Weekend Reads 2

This Week’s Stories: media, tech, small biz, and culture

By Jeff Howland

Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem

Yiren Lu, The New York Times 

In start-up land, the young barely talk to the old (and vice versa). That makes for a lot of cool apps. But great technology? Not so much.

LEGO turned itself around by analyzing overbearing parents

Mikkel B. Rasmussen and Christian Madsbjerg, Quartz
In January 2004, LEGO announced a huge deficit. It was, by its own accounts, bleeding cash to the tune of $1 million a day. Owner and CEO Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, grandson of founder Ole Kirk Christiansen, was at the helm of a strategy to turn the company around.

Inside Airbnb’s Grand Hotel Plans

Austin Carr, Fast Company
How Brian Chesky, the millennial impressario behind red-hot Airbnb, teamed up with Chip Conley, the hotel industry’s black-sheep innovator, to reimagine the $6 trillion travel biz and, in the process, build the world’s largest hospitality brand.

A Death in the Family – Savor Your Newspaper

Gabriel Stein, Medium
“In 2009, a member of my family died. Fortunately, it wasn’t a flesh-and-blood relative, but four and a half years later, the loss still stings. It was my hometown newspaper and employer of my father, its editorial cartoonist, for 31 years: The Rocky Mountain News of Denver, Colorado.”

The Making of a Modern Publisher: Atlantic Media’s Quartz

Digiday
Over a year ago, Atlantic Media placed a bet that a digital-first, mobile-oriented publication geared to business executives on the go would be a hit. From a focus on custom created content to a re-imaging of the traditional homepage, the company has grown advertiser base, audience and revenue. Hear from Quartz publisher Jay Lauf on how injecting editorial thinking into advertising has helped it become the very model of modern publishing.

State of the News Media 2014

Amy Mitchell, Pew Research Journalism Project
In many ways, 2013 and early 2014 brought a level of energy to the news industry not seen for a long time. Even as challenges of the past several years continue and new ones emerge, the activities this year have created a new sense of optimism – or perhaps hope – for the future of American journalism.

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