For the first time, the five generations — Silent Generations, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Y — are actually present in the professional sphere. The experiences and technology each generation lived on dictates the way they approach work, Tomasz Grabowski, a board member at Polish media company Agora, said at the recent INMA World Congress of News Media in London.

“We have new generations that are emerging in the market,” Grabowski said. “Still from the perspective of humanity they have the same problems, same feelings, same crisis. There is nothing different that is happening today.”

Grabowski explained two elements and two processes that are being faced in the professional field.

First, there is a great problem with the ability to attract the new generations and to work with the news industry longer than a year or two. Second, the news industry is creating monogenerational themes to build up the products and ideas that will affect individual generations, Grabowski said.

“We have Gen Z who work for the product for and by Gen Z,” Grabowski said. “The new generation shows that their ‘Join for Life’ principle is not valid because in my opinion we are not creating intimate relationships in our organisations.”

Creating a multi-generational culture

Though the consumption preferences of each generation vary, Monicah Ndungu, chief operating officer at Nation Media Group in Kenya, said she believes the world has gone fully digital: “But I still think that we have a place for a multi-platform audience.”

Though so much time is spent online, yet one still found time to watch television, one might not buy newspapers everywhere but there is someone who couldn’t survive without a newspaper, Ndungu said. So there is a great case to be done about the great potential to attract and generate revenues across platforms.

Emerging generations are really driving the change, Grabowski said. Psychological aspects of human life, identity crisis, generativity, ego integrity, were the major factors heavily impacting any decisions of people.

“Monoculture kills growth anywhere, in the newsroom,” Grabowski said. “People who created newsrooms 30 to 40 years ago do not feel the need to invite the new generation with them into the work. Try to think how the multi-generational culture will look like.”

If one managed to put the older generation into new product development, Grabowski said there was just going to be single product lines with the flavours of products, not the different products: “It is important to put the right generation in the right type of work.”

Using data and technology to bridge the gap

In this disruptive era of technology everywhere, Ndungu said focus on the customer is lost.

“Diversification of revenue streams through robust content creation will ensure long-term financial stability,” Ndungu said. “The world is now about communities, creating communities out of niche content. Formats for revenue through magazines, they seem to work a lot for Nation Media Group, when you turn events into magazines. People like to see themselves.”

For NZME in New Zealand, data is the key impending part of their content strategy amidst changing technology, Carolyn Luey, the company’s chief digital and publishing officer, said.

Data insight in her company used to regulate the quality and conversations around the stories, Luey said. It provided the ability to plan and commission stories depending on the need.

Explaining the user-need model generated by Generative AI, Luey said that the model was based on four key user needs: Update Me, Educate Me, Help Me, Inspire Me.

“What we learnt from the model is that 70% of the stories produced were in the Update Me,” Luey said. “Help Me articles delivered three times the pageviews, Educate Me gave three times the subscription conversion.”

Luey reiterated the use of data to plan and optimise their stories, to deliver according to the reader’s needs and increase reader’s engagement. Personalisation of stories was also an important strategy, she added: “All our learnings are taken from our personalisation journey.”

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