Published: July 01, 2000
Last Updated: August 18, 2000
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Convergence

Tampa’s convergence lessons

• It changes everything. It’s a jumbo change effort wrapped in a multimedia package.
• Convergence ideas tend to run ahead of the technology we commit to support them: Unanticipated, nontraditional capital needs are common. The need for an intranet to move text among three platforms, for digital cameras, cell phones for all for mobility, camcorders for print photographers.
• You’ve got to say the same thing hundreds of times in dozens of venues before it reaches all levels of the organization: About the time you’re getting bored hearing yourself talk, you’re just beginning to really communicate effectively. Until convergence touches a person’s life, they are only half listening.
• It’s easy to join hands across media: The hard part is appreciating and managing the differences between print and broadcast approaches and values and building the nitty-gritty systems that produce everyday work. Establish ground rules early for debating and for decision making, e.g. no unnatural acts. Toughen your skin; listen more than you talk.
• Online is the common carrier between print and broadcast: That said, it’s more difficult than first realized to harness short-staffed onliners into convergence.
• It’s a big experiment at every step: Let go of organizational inhibitions that discourage smart, contained risk taking.
• Convergence is a contact sport: The rules are shaped one staff collision at a time.
• Convergence REALLY happens: You know it’s real when a journalist from one medium scoops herself in another medium.
• Convergence requires concrete and measurable goals and mileage markers: It needs strong leaders who pay constant attention. It takes a number of leaders pushing, pulling, explaining, soothing feelings, moving on.