What is the Newspaper Next Disruptive Innovation Advisory Program?
Who is elibigle to apply?
What will selected teams get?
With whom will selected teams work?
What do selected teams have to provide?
What exactly is a disruptive idea?
How will ideas be selected?
What's a DI Barometer?
What if I have more questions?

What is the Newspaper Next Disruptive Innovation Advisory Program?
The Newspaper Next Disruptive Innovation Advisory program is a chance for companies that think they have an idea for a new “disruptive” growth business to receive expert consultation from the Newspaper Next (N²) team. Back to top

Who is eligible to apply?
Any U.S. or Canadian newspaper company can apply for the program. All that’s required is a great idea, a designated team, and a demonstrated commitment to follow through. Back to top

What will selected teams get?
Teams selected to participate in the program will receive advice and consultation from the Newspaper Next project team over a four-month period. The N² team will conduct two immersive sessions and hold weekly conference calls to help selected teams move their idea from the sketchpad to the market as quickly as is humanly possible. Selected teams will get access to Innosight’s tools and methodologies designed to help screen and shape high-potential opportunities. We expect to help project teams gain deeper insight into the real market need, reshape solutions to meet patterns of successful growth innovations, and create and execute plans to gain more knowledge about critical assumptions. Back to top

Who specifically from the Newspaper Next team will selected teams work with?
Selected teams will work with:

• Stephen Gray, the managing director of the Newspaper Next project. Steve is the former managing publisher of The Christian Science Monitor and former chief executive officer and editor of The Monroe (Mich.) Evening News


• Scott Anthony, a managing director at Innosight. Scott is a co-author (with Clayton Christensen) of Seeing What’s Next: Using the Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change and has extensive experience consulting across a wide range of industries.


• Adeline Ng, a manager at Innosight


• Additional Innosight representatives

Additionally, the team will pull in subject matter experts from its Task Force and the American Press Institute as appropriate. Depending on timing and the topic, Harvard Business School Professors Clayton Christensen or Clark Gilbert might be available for a telephone consultation or a meeting in Cambridge. Back to top

What do selected teams have to provide?
Companies chosen for consultation will need to reimburse the consulting team’s reasonable out-of-pocket travel expenditures as a way of demonstrating their commitment to the program. Also, companies must agree to let the N² team publicize the results of the work to the broader industry. Of course, the N² team will not compromise any company confidential information. Back to top

What exactly is a “disruptive” idea?
Disruptive innovations typically offer lower performance along dimensions that firms have traditionally considered critical. In exchange, these innovations introduce new benefits along dimensions such as simplicity, convenience, ease of use or low price. Classic examples of disruptive innovation include the personal computer, discount airlines, steel minimills, Intuit’s TurboTax product, and Procter & Gamble’s Swiffer line of products. Disruptive innovations contrast with “sustaining” innovations that offer incremental or radical improvements to existing products. Airplanes that fly further, computers that process faster, and televisions with clearer images are all sustaining innovation.

In the media industry, blogs, Google, eBay, Monster.com, and freely distributed commuter papers all fit the pattern of disruptive innovation. Each emerging competitor lacks something that is core to most newspaper companies’ value proposition. Some can’t match a newspaper’s broad distribution network. Others can’t compete with the newspaper’s detailed reporting capability or local reach. All, however, compete in different ways than newspapers are used to competing.

Ideally, we are looking for ideas that meet the following criteria:

• Targets a “job” that consumers (or advertisers) can’t get done well with today’s solutions (click here for more information on the concept of Jobs To Be Done)


• Expands consumption by reaching “nonconsumers” who find existing solutions too time-consuming, expensive, or complicated


• A solution with “good enough” performance along “traditional” performance dimensions and better performance along emerging performance dimensions like convenience or customizability


• A revenue model built around the consumer and advertiser “job.” We expect the revenue model to differ sharply from traditional industry models


• A cost model that supports a “start small” or “low cost” approach

We expect that we’ll get ideas in categories such as local search, community-focused Web sites, hyper-local content, free publications, wireless, pay-per-lead advertising models, do-it-yourself advertising solutions, and user-generated content. Ideas can of course come from other areas as well.

For more information about disruption, download Innosight’s primer or refer to The Innovator’s Dilemma, The Innovator’s Solution, or Seeing What’s Next. Back to top

How will ideas be selected?
Idea Resumes, consisting of a one-page application and a completed Disruptive Innovation Barometer, should be sent to Sarah Decker at API (mail: American Press Institute, 11690 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA 20191; fax: (703) 620 5814) by March 1. Harvard Business School Professors Clayton Christensen and Clark Gilbert and API President and Executive Director Drew Davis will select the finalists and will oversee the team’s work. Back to top

What's the DI Barometer that's part of the Idea Resume?
The DI Barometer is a straightforward tool the project team created to assess an organization’s capabilities to create disruptive-growth businesses. We are asking teams that apply to this program to use the tool to assess honestly whether their organization is adequately positioned to launch a disruptive business. The tool should take no more than 20 minutes to fill out. We are not looking for perfect scores, just an honest assessment of the organization’s readiness for disruption. Back to top

What if I have more questions?
Please feel free to contact N² Managing Director Steve Gray. Back to top