Des Plaines, Ill.—Inland Press Association and Foundation is launching a program that will arm newspaper senior executives with the strategic thinking and practical skills to develop and implement real-world projects with significant benefits for their organizations.
The Executive Program for Innovative Change will be open to senior newspaper executives who will meet five times over the course of 12 months to plan, develop and execute the projects each has chosen to meet a need or opportunity at his or her organization.
The program will train a select group of senior executives in ways to cultivate a culture of innovation and continuous change and improvement—while also guiding them through a year-long process that pays off with a major initiative at their companies.
“The program’s mission is simple: Offer senior publishing executives in-depth strategic perspectives and concrete entrepreneurial skills, empowering them to more efficiently and effectively lead innovations withintheir organizations,” said Tom Slaughter, executive director of the Inland Press Association and Foundation.
At four-day sessions throughout the year, executives will learn from leading media experts about how to effect transformational change, how to develop and manage large-scale initiatives and how to make innovation a vital part of their companies’ cultures.
The program leader is Alan D. Mutter, a former editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and San Francisco Chronicle and Silicon Valley CEO who teaches media economics and entrepreneurship at the University of California—Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. He is a consultant to newspapers and other media companies and writes about media in his heavily followed blog, Reflections of a Newsosaur.
Among the media leaders who have committed to address executives at meetings during the year-long program are Richard Gingras, head of news products at Google; Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism; Burt Herman, co-founder and CEO of Storify; Martin Till, president of Newhouse Communications’ PennJersey Advance; Jay Small, president of Informed Interactive, the Evening Post Publishing Co.’s digital division; and Owen Youngman, the former senior vice president of strategy and development for the Chicago Tribune who now teaches digital media strategy at Northwestern University.
Each participant in the Executive Program for Innovative Change will begin with an idea for a project that has clear objectives such as growing revenue or audience, changing the organization’s cost structure or some other area in need of transformation. Projects can involve print, digital or some combination of media.
“The goal of this program is execution—real results with a real return on investment,” Mutter said.
Four of the five meetings will be held at The Citadel in downtown Chicago. One meeting is planned for Silicon Valley with a scheduled briefing for participants at Googleplex, headquarters of the search giant.
“The Executive Program for Innovative Change is consistent with Inland’s mission of fostering innovation and positive change, and sharing successes with all our members,” said Inland Press Association President Rex Rust, co-president of Rust Communications. “This initiative provides an outstanding opportunity to acquire the critical thinking and practical tools necessary to implement projects that achieve significant success for your organization.”
Information on how to apply and about the tuition and costs of the Executive Program for Innovative Change are available on its dedicated website, www.inlandinnovates.org.
For further information, contact Inland’s director of membership and programming, Patty Slusher, at pslusher@inlandpress.org or (847) 795-0380.
ABOUT INLAND
Founded in 1885, Inland Press Association is a not-for-profit newspaper association and foundation. Inland is dedicated to advancing the welfare of its more than 1,100 member newspapers across all 50 states, Canada and Bermuda.Inland’s goal is to enable newspapers to continue serving the people as a free, strong and responsible press. Inland specializes in high-quality, cost-effective training options for all newspaper departments and it produces industry standard research in newspaper costs and revenues, as well as newspaper compensation and morale. Inland is located in Des Plaines, Ill., a suburb adjoining Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. For further information, visit InlandPress.org.
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