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Guest Speaker - Karen Unland - "Notes from the Edge of a Cliff"
Ms. Unland spoke to the club as the "Team Lead of Postmedia Labs Alberta", and spoke of what is going on in the Newspaper business today and possibly what may be in the future.
"Change is the in the journalism field is not going to stop, it is actually speeding up. The technological change alone is staggering, but that is only one part of the equation" says Ms. Unland. She polled the room to see how many people still read their daily newspaper and who gets their information online. The room was split right down the middle, but Karen expects that if she asked that question again a year from now she would receive very different results.
Traditional newspaper advertising revenue had risen consistently from the 1950's until around 2005 when their was a drastic drop in this income stream, and that type of income is not going to come back. Ms. Unland prognosticated that it will be very difficult if not impossible to receive a daily newspaper within 10 years.
The internet and social media have changed journalism forever. In fact due to these new tools and processes, the quality of journalism today is better than ever, but the delivery method will no longer be one of the primary methods of delivery and if the newspaper industry stays with the old business model, they will die. So to remain relevant and profitable they must look at different options.
Ms. Unland quoted, " If the old model is broken, what will work in it's place? Nothing will work in it's place, but everything might!" And this is what Postmedia, who owns the Edmonton Journal is attempting to do in hiring Karen and others to explore new ways of interacting in journalism with no model on which way to try. The industry is trying many different models to meet this challenge: user supported, foundation supported, events, venture capital, etc.
Some local examples of what people are trying include "The Yards", a local magazine supported by local community leagues and available as a quality magazine, a website and podcast. Check it out. Another successful project is " ShareEdmonton" which collects local blogs and other social media focused on local happenings and events. You can also check that out.
Postmedia set up these new labs in Toronto and Edmonton. Toronto was first out of the gate with a food based experiment called "Gastropost" targeted at food lovers which tries to enhance local conversations and get involved rather than forcing people to come to their platform. This seems successful and has been rolled out in several Canadian cities.
Ms. Unland's foray into the new tools is a little less frivolous and is targeted at entrepreneurs as this is a strong culture in Edmonton. " Capital Ideas" attempts to allow business owners (old and new) to share stories and learn from each other. Capital Ideas also hosts monthly 'in-person' sharing events as well as using a web presence, video postings, blogs and the venerable newspaper to enhance this conversation.
"You can try not to fall off the cliff, or you can leap into it with both feet," says Ms. Unland and with the success of these first initiatives, and others on the way, Postmedia seems interested in meeting the challenge head on.
Ms. Unland was thanked on behalf of the club by Leslie Cleary after several questions.
Asha Lal - George Grover Scholarship Recipient
Asha was introduced by Ron Hutchinson on behalf of the Edmonton Realtor's Association. Ron noted the success of the George Grover scholarship with over $300,000 distributed to 42 recipients over the past 14 years.
 Asha is a second year undergrad student and the University of Alberta. She is taking a general science degree with a major in psychology and a minor in sociology, with plans on working towards an MD PhD specializing in pediatric cardiology.
Asha was very thankful to our club for the scholarship as that would allow her to focus on her studies and research
Asha always thought that she would like to be a lawyer, but when her father suddenly died of a heart attack, she knew that she wanted to be a doctor so that she can directly help people and maybe save at least one person from that kind of loss.
She worked in an oncology lab over the past summer studying viruses that could possibly kill cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone.
Based on her presentation and personality, it looks like the Rotary club can be proud of this scholarship recipient. Good luck Asha!
The meeting was adjourned by chair Darrel Ripley.
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Edmonton's Mayor, Don Iveson will be our guest speaker on January 26, 2015.
