Product

It’s about the content

 
The product function at publishers filled a void created by the church-and-state construct that, however well-intentioned, led to dysfunctional businesses that did a poor job of serving any constituency. Publishers were roughly divided between editorial and “the business side,” a rickety arrangement made for a different time of static distribution techniques like newspapers and magazines. Organizing the publication of a magazine is no mean feat, but bringing that challenge into digital media made it insurmountable.

The internet obliterated such artificial divides. Product management, pioneered in Silicon Valley, was adopted by news organizations as a way to bridge that divide. It wasn’t editorial, it wasn’t sales, it wasn’t tech, it wasn’t design, it wasn’t marketing. And it sounded… innovative. On the surface, the role is about how to move organizations forward, enable change and lead projects to serve audiences and the business better. In effect, the product group played the role of traffic cop, trying to balance a series of conflicting priorities and loud voices. Talk to the sales group, advertisers need to be satisfied because they pay the bills. The subscriptions department has quotas to hit. The edit group just wants to lose the autoplay video. And the platforms all have algorithms to be fed, while the tech department has pet projects to launch.

 Συνέχεια εδώ

Πηγή: therebooting.substack.com