Programme | Digital Media North America 2019
Digital Media North America 2019
Our 2019 edition will focus on the importance of product in today’s news media companies.
Product roles are increasingly becoming a must-have for news publishers wishing to strengthen their digital strategy. However, this often raises several questions and challenges. How to attract and retain such talent? What is their position in a management team and how do they relate with the editorial and business sides of a company? What potential tensions arise and how to solve them? What exactly is product culture and should it permeate your company’s internal mindset? Can product development help to foster internal collaboration?
DMNA19 will be tackling these and many more key issues around product in news media companies nowadays.
Sessions
June 24
Monday
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Stream IDs:
- 7496
08:00
General Programme
Registration
Location:Lobby - Ground floorPick up your registration badge early in the morning.
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Stream IDs:
- 7496
09:00
General Programme
Introductory session: Why have product roles become crucial in news media companies?
Location:Global Classroom - SUNY Global CenterThere is a growing understanding amongst industry experts that product roles are vital to the future of news media companies and a gold rush towards Chief Product Officers, Product VP’s, Product Managers, etc., is taking place. These positions enable media companies to grasp and quickly adapt to change. In this introductory session, participants will understand why and how media companies have been adopting product strategies and mindsets, as well as the challenges around this trend.
Speakers
Director of Innovation & Leadership, Craig Newmark J-School/CUNY, USA
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Stream IDs:
- 7496
09:40
General Programme
Session 2: Fireside Chat on Product strategy and revenue objectives
Location:Global Classroom - SUNY Global CenterProduct roles are rare, expensive, hard to find and difficult to retain. Some publishers and CEOs are often reluctant to hiring or truly empowering such roles. In this session, we’ll show to what extent investing in product roles has a direct impact on a company’s revenue strategies, and what is needed to achieve that.
Moderator
- Director of Innovation & Leadership, Craig Newmark J-School/CUNY, USA
Speakers
Chief Product Officer, Bloomberg Media Group, USA
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Stream IDs:
- 7496
10:15
General Programme
Session 3: Breaking newsroom walls. Aligning company goals. Responding to the audience’s needs.
Location:Global Classroom - SUNY Global CenterA product role not only enables a smoother connection between the newsroom, the business and the tech side of a news company. It is also key in connecting the newsroom to the ever-changing needs of the company’s digital audience, while keeping business goals in mind and understanding any technological complexity a given project might have.
Moderator
Director of Product, Chartbeat, USA
Why Newsrooms find "Product" Hard
10:15-10:45 - A presentation by Nick Petrie on the how product can help a company transition from centuries of similar workflows and processes, into a company that needs to constantly adapt to the changing needs of its digital audiences in extremely competitive business and technological ecosystems, followed by a Q&A with Emily Ingram.Speakers
Deputy Head of Digital, The Times & Sunday Times, UK
Fireside Chat with The Atlantic
10:45-11:15 - Join The Atlantic's Andrew Phelps for a look at how the publication is laying the groundwork to elevate its product and subscriber experience across platforms and expand its digital consumer business.Speakers
Senior Director - Product, The Atlantic, USA
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Stream IDs:
- 7497
11:15
Networking
Networking Break
Location:Lobby Global Classroom - SUNY Global Center -
Stream IDs:
- 7496
11:45
General Programme
Session 4: Elements of success: user-experience and design
Location:Global Classroom - SUNY Global CenterUser experience and design have become a must have in today’s digital era. Companies of the likes of Amazon, Google, Facebook, Spotify, Netflix, AirBNB and Uber provide the smoothest and friendliest user journeys. News media companies cannot afford to stay behind and risk losing their audiences’ invaluable attention. News companies with a product strategy and mindset are a step ahead when it comes to creating the most adapted tech solutions and provide top-level user journeys.
Moderator
VP, Product Optimization, Dow Jones, USA
Speakers
Senior Director of UX and Design, Gannett | USA TODAY NETWORK, USA
Chief Operating Officer, Vox Media, USA
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Stream IDs:
- 7495
- 7496
12:45
Sponsored sessions
General Programme
Session 5: Talk less, Experiment more
Location:Global Classroom - SUNY Global CenterMuch too often, when creating a new product, media companies spend too much time and effort discussing, instead of testing. But one of they keys to creating successful products is embracing a culture of constant experimentation. Experimenting can be costly, but surely less costly than taking a wrong decision and creating an unsuccessful product. In this session, we’ll explore how it is possible to create a product, in this case, a successful video strategy, through smart experimentation techniques and technology.
Speakers
Executive Managing Director, Styria Content Creation, Austria
Sponsored by:
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Stream IDs:
- 7497
13:25
Networking
Networking Lunch
Location:Café & Terrace (3rd floor) - SUNY Global Center -
Stream IDs:
- 7496
14:25
General Programme
Session 6: Defining priorities and changing cultures in local media companies
Location:Global Classroom - SUNY Global CenterProduct roles have become paramount to news publishers. Great product teams can uplift an entire media organization. But building an elite product team is challenging, particularly for local publishers.
How can local media companies hire strong product talent despite resource challenges and stiff competition for these assets? Once teams are assembled, how can product leaders activate these essential functions to spark transformation companywide? How can they drive a customer-first mindset that pervades all aspects of the organization, creating products and experiences that users love (and will pay for)? In this session, digital leaders at large North American media companies share their vision for building strong product cultures.
Moderator
Chief Strategy Officer, Local Media Association, USA
Speakers
President of Digital Media, Hearst Newspapers, USA
Director of Product, McClatchy, USA
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Stream IDs:
- 7495
- 7496
15:15
Sponsored sessions
General Programme
An Introduction to GNI's Innovation Challenge in North America
Location:Global Classroom - SUNY Global CenterThe Google News Initiative is a global effort to work with the news industry to help journalism thrive in the digital age. Come learn about their new Innovation Challenge in North America focused on funding creative projects that aim to generate revenue and/or increase audience engagement for local journalism.Speakers
Partner Operations Lead, News and Search, Google, US
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Stream IDs:
- 7496
15:30
General Programme
Session 7: Fireside Chat: The intricacies of product roles
Location:Global Classroom - SUNY Global CenterHow to find the right profile and make the best of it? How to attract and retain such profiles? Should they have a media background or not? What are the tensions between product and other areas (editorial, tech, business) and how to diffuse them? How to empower a product leader?
Moderator
- Chief Operating Officer, Vox Media, USA
Speakers
Chief Product Officer, theSkimm, USA
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Stream IDs:
- 7497
16:10
Networking
Networking Break
Location:Lobby Global Classroom - SUNY Global Center -
Stream IDs:
- 7496
16:30
General Programme
Session 8: Fireside Chat: Towards a new era of internal collaboration
Location:Global Classroom - SUNY Global CenterA conversation with Renée Kaplan on the importance of internally adopting a cross-departmental collaborative approach between editorial, business and tech, in order to better respond to the audience’s ever-changing needs, to achieve revenue objectives and to produce relevant content in an increasingly competitive and complex digital ecosystem.
Moderator
- Director of Innovation & Leadership, Craig Newmark J-School/CUNY, USA
Speakers
Head of Audience and New Content Strategies, The Financial Times, UK
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Stream IDs:
- 7496
17:00
General Programme
Session 9: Portfolio: What makes a product (un)successful?
Location:Global Classroom - SUNY Global CenterThis session will provide tips on how to create a successful product and showcase some of the most interesting news products recently launched: how are they conceived, developed and finally deployed? What are the keys to their success or failure?
Moderator
Deputy Off-Platform Editor, The New York Times, USA
Speakers
Chief Technology and Digital Officer, The Globe and Mail, Canada
Director of Newsroom Product, The Washington Post, USA
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Stream IDs:
- 7497
17:45
Networking
North American Digital Media Awards Winners Announcement & Drinks
Location:Global Classroom
It has been an incredible year for news to rethink, reshape and rejoice on extraordinary digital journalism. Pure players and traditional media outlets have shown us how innovation and remarkable storytelling are still fuelling the engines of great journalism.
Join us for the announcement of the 2019 North American Digital Media Awards winners followed by casual drinks to network with conference speakers and participants and hear more from the winners' and finalists' projects!
Competing this year are:
Best News Website or Mobile Service
A Future Based on Investigative Journalism, The Globe and Mail, Canada
PGNewsSlide, Block Communications, Inc., USA
washingtonpost.com, The Washington Post, USA - WINNER
Best Digital Marketing Campaign for News Brands
Democracy Dies in Darkness, The Washington Post, USA
Good Things Campaign, The Wall Street Journal, USA
The Truth is Worth It, The New York Times, USA - WINNER
Best Data Visualization
Orchestra Gender Disparity, Quartz, USA
Self-driving cars: Who to save, who to sacrifice?, Radio-Canada, Canada
The four days in 1968 that reshaped D.C., The Washington Post, USA - WINNER
Best Digital Project to Engage Youger and/or Millennial Audiences
The leaders' dialogue, Le Devoir, Canada
Made in PGH, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, USA
Playing Games with Politicians, The Washington Post, USA - WINNER
Best Use of Online Video
Explainer Videos, Le Devoir, Canada
The Future of Gaming (in collaboration with Retro Report), Quartz, USA - WINNER
Best Paid Content Strategy
From IBM Watson to Health Tech: Our journey to creating a new, cross-channel vertical, STAT, USA - WINNER
The Truth is Worth It, The New York Times, USA
