The Chaser

To figure out the path to the future, each participant joined one of seven working groups created during the seminar. These groups looked at content, customers, competition, community, credibility, competencies and corporate structure. The output from those groups will be used to create a "manifesto." No time table has been set. 

Meanwhile here are some of the key takeaways and questions from the seminar, as reported by Chaser Rob Runett:

• Online news organizations associated with newspapers should salute their achievements during the last 10 years: Reaching entirely new audiences, enabling a once-a-day medium to become a competitor in the breaking news business, achieving profitability and adding real value to the parent company.
• News organizations have begun to embrace a two-way relationship with their audience, and that relationship will evolve and change in new ways. How will journalists and the organizations that fund their work react to this change? The current distrust and, in some cases, disdain for readers should be replaced with respect.
• During the next 10 years, will the economic underpinnings of the current media business collapse? What business models will support quality journalism? Is the idealism and democratic value of journalism under duress?
• New storytelling models will emerge that engage online audiences and attract new participants to newspapers' journalism, brands and products.
• The transformation for media companies has to happen faster. During one presentation, a series of slides about opportunities used an emotional appeal from Mr. Marshall Mathers to motivate us: "If you had one shot, or one opportunity/To seize everything you ever wanted/One moment/Would you capture it or just let it slip?" (Marshall Mathers = Eminem. Those are the lyrics that start the song "Lose Yourself," which will definitely get you wired and is totally applicable to an industry that needs inspiration.)
• The industry is too focused on small fixes to broken models instead of being courageous and daring. Our dynamic competitors know this and will take full advantage of our inaction.

Many of the Web+10 participants have personal blogs (no surprise), and they wrote about the seminar. Here are few worth a look:

• Jessica Barron, of Yahoo!, said the seminar was "was better than Burning Man!": http://www.poprocks.com
• Robin Sloan, of INdTV, and Matt Thompson, of the Fresno Bee: http://snarkmarket.com/blog/snarkives/journalism/index.html
• Steve Yelvington of Morris Communicatins: http://www.yelvington.com/item.php?id=824
• Neil McIntosh of The Guardian, London: http://www.completetosh.com/weblog/2005/02/state_of_the_un.html