Schibsted is closer to an ecosystem

Schibsted has been working towards an ecosystem across our brands for many years. Now we’re getting one step ­closer with the Alpha project.

“Schibsted reaches 80% of all Swedes and Norwegians on a weekly basis through our different brands. So, we have a unique opportunity to give these users new offers and great ­experiences,” says Karl Hahtovirta, Director of Subscriptions in Sweden.

Karl, who has worked in all of Schibsted’s three business divisions, really sees how broadly Schibsted’s ­various products touch people in their daily lives.

Since we can share data across different Schibsted products, we have a much deeper understanding than before about the people who use our products and their needs. This ­data could help improve the products we have – Aftonbladet, for instance, could learn from the needs of Blocket users, Karl explains.

“We could also offer bundles with Schibsted brands or in co-operation with partners. And we could identify clusters of new products needed by these users and create them.”

As a start, Schibsted is already offering bundles of our different news brands in Sweden and Norway. Karl is also sure that the ongoing AI wave will open up for exciting opportunities, in which news brands can expand the content they serve and also offer the right format to the right user.

“In this AI-era, trust will be a great asset, and here Schibsted is well ­positioned with our loved brands.”

Co-creation with young users

Our efforts have involved diverse groups, including young teenagers from outer city Stockholm, young tech enthusiasts and graduates working to fight climate change. What all our great ­co-creators have in common is that they ­express various pain points in and from their news experiences. These pain points involve news that makes them feel too sad and frustrated or news that fails to highlight diverse perspectives. Other frustrations ­involve experiences with ­contemporary pro­duct formats that don’t fit with the needs and wants of the group.

During our first year of operations, we have sought to understand these themes by hosting brief ideation sessions, deep-dive workshops, and programs spanning multiple months. The work always starts with a problem or pain point identified, ­upon which we typically phrase a “How might we…” statement for the selec­ted group of co-creators to transform ­into a possible future solution. Example statements that our work has explored include: “How might we ­enhance ­voices from outer city ­areas with digital tools?”, “How might we involve our friends in our news experience?” or “How might we consume climate news in a way that gives us hope for the future?”

Prototyping Possible Futures

Our co-creation processes have ­yielded prototypes of varying ­degrees of sophistication. Regardless of their format, they serve the common ­purpose of inspiring thought-provo­king discussions and raising important questions about the possible futures of news. To truly innovate, we need to be open to exploring not only the most probable or desirable scenarios but a broader spectrum of futures as well. This is important because some of the challenges facing the news media today might need more than incremental improvements.

By prototyping possible futures, we make them more tangible. Examples of IN/LAB prototypes include:

News as music was a prototype news experience presenting news to the beat of AI-generated music – or as an AI-generated rap song. The experience was tested live on Aftonbladet.se for 1,000 selected young users and was positively received. The idea came from the News Changemaker Program, our ten-week youth co-creation program.

Senti Sense is a fictional news ­product that analyses the user’s reactions to news in real-time and dynamically adjusts news ­content (e.g., language, tonality and ­angles) to match the user’s emotional state and empower feelings of ­clarity and understanding when consuming news. The idea came from News2030, our five-day design sprint co-hosted with Schibsted News Destination Engineering.

Mindfulne(w)ss is a fictional app combining news and mindfulness to make you more conscious in your news consumption. The app contains a conscious check-in, slow scroll and no clickbait – all to promote inner calm. It guides you through the emotions you get when reading a news story and helps you reflect on the news content. The idea came from our co-creation workshop with Naturskyddsföreningen’s young ambassadors.

The power of co-creation

By fostering an environment of shared creativity, we can find new ways of reaching potential ­audiences and tackling critical ­problems in the news media industry. Our work ­underscores the power of co-creation in sparking ­innovative solutions to shape a sustainable path forward.

In many ways, we have moved past digitalisation; we are almost through it. Now it’s about transforming our digital self. Ensuring that Aftonbladet stands strong when we take the final steps from a newspaper online to a true ­online company with its heart and soul in journalism. A true online news site will be something else. Text, sound and video will merge into new user experiences, consumers will choose how they want to interact with us – rather than just be fed with a feed. Journalism will move beyond the traditional news destination and build more on relation to a brand and profiles. Content will to a much higher degree be personalised. The composition of an article and the presentation will cut its final ties to the print newspaper. Short versions and summaries will become core content, not add-ons. And storytelling will find new paths.

And, at this very moment in our journey, AI steps in. We don’t know where this is going to take us. We can’t foresee how AI will transform society or us. But we know it is something new. And we are, as ­always, curious.

Generative AI will create entirely new conditions for our industry. The one who is quickest to understand and use the new technology will have a huge advantage. Media houses that dive into AI, that unsentimentally examine all their processes and become much better at taking care of both users and customers, will stand strong. Many others will not.

It’s about a culture that embraces data, personalisation and algorithms, making technology our strongest ally in the service of journalism.

AI can become a powerful tool for free and independent journalism and for Aftonbladet, as a true digital ­company, to be more sustainable, more efficient and even smarter.

AI can also become a tool for ­dis­information and hate. We will ­investigate and report on this; we will use AI-empowered journalism as a counterforce. We will help our readers understand the societal shift we are now entering. And we must understand it ourselves. It might be frightening. But it’s also incredibly exciting.

So, here we go again! It’s time for Aftonbladet to turn things upside down. And today we do it together in Schibsted, a group that is world-leading in digitalising its media houses and already has many AI initiatives and specialised common teams.

To genuinely build an Aftonbladet that utilises the full power of generative AI, we have put together a small group of people who are passionate about new things. No one is an expert when it comes to what we don’t know. So, these individuals have different skills and experiences. They come from the newsroom, sports, print, product, pod, tech and UX. They will challenge us, experiment and test stuff, along with our users. And they will slowly change us from within. As always.

Because new technology in the hands of inspired people is transformative. That’s the Aftonbladet Way.

(And yes, this text was written with the assistance of my new friend Chat.)

Let’s once and for all bury the bridge metaphor. Or – more precisely – drop it in the ocean and let it sleep with the fishes. Because the digital trans­formation is not a journey. It has no endpoint. We cannot look forward to calm days on a paradisiacal island. No, unfortunately, we are doomed to ­eternal sailing in turbulent waters.

“We are no longer talking about ­digital transformation, but the transformation of digital,” said Nic Newman, Senior Research Associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

Several journalists have later made the quote their own. It’s not ­surprising. Newman is right. Every­thing suggests that editor-­driven media, even in the most digitalised markets, now face fundamental changes. Online newspapers as we know them are no longer cutting-edge. They may suffer the same fate as the print editions. It is adapt or die. Again.

This is something we have tried to ­address at Schibsted News Media. In the spring of 2023, a group of ­employees worked to set a ­direction for newsrooms in Norway and Sweden. The goal was not to micromanage ­editors or editorial teams. They are autonomous units and know their users best. Media houses cannot and should not be subjected to micromanagement.

Moreover, for a large media conglomerate such as Schibsted, it is beneficial and essential that media houses do not make exactly the same decisions in all situations. Different approaches ensure broad innovation, ample room for experimentation, and cross-brand learning.

But some trends are so fundamental that no one can afford to overlook them. The changes are so significant that the ­media must colla­borate to adapt to a completely new ­reality. Some of these potential epochal shifts for ­journalism were ­addressed by the project Next Generation Newsrooms. The work resulted in a series of proposals for ­initiatives at Schibsted News Media. Here are three of the most crucial:

Invest in our brands

Invest in our brands with trust and ­authenticity as our main differentiator. In general, Schibsted’s brands have high trust, and we set strict ­requirements to adhere to our edi­torial guidelines. But all media are being challenged by generative AI on parameters such as speed, cost, and product experiences. It will become increasingly challenging both for ­reporters and the audience to ­navigate sources and facts amidst the explosion of content production.

Therefore, there is reason to prepare ourselves for trust and authenticity to be our most important ­value proposition. Authenticity is our strongest card when much of today’s human-­created content can be replaced by generative AI. The media needs to strengthen and nurture trust and authenticity, and equally important: communicate clearly how we work and how we adhere to our ethical standards. We cannot take for granted that the audience understands what lies behind genuine, truth-seeking journalism.

Leverage AI

Leverage AI for better products and efficient newsrooms. Schibsted News Media has been experimenting with AI and robot journalism for a long time and has a strong foundation to build on. However, the use and development of AI tools have often been limited to ­specific groups and have not transpired into widespread knowledge. This cannot continue. Whilst ­generative AI poses a threat to us, it will be a crucial enabler to deliver on customer expectations regarding our product and content. To succeed, time is of the essence, both to reap short-term benefits and even more importantly to experiment and get familiar with AI in the newsrooms, to keep up and adapt.

After the project group deli­vered its recommendations, all ­media houses in Schibsted appointed AI-responsible personnel. Several teams are collaborating across the board and sharing experiences. We have hired a coordinator with substantial technological and journalistic experience to lead the work. One of the goals is to identify potential new needs and steps in the editorial workflow and recommend the next actions for tooling development. The significant change, however, is not about building tools but creating a culture for experimenting with gene­rative AI throughout the organisation. Even though this technological paradigm shift can be a threat and must be met with healthy criticism, we must also embrace all the opportunities we now have. They can represent a new spring for journalism.

Challenge ourselves

Challenge ourselves from within and outside. If we are to be completely honest, not much has changed since the first online newspapers became accessible to everyone in the early 2000s. We still present our content in traditional formats. The storytelling techniques are strikingly similar to those we swore by when print newspapers were at their peak. It’s a paradox. Our users have long since adapted to new content formats. And yes, they actually prefer them to news media.

Surveys show that the next generation of news readers spend far more time on TikTok than on all traditional media. But that’s not all. They also use social media to keep up with the news picture, even during major news events. We cannot overlook this.

Our challenge is that our core audience, the traditional newspaper readers, are highly satisfied with our products. If we change too much and too quickly, they protest. It’s bad for business. The consequence is that we spend a lot of time on incremental ­innovation, but we probably do not allocate enough time and resources to radical changes and ­experimentation. This causes the gap between us and the next generation to widen. And it could become so large that it’s impossible to build a bridge (pun intended) over the chasm.

To avoid this future, it was a clear recommendation from the project that Schibsted allocate more resources to creating news products ­specifically targeted at young people and ­other groups who do not find us relevant ­today. This can naturally happen under an established brand, but we believe that we should also test out entirely new services, not necessarily to ­replace ­today’s websites, but to ­enable experimentation with very ­radical solutions.

The project does not point to a single redemptive solution for the newsrooms of the future. We cannot draw a detailed map to a safe haven for journalism. Our suggestion is ­rather to launch a whole series of large and small speed boats that can provide us with a higher development pace, better dialogue with the audience, and a greater opportunity to adapt to a technological shift that we haven’t seen the likes of since the internet emerged. We are not sure where it will lead us, but we are confident that our fuel will be trust and journalistic credibility.

For some reason, snack options have increased since Schibsted took over DBA (improving upon the boring eBay-sponsored snack selection in 2021). Just when the Danes had collec­tively learned that Karsten Ree no longer owned the marketplace, now we have to correct our table host at the next wedding, who, only ­updated on the second most recent change of ownership, attempts to ascertain: “Well, DBA …that’s what Karsten sold to eBay, isn’t it?”

Despite the fact that behind each change of ownership, there is a long sausage of explanations about who now owns DBA, the switch to Schibsted is a big change. Even though the ­office, the office chairs and the coffee ­machine are the same as when we were in the arms of eBay, there is now room and opportunity to dream big. A ­recent organisational change in the entire Schibsted Nordic Marketplace means that we are collaborating to a ­greater extent with our Nordic sister sites in Norway, Sweden and Finland to ­improve and preserve DBA.

So Majken and I can hopefully, someday soon, intensify the ­frequency of bags that must be delivered inside the garden gate and on the hedge. However, the speculation among my neighbours is unlikely to go away, regardless of how frequently or infrequently I dump anonymous bags into the shrubbery.

11 new European unicorns was born in the first three quarters of 2023, three of them in Q3.

77 billion USD is the value of expected investment in European startups 2023 (well over the previous pre-pandemic record).

This is where the framework and the 42 tools come in. But perhaps even more important is the ­perspective that this theory is not something reserved for only your work life. That insight was pushed by Nathan’s wife Susannah Harmon Furr, who is an entrepreneur, designer and art historian.

Together, they wrote the book that serves as a guide to the framework, called “The Upside of Uncertainty.”

Susannah helped Nathan ­understand that uncertainty is incorporated in all parts of people’s lives and even if he speaks to leaders, it starts with us as people, as human beings.

“And she was so right. All that ­uncertainty, it fires in your brain. You feel it in your gut. And to help others through it, I really believe you’ve got to start with yourself.”

In the book, Nathan and Susannah prove that. They share some private stories about their lives and their family, times when uncertainty was fundamental and when the framework helped them see the crisis from a new perspective. Like when their son became very depressed in the ­aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they had to watch over and care for him. The tool they speak about is reframing.

“We reframed in that moment to focus on what we still had. And that was each other, the capacity to have him with us and give him the right treatment. Instead of focusing on the uncertainty.”

Reframing is one of four categories in the toolbox.

“We have this heritage from evolution that we tend to run from things we see as a loss or a threat. But when we see it as a gain, we run towards it. So, if you focus on the possibility side you trigger more of that positive momentum, and the tools in this category are about that,” he explains.

The three other categories are called priming, taking action, and sustaining. And with these in place, leaders will be better equipped to dare to explore new possibilities, according to Nathan.

And that’s the whole point. To Nathan, leading in uncertainty is one piece of what he believes is a greater innovation capability.

“As the world becomes more ­dynamic, you’ve got to explore, and you have to innovate. And because I’ve been obsessed about what uncertainty is my whole career, I have also been obsessed with finding all the parts of the puzzle that lead to innovation.”

Some of those parts he has found are connected to behaviours, ­processes, culture, leadership and organisation. Things he will also go into during the course.

On a personal level, Nathan also struggles with uncertainty.

“It makes me really nervous.”

And, depending on personality, he acknowledges that some people will struggle a bit more than others to embrace his thesis.

“But on the other hand, the research is very clear – people can learn this and get better at it.”