MOOC experts surprised by how they're evolving

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Mark Glaser of PBS Mediashift recently pulled together a panel of experts for an online chat about how massive open online courses (MOOCs) are affecting universities and professional education. Some exceprts from the fascinating 40-minute exchange are below.

Alves

Rosental Alves, director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas, has been running MOOCs on journalism topics since 2012.

One of the surprising things about these courses is how many non-journalists are taking them, Alves said.  There is a hunger for learning the journalistic skills of gathering, verifying and presenting information, he said.

(Many of my 2,000 fellow students were non-journalists when I took the center's course on data visualization offered by Alberto Cairo.)

7 mobile stats that should scare digital publishers

After years of predictions that this year would be the year of mobile, finally it has arrived. So here are some numbers that should prompt strategizing and action by digital media publishers.

1. Web traffic from mobile devices was up 78 percent year over year in mid-2013, and 109 percent over 2011, according to Ayaz Nanji, writing in Marketing Profs.

To cite one prominent media example of the trend, ESPN has been registering more than half of its traffic from mobile. For publishers the message is clear: you need a mobile app or mobile-friendly version of your content or your audience will leave you behind.

2. In 2013, for the first time, Americans spent more time on their mobile devices every day than on the desktop, according to eMarketer.  Mobile's share of daily time spent, 19.4 percent, is the only category that grew in the past year: television, desktop computers, print and radio all declined, as they have each year since 2010.

3. As of the fourth quarter of 2013, almost half of Facebook's $2.6 billion in total revenue came from advertising sold on mobile devices. This is the world's largest social network, with half a billion daily active users. Facebook has made it clear that it is betting heavily on mobile. Why? Because about three-fourths of its users are there. (As a point of comparison, three-fourths of Twitter's audience and 65 percent of its ad revenues come from mobile. )

Power shifts toward journalists in new media equation

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The balance of power in media continues to shift away from the major news outlets toward the journalists who work for them.

Ezra Klein's departure from the Washington Post for Vox Media is just the latest of a string of changes that illustrate the rise of the journalist as a brand.

For journalists working in the trenches who do not drive millions of page views a month, the trend represents an opportunity. More news organizations are recognizing that their competitive edge comes from having staff members who are subject-area experts the public trusts and relies on.

Police blotter brings in $100k for Montana newspaper

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Who would have thought that a small-town newspaper could discover a new revenue source worth $100,000 by repackaging some of its content?

As the Wall Street Journal reports, a local best-selling book in a Montana town is "We Don't Make This Stuff Up: The Very Best of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle Police Reports."

Editors have always known of the public's interest in police news and the human dramas and comedies that law enforcement officers witness on a daily basis. But the Daily Chronicle decided to go a step beyond publishing the daily news and compile the most interesting items into a book.

Analytics is undercounting engagement of your users

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The two most important traffic measurements for news entrepreneurs are NOT unique visitors and page views. Those numbers can mislead you. They count people who arrive at your website by accident or search, glance at a page and leave.

As Ken Doctor has so eloquently put it:

"Unique visitors are a great dumb count. As I’ve noted, it’s as if in the print world we counted the everyday subscriber — consuming 5 hours a month of a news publication — the same as someone who, standing on a Midtown corner on a windy day, happened to catch a sheet of flying newsprint as she held up her hand to hail a cab."

By contrast, the two measures that should really matter to you are:

• engagement -- how long a visitor is on your site per visit and how many pages they view
• loyalty -- how many times they return per day, week or month

People problems in a small media organization, Part 2

Versión en español aquí.

In People Problems Part 1, we talked about two common kinds of complaints that you as a manager might hear.

• "I don't think Karl is showing enough commitment to his work"
• "The technical staff is being rude to our salespeople"

Then we walked you through the basic steps you as a manager could use to help your colleague solve the problems. The goal in this process is to develop your colleague's problem-solving skills.

If you focus on developing your people, your organization will develop far more rapidly than if you focus on just the numbers.

People problems in a small media organization, Part 1

Versión en español.

If you are leading a team in a small media organization, you need to get the best out of your people. Everyone has to be a contributor. 

This is not just a selfish thing. You get the best out of people by helping them develop their own talents, overcome obstacles and reach their own professional goals. 

Ask questions, don't give solutions

If a member of your team comes to you with a problem -- for example, "I don't think Karl is showing enough commitment to his work" or "the technical staff is being rude to our salespeople" -- you will not help the person by providing a solution. 

• First, the solution you propose might work for you but not for your colleague. You have different talents and experience. 
• Second, providing a solution denies the person the chance to grow, to develop confidence in problem solving.