If you go back to the the last century, the "joke" was that the business model for a local newspaper was that you get some good journalists, some good ad sales people, and everything else you do as cheaply as you can. This was an expressly stated formula. That worked then in local-monopoly days, and newspapers became very focused on tightly managing expenses for the short term.
The only news companies that recruited at top MBA programs in the 1980s were Time Inc. and the NY Times. The other ones that regularly hired MBA's then were the ones experimenting with electronic information services, like Knight Ridder and Dow Jones. The early platforms like Prodigy and some "teletext" services, which some news companies were involved with, did attract some good business talent back then.
But as the business challenges become greater, more digital and more interesting, I hope you're right that combining the interesting challenges with the important social mission will bring in a new influx of business talent to take the industry forward.
I'm in complete agreement with your analysis, Dick. And we are finding some success in attracting good business minds into our work at Cityside. But here in the Bay Area (and I imagine you found something similar in NY), the rewards for someone good at, say, product, audience or sponsorship in the tech industry are so enormous that a lot of talent is unavailable to us.
Fortunately there are some who understand our broader mission and are inspired by that. And there's certainly a growing tech diaspora who want to do work with meaning. But the challenge of finding talent on the business side is substantial.
If you go back to the the last century, the "joke" was that the business model for a local newspaper was that you get some good journalists, some good ad sales people, and everything else you do as cheaply as you can. This was an expressly stated formula. That worked then in local-monopoly days, and newspapers became very focused on tightly managing expenses for the short term.
The only news companies that recruited at top MBA programs in the 1980s were Time Inc. and the NY Times. The other ones that regularly hired MBA's then were the ones experimenting with electronic information services, like Knight Ridder and Dow Jones. The early platforms like Prodigy and some "teletext" services, which some news companies were involved with, did attract some good business talent back then.
But as the business challenges become greater, more digital and more interesting, I hope you're right that combining the interesting challenges with the important social mission will bring in a new influx of business talent to take the industry forward.
I'm in complete agreement with your analysis, Dick. And we are finding some success in attracting good business minds into our work at Cityside. But here in the Bay Area (and I imagine you found something similar in NY), the rewards for someone good at, say, product, audience or sponsorship in the tech industry are so enormous that a lot of talent is unavailable to us.
Fortunately there are some who understand our broader mission and are inspired by that. And there's certainly a growing tech diaspora who want to do work with meaning. But the challenge of finding talent on the business side is substantial.