across a large, spread out company.

Dennison sat down with Suburban Publisher editor Deb Shaw for the June issue of Suburban Publisher and answered a series of questions that delved into this strategy and the tools aimed at helping their local properties customize the approach to fit their specific needs. Dennison also offered a few tips from the GateHouse News & Interactive Division for better content differentiation between print and online.

Full Article | Comments (0)