New APME committee seeks more visibility to media innovations and ideas

The combination of APME's "Innovator" and "Great Ideas" projects
will allow a new committee to become more proactive in pushing the
concepts to its members and the industry.
APME President Bob Heisse recently announced the new committee and
appointed David Arkin and Joe Hight as its co-chairs.
The new committee will seek to:
-- Bring more visibility to the concept that media should be
consistently sharing ideas and innovations that will spur future growth
in the industry.
-- Highlight media that submit their great ideas, as well as
consider them for the Innovator of the Month award.
"Awarding not only a monthly innovator, but also recognizing great
ideas, will not be great news for the newsrooms that are recognized, but
it's an outstanding tool for newsrooms that are hungry to test out new
ideas," Arkin said. "Taking APME's popular Great Ideas program and
making it a monthly recognition program, in addition to the production
of the annual book, was a no brainer. In our constantly changing
industry, our colleagues are constantly searching for the brightest and
best ideas and innovations."
-- Use social media as well as the APME website to interact more
with the industry about its ideas and innovations. It will also promote
through state AP bureaus and other areas.
-- Ask monthly innovation winners to participate in a Q&A and
provide other interactive elements to help explain how they created and
introduced the concepts.
-- Simplify the process to submit innovations and ideas to the
website.
-- Pursue quarterly chat sessions on innovations and great ideas.
Besides the monthly innovations and ideas, the committee will
continue to award and highlight the Innovator of the Year and the Great
Ideas book at the annual APME conference. Part of the book will devoted
to a new "hall of fame" for the past and monthly winners.
Arkin is executive director for Gatehouse Media's News & Interactive
Division and Hight is director of information and development for The
Oklahoman/NewsOK.com. Committee members are Kathy Best, managing editor
of the Seattle Times; Bill Church, executive editor, the Statesman
Journal Media in Salem, Ore.; and Kurt Franck, executive editor, The
Blade in Toledo, Ohio.
Heisse, executive editor of The Centre Daily Times in State College,
Pa., had previously chaired the Innovations Committee. Franck and Terry
Orme, managing editor of The Salt Lake Tribune, had chaired "Great
Ideas."
"This has become such a great tradition for APME that I and others
look forward to each year at the annual conference," Hight said. "We
hope that this new approach will not only simplify the process and make
it more visible, but also build upon these valuable APME creations."