Digital platform strategy for news publishers

Intensive, practical, and case study-based course for managers of legacy and pure play digital news media companies. The program appeals most to those responsible for digital strategy, editorial, marketing, sales and new product development. 

Based on Harvard Business School teaching methods, the course will lead participants to use various digital business frameworks useful to analyse case studies and plan future initiatives at their respective companies. The tools practiced at workshops will help participants to develop strategies, plans and new business concepts useful for their home market.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES
After this workshop the participants will:
• Understand the key trends in the advanced media markets — such as the rise of digital platforms, the increasing role of data and technology intermediaries — and their impact on news consumer behaviour and business models of news media companies.
• Understand the way the Internet giants like Google, Facebook and others make money and how different is their operating and revenue model from the one of legacy news media such as the New York Times and digital pure players such as Buzzfeed.
• Be able to define different business models for news media and understand their consequences to product and marketing.
• Understand waves of digital disruption of the news media industry and be able to define a strategic response for the participants’ own business unit or their company.
• Be able to define relevant platform strategies that news media publishers may wish to pursue.
• Understand network dynamics of viral content and the design of algorithms at Facebook and Youtube, and its impact on product design, development, and marketing.

READINGS:
For the masterclass, the lecturer will deliver a package of original readings -- description of case studies, articles explaining certain theories, excerpts from new books and questions that will be discussed in the classroom. Participants will be expected to read them before the workshop. Therefore during the actual sessions they will focus on discussion and analysis of the case studies instead of learning about them for the first time.

CASE STUDIES AND BEST PRACTICES (to be confirmed)
During this workshop the participants will analyse case studies and learn about best practices of the leading U.S. and Western European companies such as:
• The shift of the digital business model of The New York Times from advertising-focused to subscription-first.
• U.S. BuzzFeed’s bet to become a TV network on the Facebook platform and beyond.
• The real value of super users at the Boston Globe.
• Development of the platform strategy at Axel Springer in Germany on a corporate level and on a business unit level of Bild newspaper.
• The user experience design at Netflix, Spotify and Facebook, and what news publishers can learn from the tech giants.
• The technology stack of the Washington Post: what have they built after they got taken over by Jeff Bezos, a founder of Amazon.

Speakers 

Grzegorz Piechota Researcher at University of Oxford and Harvard Business School