10:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
(New York time)

Product has a role in supporting newsrooms to create different content formats that will attract and engage multiple audience segments. In the opening session for this masterclass we will look at how product focuses on new content formats that will make a difference for current and future audiences, how they map to user needs, and how they work with other departments to do so. We’ll explore different and innovative content formats and what frameworks to use to decide what we should use when and where.

10:00 a.m.-10:15 a.m. (New York time)
Welcome and introductions
Jodie Hoppperton, Product Initiative Lead, INMA, United States




10:15 a.m.-11:00 a.m. (New York time)
It starts with teams

One of the challenges product faces before even starting to think about innovative formats, is how teams are structured for the most effective outcomes. How do we find a model that allows for product, tech and business to operate at speed? In this session Matthew Skelton gives us insights into a solution based on cognitive load by providing an overview of Team Topologies: a practical, step-by‑step, adaptive model for organizational design and team interaction.

Matthew Skelton, Team Topologies Co-author, Founder, Conflux, United Kingdom


11:00 a.m.-11:30 a.m. (New York time)
Designing for innovative content formats

Before we think about new content formats, we should think about the framework that they will sit in. In this session veteran design and CX expert Nicole Dingess will take us through some best practices that gives structure but also allows creativity to introduce new content formats.

Nicole Dingess, Head of Product Design & UX, Advance Local, United States


11:30 a.m.-11:40 a.m. (New York time)
Measuring success with the right datas

When exploring new products and how multiple teams in your organization can coalesce around them, it’s essential to know what data to use to evaluate the success of a new strategy. In this session, Bilal Ayub will talk about using behavior goals to measure the effectiveness of different types of content and why all stakeholders should pay attention to events and engagement throughout the entire user journey.

Bilal Ayub, Senior Product Manager, Chartbeat, United States


11:40 a.m.-12:05 p.m. (New York time)
Innovative content formats as BAU vs special events: The FTs 80/15/5 philosophy

The Financial Times are looking at ways to enable journalists to create innovative content formats at the creation of the story without specific product and data resource. At the same time they want to push the boundaries to see what is possible, which necessitates a dedicated team. In this session Debbie will take us through how they think about these extremes and practically, how they productise content innovations so that the newsroom is able to take charge in creating and distributing excellent formats and graphics every day.

Debbie McMahon, Product Director, FT.com and Apps, Financial Times, United Kingdom


12:05 p.m.-12:30 p.m. (New York time)
Innovative editorial products at the WSJ

The WSJ has driven successful editorial products that don’t fit into the traditional mould. In this session, Robin will take us through a couple of case studies from ideation to rollout and expansion across the business. Learn about how newsletters expanded into email courses, how they have built data-driven products that consistently bring audiences to the site, and more.

Robin Kwong, New Formats Editor, Wall Street Journal , United States

12:30 p.m.-12:45 p.m. (New York time)

Closing remarks

10:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
(New York time)

Coming out of COVID, many of our readers are more aware — and critical of — the amount of time they are spending on screens. We’ve also seen huge progress in audio technology from hardware: Apple shipped over 80 million AirPods in 2022 and by 2025 over 400 million smart speakers are set to ship, to software where AI can mimic almost any kind of voice imaginable.

Consumer awareness, combined with progress in headphone and smart device technology, means audio formats are becoming increasingly important to news organisations. In this session we’ll hear from publishers leading the pack in their approach to both building audio and voice products for their audiences.

10:00 a.m.-10:05 a.m. (New York time)
Welcome and introductions
Jodie Hoppperton, Product Initiative Lead, INMA, United States



10:05 a.m.-10:40 a.m. (New York time)
Building an audio business from the ground up

In the past year Nadia has built an audio team from the ground up and is already achieving significant results. They have unique audio products on the front paage, has increased listening and are over achieving in every sense of the word. In this session Nadia will take us through some of the decisions she made on the way on team structure, the revenue potential we may be missing and being a start up within a business.

Nadia Tolich, Chief Audio Officer, Stuff, New Zealand


10:40 a.m.-11:10 a.m. (New York time)
Data led best practices of podcasts from Germany

In this session we’ll learn from deep, aggregate data about what is working for publishers and their podcasts. From figuring out the best topics, platform optimizationwhen and how to insert ads, which platforms to launch on and how we can use social media to measure engagement, Ruben will take us through what he has learnt in the last four years going deep on podcast data.

Ruben Schulze-Fröhlich, COO and Co-Founder, Wake Word, Germany


11:10 a.m.-11:45 a.m. (New York time)
How PRISA Radio reached 20% digital distribution across smart speakers and built a synthetic voice that it is also on air.

Learn about PRISA Radio’s presence on smart speakers as part of their digital strategy, and how that set a foundation for developing ‘Victoria’, their synthetic voice AI known as the voice of soccer. Olalla will take us through the conceptualisation and development of Victoria, and how this novel way approach of distributing sports content has proven a huge success.

Olalla Novoa Ojea, Voice Coordinator, Prisa Radio, Spain


11:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. (New York time)
Launching GPS-guided audio walking tours

Learn how the San Francisco Chronicle rolled out GPS-guided audio walking tours using the expertise of their chronicle reporters. The tours, launched on a partner app, explore history, architecture and culture, showcasing the paper’s coverage and emphasising journalists’ deep knowledge of the city they cover. In this session Sarah Feldberg will take us through how the audio tours came about, the decision making on how to build them/get them to market and lessons learnt along the way.

Sarah Feldberg, Editor of Emerging Product and Audio, SF Chronicle, United States

12:15 p.m.-12:30 p.m. (New York time)

Closing remarks

10:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
(New York time)

Gen Z is the first digital and social native generation who seems more comfortable on TikTok than using news products. Does a younger audience prefer to swipe than scroll? What can we learn from social platforms about how we can use formats that are more native to this audience? In this session we will also look at how, practically speaking, we can build products for all devices and to meet the different consumption habits of our current and potential audiences. We’ll dive into video, interactive graphics and scroll vs swipe.

10:00 a.m.-10:10 a.m. (New York time)
Welcome and introductions
Jodie Hoppperton, Product Initiative Lead, INMA, United States



10:10 a.m.-10:45 a.m. (New York time)
We asked our Gen Z team what we should be doing, and this is what it resulted in

The largest publication in the Netherlands, De Telegraaf, asked some of their young reporters for ideas on how to get Gen Z to engage. In this session we’ll hear how they worked through this process, which ideas were tested and how they performed during an 8 week trial. Can you predict which of the ideas become permanent? Kamran Ullah will take us through what he and the team learnt, what surprised them and what they would do differently if they did it all again.

Kamran Ullah, Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Telegraaf, Netherlands


10:45 a.m.-11:15 a.m. (New York time)
A news perspective on the generation that’s changing everything

The News movement is reimagining the news starting with Gen Z, using it's own newsroom, creators across multiple platforms and working with traditional media to make news simple, accessible and digestible. Started by former Dow Jones executives they set about understanding this generation working with Oliver Wyman and developing this research on what business needs to know about the generation changing everything. Hear about their learnings and how you can apply them to your business in the informative session with President, cofounder and former Chief Product Officer.

Ramin Beheshti, President & Co-founder, The News Movement, United States


11:15 a.m.-11:45 a.m. (New York time)
Infusing Next Gen into the organisation

If we want to get serious about bringing the next generation of our readers into the newsroom we need to do it across the entire organisation. Learn how the Washington Post has built a cross functional team to look at content, formats and products that will appeal to Gen Z and Millenials. In this session Phoebe will take us through the organisational structure, how it works and give us some examples of news products and new ways of working.

Phoebe Connolly, Senior Editor, Next Gen Audience Development, Washington Post, United States


11:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. (New York time)
Designing for Gen Z

Having joined Schibsted in 2016 to work on Next Media, the future of Schibsred with younger generations, Andreas has worked on a number of products that focus on younger audiences. In this session he will give us a UX lens taking us through what he learnt through in depth research, numerous prototypes and why it is important to remove friction and noise for this generation.

Andreas Bøhler, Head of User Experience, VG, Schibsted, Norway


12:14 p.m.-12:30 p.m. (New York time)

Closing Remarks and Takeaways

10:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
(New York time)

Most digital consumers don’t want to have to work to get to the information they want. They expect that digital products will show relevant content to them and their interests. How can news organisations use personalisation tools to serve the right set of content and services to readers to maximise engagement? What trade-offs have to be made?

10:00 a.m.-10:05 a.m. (New York time)
Welcome and introductions
Jodie Hoppperton, Product Initiative Lead, INMA, United States



10:05 a.m.-10:40 a.m. (New York time)
Building personalisation for local media

VK in Sweden build their own system that identifies target groups to serve personalised recommendations through modules on the homepage. By using logged in data, subscribers will see certain recommendations of articles based on culture, topics and municipalities. In this session Josefin Svensson will take us through their approach, when their ‘personalised puffs’ are used and why focusing on small municipalities dives results.

Josefin Svensson, Data Scientist, VK Media, Sweden


10:40 a.m.-11:15 a.m. (New York time)
Successful strategies and lessons learned through personalisation at Dow Jones

In this session we will look at Dow Jones' use of personalization to fulfil its mission and enhance its product value. Through the Executive Edition case study, Sharon will showcase successful strategies, valuable lessons learned, and exciting future explorations aimed at connecting users with the right content at the right time. We'll explore important trends like aggregation of multiple brands, UX, optimizing for personal vs. professional content, time and day parting, and striking a balance between ease of use and control and trust.

Sharon Denning, SVP Product & Customer Expereince, Dow Jones, USA


11:15 a.m.-11:50 a.m. (New York time)
Personalising for different reader situations and information needs

Jaron Harambam, Assistant Professor of Sociology of Media, Democracy & Digitalization at the University of Amsterdam, and formerly embedded with DPG media in Amsterdam will look at the next phase of personalisation. Overlaying the one to one algorithms in place with reader situations they developed news recommender personae which let’s readers choose the best fit for the moment. In this session Jaron will take us through how they reached the three final personae of the expert, the challenger and the unwinder.

Jaron Harambam, Assistant Professor of Participatory AI, Athena Institute, Netherlands


11:50 a.m.-12:15 p.m. (New York time)
Using AI to improve the user experience now and in the future

In this session we will learn about ekstrabladet.dk’s PIN project that was developed to create a new iteration of the news experience where readers do not miss articles they find relevant in the continuous flow of the home page, while ensuring that they experience the full depth of coverage. They believe that AI has the potential to massively improve user experience but needs balances with the risk of loss of control and the introduction of unfair bias. Kaspar will talk us through learnings to date, and some thoughts around what the future will bring with the sudden onslaught on generative AI applications.

Kasper Lindskow, Head of Research and Innovation, Ekstra Bladet, Denmark


12:15 p.m.-12:30 p.m. (New York time)

Closing Remarks and Takeaways