As the Chief Innovation Officer for Dow Jones, Edward Roussel is responsible for managing relationships with large tech companies including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple. He says the tech giants have three things media do not – and one of them may surprise you.
“The most obvious is that they have a lot of money,” Roussel said in an interview with New World Encounters, which is organizing, “How Silicon Valley Is Transforming the News Business,” a virtual dialogue among experts, including Roussel, on 20 April.
“The second advantage: the phenomenal amount of data they have. These companies have data on everything, from how customers consume to what works and what doesn’t,” he said. “This information allows Tech companies to create the best media products in the world.”
And the third advantage?
“The third thing, which is arguably the least obvious for media to understand, is that these companies are not afraid,” he said. “In fact, I very often find in media companies, that people are afraid. They are afraid to change their product and they are afraid to change the experiences around their products.”
This fearlessness in the Tech company culture allows them to be more open to experimentation, and is a key takeaway for media companies seeking to compete in the digital environment.
“I think there is one key thing to remember … the media should be less afraid of changing the user experiences of their digital products,” he said. “Why? Because the world is changing very quickly. I see this at close quarters, and I see that Google, Facebook and Apple have made very significant progress in terms of media on their platforms. If we are not competitive with what they are doing, they will crush us.”
Edward Roussel will be joined by Pierre Louette, the President and Director General of the French media group Les Echos-Le Parisien, Frédéric Filloux, creator of DeepNews.ai and editor of Monday Note, George Brock, the former head of the journalism school at City University of London and managing editor of the Times, and other speakers to be announced, in the discussion on the transformation of the news business on 20 April.
More information on “How Silicon Valley is Transforming the News Business” can be found here.
New World Encounters is a joint community organized by Upgrade Media and QuestiQ to connect people, companies and organizations across borders and industries around specific, current themes, with physical, virtual and hybrid encounters. NWE aims to break through fixed patterns, creating room for new solutions in the new digital media world we are all creating. To learn more about New World Encounters, contact David Sallinen.