Chris O'Brien, a JTM-DC attendee who is helping manage change at the MediaNews Group Inc.-owned San Jose Mercury News is out with a public declaration that the paper's going to be very -- public -- about how it remakes itself. Read what he wrote in an email last night:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 21:30:45 -0800
From: "O'Brien, Chris"
Greetings:
You're getting this note because you're someone who I think is interested in the future of the San Jose Mercury News. Like much of our industry, the Merc has been in a nosedive the past few years. Our newsroom has shrunk from 400 to 200 people since 2001. After the latest round of cuts in June, our executive editor, Carole Leigh Hutton, said it was time to "blow up the newsroom." And that began an ambitious attempt to re-imagine what the Mercury News could and should be, though under a somewhat more benign name: Rethinking the Mercury News.
We announced this process last summer, and then we got very quiet about it. Today, that changes. A big part of what we heard from the many people we interviewed is that we need to find ways to be part of the conversation in our community, and to help facilitate those conversations. Our first step in that direction is to announce that we will begin publicly discussing everything we're doing to Rethink the Merc. You can read about our progress every day right here: http://www.mercurynews.com/rethink . Or you can check out our blog, which is here: http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/rethink
But we want you to do more than read. We intend for this process to be a conversation between our newspaper and the community it serves. So speak up. We want you to contribute, suggest, rant, applaud, and participate. Our goal is nothing less than to become the leading source of information for the local community and the most innovative paper in the country, the paper that Silicon Valley deserves.
Best,
Chris O'Brien San Jose Mercury News 415-298-0207 AIM:chobrien99
Good for you! What you are doing is truly needed and ground-breaking!! Having worked for seventeen years in broadcast television, and now almost that long opening space for people and organizations that are in an emergent process of transformation, I have a few pieces of advice for you:
1. Create a leadership team for the effort that keeps asking: What is the highest purpose we are serving? And keeps helping each other stay open to possibility when the going gets rough and people are wondering why they even started this!
2. Treat pain and disturbance as the place of opportunity for new possibility to emerge. It is simply the signal that a new possibility lies beyond the current boundary of your awareness. So make it the opportunity for Inquiry: Tell us the story. Flip it into an appreciation of what news the teller is bringing you. Engage in an appreciative exploration of what is the positive message for the newspaper.
3. Use an Appreciative method for learning what is already working, what people imagine could work, and tracking the creative flow of experimentation and results. You will then be surfacing and telling the story of the life force that is powering the change.
4. Engage all stakeholders in a learning community of practice. After all...that is what The San Jose Mercury News is, or could be, if you want to take maximum advantage of the work your folks are doing all the time....a learning community FOR the community.
5. Use methodologies such as Open Space Technology and Appreciative Inquiry that provide a seamless self-organizing format for the change process you are shepherding. It will be MUCH easier...and you will find just-in-time leadership and form emerging.
Good luck and many many thanks for your pioneering spirit and good work!
Anne Stadler
18468—47th Place NE
Lake Forest Park, WA 98155
206-364-3317
Posted by: anne stadler | November 05, 2007 at 12:44 PM