The Big Data For Media Study Tour will visit companies focused on best practices in Big Data strategy, organisation, technology, and business development as we hear from top data scientists, data analysts, product developers, and business strategists at each company.
Last year, the BBC launched MyBBC, a data-driven, personalisation strategy to benefit the vast BBC audience worldwide. Tony Hall, Director General of the BBC, set his vision for the BBC going forward, saying “it's the start of a real transformation – the myBBC revolution. How to reinvent public service broadcasting through data. But we will always be doing it in a BBC way – not telling you what customers like you bought, but what citizens like you would love to watch and need to know.” In order to accomplish this lofty goal, the BBC has made data analytics and insights a priority for both marketing and editorial. Some of the new positions at the BBC include positions in data insights, data analytics, audience data, data engineering, data journalism editing and statistics editing. Several BBC executives will speak to student tour delegates about BBC’s data strategy and best practices.
Amanda Farnsworth
Editor, Visual Journalism @farnsaLinkedIn
James Holden
Director of Marketing & Audiences @bbcnewsLinkedIn
The Telegraph Media Group has been a leader in data strategy and innovation in the news media industry, using their rich audience data across platforms for optimising their advertising, subscription and editorial units. A group of executives from across the company will detail their strategy and best practices in leveraging data in order to grow audience and revenues.
Chris Taylor
Chief Information Officer, Executives in Data, Advertising and Subscription Units @telegraphLinkedIn
Robert Bridge
Chief Customer Officer @mrbridgerLinkedIn
Mazelle Siton
Director of Audience Insight LinkedIn
Chris Evans
Editor in Chief @chrisevans1LinkedIn
Cat Wildman
Director of Product LinkedIn
Robert Ffitch
Director of Advertising Revenue @robffitchLinkedIn
Paul De La Nougerede
Director of Digital Operations @nougeredeLinkedIn
In this study tour stop, learn more about Kinection, Bloomberg Media's re-imagined custom content studio. Kinection combines the kinetic energy of Bloomberg's proprietary data and technology with the connective power of Bloomberg's global, multi-platform scale to create the most effective custom content voice for partners.
Arif Durrani
Commercial Editor, Bloomberg Media EMEA @durranimix LinkedIn
Penny Bartram
Head of Marketing, Bloomberg Media EMEA @penny_lopeyLinkedIn
A full morning at The Guardian will focus on how the company has become a data-driven business, why quality and content matter with programmatic advertising, data and the user experience, and the company’s Touchpoint Project. Interact with Guardian strategists, business managers, sales executives , and product managers in this interactive stop.
Tony Danker
Chief Strategy Officer @tonydankerLinkedIn
Graham Page
Business Management and Customer OperationsLinkedIn
Fiona McKinnon
Managing Director, Pangaea Alliance @pangaeaallianceLinkedIn
Sarah Simonon
Head of Product, Discovery and User Experience LinkedIn
Kelly Walls
Senior Programme Manager LinkedIn
Google created the News Lab to support quality journalism with tools, data and programs under the umbrella of the Google News Lab. The goal is for news organizations to create and distribute great journalism.
During this visit, learn more Google's data tools for journalists, data-driven advertising, best practices, and their view on what will happen next in this space.
Matt Cooke
Google News Lab Lead, UK, Ireland and the Nordics @mattcooke_ukLinkedIn
Thomas Girard
Technical Solutions Consultant, Google LinkedIn
Cognitive computing, including artificial intellligence, machine learning and predictive analytics, represents the next wave of disruption AND opportunity for media companies around the world. Categories of cognitive computing innnovations include language (dialog, tone analyzer, personality insights), analyzing video and images, speech (text to speech and speech to text) and data (targeted search and trend analysis, content analytics and full view of your company's data).
Study tour delegates will gain rare access to IBM Watson's client center, and see Virtual Reality demonstrations and experience the power of IBM Watson through touch screens and live demos. The Watson team will present about cognitive computing opportunities for media companies, and will hear case studies of practical applications from its Bluemix practice, to grow audience, make money, save money and create efficiencies.
Carrie (Karen) Lomas
IBM Executive, Cognitive Solutions and Internet of Things Director, Europe LinkedIn
A forum for media company executives seeking to share and learn strategies and best practices for launching and running their Big Data for Media operations. The exchange will be held at one of the most innovative data-driven media companies in the world, the Financial Times.
Welcome to the Financial Times, and welcome to this unique interactive experience exchanging ideas on data analytics — moderated by the best and brightest.
Host and Moderator: Tom Betts
Chief Data Officer and Member of Board of Directors, Financial Times @tombettsLinkedIn
Moderator: Clancy Childs
Chief Data Officer, Dow Jones @cchildsLinkedIn
Moderator: Shane Murray
Vice President, Data Analytics and Platforms, The New York Times LinkedIn
Moderator: Grzegorz Piechota
Research Associate, Harvard Business School, Boston and Warsaw @g_piechotaLinkedIn
Two simultaneous topic discussions from which to choose:
Two simultaneous topic discussions from which to choose:
The global conference for media executives seeking to create strategies and apply next-generation data analytics to engage audiences and grow revenue. The conference is hosted by Reuters in Canary Wharf.
In an overview of the state of Big Data in media, learn from the partners in the Big Data For Media Conference on the fast lane, middle lane, and slow lane of next-generation data analytics.
Martha Stone
CEO, World Newsmedia Network LinkedIn
Earl J. Wilkinson
CEO, International News Media Association (INMA) @earljwilkinson LinkedIn
Moderator: Jodie Hopperton
VP Partnerships & Audience Development, Vemba@jodiehop LinkedIn
Product development is core to the mission of the Washington Post. While content is king, it is equally important to get right a multitude of product attributes: Design, consistency, stability, speed and feature sets. According to Shailesh Prakash, chief information officer and executive vice president at the Washington Post, you can have the best content in the world, but if the product isn’t there, the adoption, usage and engagement doesn’t occur. When developing each new product, the devil is in the details: These can remove the friction of usage by improving user interface with improved design and color palette, decrease load times to fractions of a second, and in general, “reducing the cognitive overhead,” he said. Prakash will inspire the audience about how the Washington Post has adopted a discipline of product development for audience engagement and revenue-making.
Shailesh Prakash
CIO and EVP, Washington Post@sprakash007 LinkedIn
The focus on the customer is a pillar of FT's business practices, and customer data is the fuel that drives the strategy. In this presentation, learn the strategy and case studies that have developed over the years, and how employees are given sophisticated but easy-to-use data tools to explore audience insights in order to experiment with new and innovative customer-focused products and processes across departments, including subscriptions, editorial and advertising.
Tom Betts
Chief Data Officer and Member of Board of Directors, Financial Times @tombettsLinkedIn
With programmes, products and services that are consumed by 99% of UK households every week and an ambition to provide its content to 500 million people around the world, the BBC strives to put its audiences and audience data at the heart of everything it does. Throughout almost a century of existence, data has underpinned decision-making as well as programme and product development at the BBC. James Holden will outline how the organisation uses data today to deliver its public service mission, and outline how harnessing data sources and technological developments are more crucial than ever to be able to inform, educate and entertain a 21st century audience.
James Holden
Director of Marketing & Audiences, BBC News Group LinkedIn
Hear from morning speakers Shailesh Prakash, Tom Betts, and James Holden in this interactive experience.
DB Digital is the digital arm of India's Dainik Bhaskar, the fourth largest newspaper in the world. The website garners billions of page views per month, but in order to grow, they needed to employ a data strategy. After the launch of a data-driven story recommendation engine, page views grew by 15 percent. In addition, the strategy had a significant impact on user engagement and revenue. Next they are planning to launch a notification engine that will show what content is engaging, and will also launch a predictive content engine to serve to customers based on their interests.
Gyan Gupta
CEO, DB Digital @gyanguptaLinkedIn
In just two years, Agora, the largest media house in Poland, built a data department with 10 programmers and analysts working together to build products to drive user engagement, revenue, audience insights and more. Its user profiling practice supports the advertising targeting business, while the personalisation of editorial content on websites increases the engagement and loyalty of users. The department built its own data management platform, including an automatic-tagging system, and a hate speech filter for user comments.
Luiza Pawela
Big Data Director, Agora LinkedIn
Afternoon speakers from DB Digital and Agora take questions on the practical subject of data department tactics and structures.
Dow Jones, which owns the Wall Street Journal and Factiva, serves both consumer and business customers with revenue-making, data-driven products. The company’s team of data scientists and analysts develop products with internal and externally sourced data, including Factiva, which is vast database of licensed and unlicensed content from 32,000 sources. Products have been developed to plumb these otherwise overlooked databases for their lucrative investment house clients.
Clancy Childs
Chief Data Officer, Dow Jones @cchildsLinkedIn
The Economist enjoys a 173-year reputation of excellence in journalism. While every media company struggles to meet the demands of the Digital Age, The Economist has embraced data by investing in a variety of data driven marketing and editorial projects, among them, a powerful strategy of social media engagement in Economist journalism. Cukier, the co-author of the best-selling Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think, leads the data analytics team, and manages The Economist’s new digital product development practise, including rethinking print and digital publishing.
Kenneth Cukier
Senior Editor of Digital Products, The Economist @kncukierLinkedIn
Products are created and improved with the help of detailed, scientific audience data. Mary Hamilton, who leads the Guardian's editorial audience development teams, will describe how audience teams work with product teams to create, tailor and refine content products.
Mary Hamilton
Executive Editor for Audience (overseeing participation, loyalty and reach), Guardian @newsmary LinkedIn
Hear from afternoon speakers Clancy Childs, Kenneth Cukier, and Mary Hamilton in this interactive experience.
Publishers want a content management system that publishes on multiple channels and audiences and also leverages cutting edge technologies for personalisation and audence expansion. The Washington Post is no exception, so its team of engineers built the Arc Publishing system, that feature a variety of “products,” including Websked, a newsroom scheduling and planning tool; Goldfish, a video CMS; Anglerfish, a photo CMS; PageBuilder, a CMS for editors and developers working together; Loxodo, an analytics suite of tools; Ellipsis, a digital storytelling tool for teams; Darwin, an A/B testing tool to improve UX; Clavis, a personalisation engine; Bandito, a variant testing tool for headlines, blurbs and photos to improve clickthrough rates; Coral, an open-source commenting system; and more. This power breakfast session will be presented by Shailesh Prakash, CIO and VP of digital product development at the Washington Post.
Moderator: Jodie Hopperton
The Pangaea Alliance is a digital advertising alliance founded by some of the world's most trusted and premium publishers, including the Guardian, The Financial Times, CNNi, Reuters, Dennis Publishing and Manseuto Ventures. The Alliance drives incremental brand advertisers and budgets to its partners, and in return offers advertisers a single buying point to reach high net-worth individuals in a brand-safe, curated environment. Managing Director Fiona McKinnon will give insight into the story behind bringing together the world's leading publishers; the challenges of creating combined data and ad products, getting the most from technology providers, and how to increase advertising yields.
Fiona McKinnon
Managing Director, Pangaea Alliance @turnleft_fionaLinkedIn
Data drives all processes and products at the Telegraph Media Group. This presentation will highlight the company's business transformations in the past year, and the role of audience data to drive decision-making and new product development, particularly their new subscription strategy, Telegraph Premium. Learn how TMG challenges all employees to innovate, and gives them data-driven tools to create new processes and products.
Chris Taylor
Chief Information Officer, Telegraph Media Group LinkedIn
Most newspaper companies do not have global brands and audiences like the New York Times or Financial Times. This means that they must apply Big Data to their business models on a smaller scale. Steffen Damborg will present five examples of how small- and medium-sized media companies are leveraging Big Data business models.
Steffen Damborg
Digital Media Consultant and Former Chief Digital Officer, JP/Politiken Local Media, Denmark @SteffenDamborg LinkedIn
Join morning speakers Fiona McKinnon, Chris Taylor, and Steffen Damborg in an interactive session focus on revenue generation.
IBM Watson has been a leader in the development of the next wave of disruptive technology: Cognitive computing. Cognitive technology includes articificial intelligence, machine learning and predictive analytics, which are being built into some of the most innovative products for media companies today. Content of all kinds, including text, images and video, can be analysed, categorised, leveraged and targeted to groups of customers. These data can tell us deep insights about customers, including their personalities, and to what degree they are loyal lovers of your brand. These technologies can make sure companies are getting the most out of their rich, deep databases. Carrie Lomas, head of the Internet of Things and Cognitive Solutions practice at IBM Watson will guide the audience through a brand new world of data possibilities.
Carrie (Karen) Lomas
IBM Executive, Cognitive Solutions and Internet of Things Director, Europe LinkedIn
Automated Insights leverages its Wordsmith artificial intelligence platform to help media companies generate stories using raw data, such as data-rich sports or business stories. The Associated Press transforms raw data into thousands of business earnings and sports game recaps. Dustin Bass will give examples of how big and small media companies are using natural language generation (NLG) to create huge efficiencies in the distribution of journalistic content.
Dustin Bass
Business Development Manager, Automated Insights, USA @dustinhbass LinkedIn
Matthew Gould will explore the power of artificial intelligence for publishers now and in the near future, helping to inspire the news media to understand how AI and other technologies will create revenue, costs savings, audience expansion and engagement, and customer service opportunities.
Matthew Gould
Chief Strategy Officer, Arria, United Kingdom LinkedIn
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics in the media sector is fundamentally changing how companies are run and resources are allocated. This panel will tease out the trends and best practices in this space.
As data teams strive to meet the growing demand for insights, how do we fuse together data platforms for faster, smarter analysis? Learn how data teams at The New York Times have developed a set of unified capabilities that power analytics and data science across the company. See case studies of the initiatives that benefit from these capabilities, from experiments in product design to explorations of reader preference.
Shane Murray
Vice President, Data Analytics and Platforms, The New York Times LinkedIn
Schibsted is one of the most innovative media companies in the world, with 6,900 employees in 30 countries, reaching more than 200 million people per day. Verdens Gang is a Schibsted-owned newspaper in Norway whose website garners 2.4 million viewers per day. VG+ is their subscription-based offering, which has been dubbed Norway’s second largest “paper.” VG+’s success has been attributed to its discipline of data insights. They measure the best positioning of the paid material on the homepage and other usership trends to grow the subscription base. VG CEO Pedersen will show how A/B testing is continuously used in the newsroom, and will elaborate on their flower strategy: How data science, product development and editorial must cooperate to create magic.
Torry Pedersen
Head of Publishing, Schibsted Norway @torryp
Hear from afternoon speakers Shane Murray and Torry Pedersen in this interactive experience.
