Reading this new book of JasonFried and David Heinemeier Hansson I found some great advice for our news industry.

Jason and David are partners of 37Signals, the company behind Basecam, the web-based project collaboration tool that, thanks to Christian Oliver, INNOVATION uses with all our consultants and clients.

As Bill Taylor, the co-founder of Fast Company magazine said: “37signals is a refreshing model of simplicity in an industry ruled (and haunted) by complexity.”

And now, some of the most important lessons from the book and my remarks for newspaper publishers, editors and reporters:

“Focus in what won’t change” (RELEVANT AND COMPELLING STORYTELLING).

“Launch now” (TIME TO INVEST, TIME TO INNOVATE).

“Meetings are toxic” (OPEN SPACE, WALLS-DOWN NEWSROOMS DON’T NEED MEETINGS).

“Quick wins” (LESS MEMOS, MORE DEMOS).

“Don’t copy” (BE DIFFERENT, INNOVATE).

“Pick a fight” (CAMPAIGNS, CAMPAIGNS, CAMPAIGNS).

“Build an audience” (READERS ARE NOT ENOUGH, WE NEED TO ENGAGE NEW AUDIENCES AND COMMUNITIES).

“Go behind the scenes” (DO THE NEWS BEHIND THE NEWS).

“Press releases are spam” (COMMODITY NEWS WILL KILL YOU).

“Marketing is not a department” (IT’S ONE OF YOUR LIFESAVERS).

“Hire great writers” (WORDS ALWAYS MATTER).

“Put everyone in the front lines” (TURN OFF YOU COMPUTER, GO THE STREET, MEET YOUR READERS AND ADVERTISERS).

“Send people home at 5″ (YOU ARE NOT ANYMORE INTHE BREAKING-NEWS BUSINESS).

“Emulate chefs” (NOTHING IS MORE SIMILAR TO A NEWSPAPER THAN A RESTAURANT!).

“Less mass” (MORE CAVIAR).

Of course I disagree too with some of the suggestions (”Ignore the real world”, “Why grow?”, “No time is excuse”, “Good enough is fine”…) but the whole book is provocative and inspirational like any Manifesto.

(Thanks to Benjamin Reece)

The International Newsmedia Marketing Association (INMA) announced today the first program of the Oxford Tablet Summit.

In the Segerius-Bruce’s picture you can see the venue for the opening dinner session of the Summit at the Exeter College.

Good reality check: Just the facts baby!

Sales of Google’s Nexus One phone in the US have paled in comparison to the iPhone.

After 74 days, the Nexus One has sold an estimated 135,000 units, according to mobile analytics firm Flurry. By that point in 2007, Apple announced it had sold a million iPhones.

A total flop.

This is the last cover of The Economist.

It’s is nice and compelling but the graphic is wrong.

The Spanish economy looks bigger than the UK, and Greece similar to Denmark….

(Thanks to Eivind and to Nicolas for correcting my error about Switzerland!)

Luis Grañena again in the front page of Libération.

A Spanish illustrator that is becoming one of the best of the world.

Today The New York Times launched his new marketing campaign “numbers” against The Wall Street Journal.

A very aggressive one.

Yes, the “numbers” are very impressive, but…

If you are a leader, you don’t start to look back over your shoulder…

Except if your follower is coming very fast.

And that’s the case.

So, the market reacted as expected: the shares of The New York Times went down almost 5 per cent.

Tim Cook, the Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, will receive a one-time bonus of $5 million and 75,000 in restricted shares for running the company during Steve Jobs’ medical leave last year.

A regulatory filing submitted by the company on Friday says that he stock units will be vested on March 10, 2011 and March 10, 2012 in equal amounts, pending Cook’s continued employment with Apple.

As I explained in my TABLETMANIA blog, he is “the next Steve Jobs.”

More about Tim Cook here.

A very good one for sure.

(Illustration by Luis Grañena/lainformacion.com)

A few hours ago in Pamplona, the International Jury of the 18th Edition of the Malofiej Infographic Awards announced the list of the winners.

Congratulations to them and to Javier Errea and his fantastic team that every year improves tone of the finest journalistic competitions of the world.

Visual journalism at its best!

Above is the double spread of my Manifesto about Visual Journalism published last year.

Phillip Elmer-DeWitt reports the big news: Apple sells 50,000 iPads in two hours.

Compare this with the First week of Nexus One sales: 20,000.

The first pre-orders show an amazing interest for the new Apple iPad.

The US Apple store says:

iPad pre-order limit: two per customer.

If Saturday delivery is not available in your area, iPad will be delivered on April 5.

To pre-order go here.

UPDATE: Day 1 estimate: 120,000 iPads sold

It’s official.

Organizers: INNOVATION International Media Consulting Group with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) and the International Newmedia Marketing Association (INMA)

Where: St. Anne’s College, Oxford University (UK).

When: May 17-18, 2010.

Program:

• Tablets and the implications for the news publishing industry.

• Best concepts, prototypes, new digital narratives, new journalistic grammar and techniques.

• What should newspapers and magazines offer on these tablets?

• How to reorganise newsrooms to produce quality new products for tablets.

• Where’s the money?

• How to develop paid-for business models for tablet products and content?

What: the first Media Tablet Summit with the leading newspaper and magazine publishers and editors, creative directors, new narrative editors, multimedia designers and developers, and marketing directors.

More information: inge.van.gaal@mac.com

Don’t miss it!

Martin Langeveld reports about the presentation made by  Google’s economist-in-chief, Hal Varian this morning at the Federal Trade Commission’s second round of hearings on the future of journalism.

His main advice:

“The three things newspapers should do is experiment, experiment, experiment!”

Rupert Murdoch using the Arab proverb:

“If a wind blows, ride it.”

The best lines:

“These days our homes and offices are cluttered with the latest electronic devices. It is easy to be dazzled by this new technology. But the bright and shiny wonders that technology gives us can be like the desert sun – they can blind us to what is real and valuable. Amid the digital dazzle, we risk missing the magic: the creative content that brings these devices to life.”

Great speech.

Read it in full here.

Watch it here.

Simple: the words, numbers and chats.

Strong : the message.

(Thanks to Chiqui Esteban)

Chris Llewellyn, FIPP president and CEO, writes about this Inaugural Report in his Foreword:

Click here to read the editor’s note and take a look at the table of contents.

To purchase the full Innovations in Magazines World Report click here.

Just the faces.

The names.

And how much time without a job.

That’s direct.

Dramatic.

Moving.

Disturbing.

And compelling.

In a country with more than four million jobless people.

With a government that ignores the reality.

The New York Times reports:

Spain’s facts are scary: 18.8 percent unemployment; about half the age group under 25 out of work; €600 billion, or $820 billion, in mortgages outstanding after the end of a construction boom two years ago; and a real effective exchange rate that the E.U. Commission says is overvalued by 10 percent.

…

The startling thing in Madrid is its seeming absence. There’s a kind of lethargy instead. No crash program with specific goals to change the Spanish economy over the next weeks and months is coming from right-wing opposition. And the Socialist government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

So the newsroom of EL MUNDO in Madrid shows the reality.

With this political indictment animated poster.

A “show, don’t tell” way to report.

Well done!

NB: INNOVATION’s Chiqui Esteban shows here the jobless figures in another dramatic way:

Read the editor’s introduction, see the content table and get print and pdf copies here.

Presented today at the FIPP Digital Innovators Summit (DIS) in Berlin by INNOVATION’s John Wilpers (Boston, USA) and Juan Senor (London, UK).

Read the editor’s introduction, see the content table and get print and pdf copies here.

The Times of London has today this “promo” in the top of its front page:

“What women really want?

The answer is in pages 49 and 50.

Lisa Armstrong, The Times Fashion editor goes to the new Cardiff John Lewis store and reports about her findings.

The lead:

In New York, London, Milan or Paris she sits in the front row. In Cardiff she sat at the till in John Lewis.

She spends a full working day (from 9am to 6:30 pm) in the fashion floor like a regular “partner” (that’s John Lewis for staff) selling huge bags, pink shoes, dresses… and also in the wrapping counter.

Well, the feature is fantastic and revealing.

“Nationally, she writes, fashion now accounts for a third of John Lewis’s turnover… but in Cardiff, where the store is only a few months old and by far the swankiest show in town, fashion brings in 41 per cent of its revenue. Today’s target is £146,000.”

WOW!

A Fashion editor that goes to the most fancy shows, does real journalism down in the real world.

So another example of how you can energize your newspaper with real stories of real people in real places.

Again and again:

Leave your newsroom.

Turn off your computer.

Get away and just cover the real life.

That’s journalism 101.

Readers will be shock!

A great quote from Rupert Murdoch’s mother in the last cover story of New York magazine by Gabriel Shermna:

“I’m sure he’ll never retire. I don’t intend to retire either, and I’m 101.”

A must-read pice.

(Cover pictur by Nigel Parry/CPI Syndication)