INMA has focused on one big theme thus far in 2010: how to generate financial value from the integration of audience, content, and platform.

We believe this is a central theme as our industry transitions from “newspapers” to “newsmedia companies.”

Yet from this big theme stem three more focused subjects we're trying to cover with greater detail:

• Integrated advertising sales: A report, a seminar, a soon-to-be-released blog, and significant conference programming.


• The value of content: A report on content value, a report on synergies, a seminar, a blog at INMA.org, and significant conference programming.


• Tablets: The recent INMA World Congress in New York and the University of Oxford Tablet Summit were our first forays into this subject.

In the second half of 2010, we've decided to circle back on these three subjects for deeper dives: Ideas Magazine case studies and cover stories, seminars, publications, and more. For what's missing are the nitty-gritty details of what newsmedia companies are doing on each subject.

Of the three subjects, only integrated advertising sales has sufficient case studies — and even then, the strategic decision to move is based on an evaluation of the local advertising community's ability to communicate cross-media.

“Value of content” is a story of non-traditional experiments, ranging from database journalism to the intensity of the experience to the emerging need for consumers to participate in news via social media. To date, it's a lot of smaller stories and I'm not sure what they add up to — yet.

As for tablets, there a lot of app models in the first iteration of the iPad wrapped in a lot of hope. Let's all agree that the story arc of tablets will be about what succeeds and fails in the next six months — and what “best practice” models emerge.

This is the INMA agenda through year's end. I encourage you to participate!