Posted by Jyotika Malhotra, Marketing & Communications Consultant & AIMS Blog Correspondent
It's already the second week of the year (I think I need one of those countdown clocks from Studio 60. Er, maybe not!) and time for the seventh contribution to our 2007 Professional Resolutions series. Wow, time sure flies when you're having fun. This time, we hear from Sue Gardner, Senior Director at CBC.CA as she addresses the question: What are three professional resolutions, goals, to dos or things you'd like to try in 2007?
Sue Gardner:
I'm pretty obsessed with audience numbers, and I'm happy CBC.CA is one of the biggest and most popular media sites in Canada. That's partly by luck (CBC.CA benefits from good brand recognition) and partly by design: we have a truly relentless focus on giving people what they want and need from us. We know people want breaking news so we've put lots of energy into that. They also want depth, perspective and analysis; they want video, Sudoku, movie reviews, fantasy hockey, cartoons, games and contests. We try to give them all those things, and more.
So here are my three major goals for 2007 - all audience-related:
1. I want to implement a whole bunch of interactive tools on CBC.CA. It's been obvious since day one that the web offers huge scope for interactivity, engagement and user participation. What's newer though, is that (following lots of experimentation) traditional media companies are now figuring out how we can usefully enable meaningful participation. We're not YouTube; we're not MySpace; that's not what people expect from us, and frankly it's not what we're good at. But that doesn't mean we don't have a unique and valuable role. We need to continue telling stories, which is our reason for being. But we need to tell them differently by opening up the doors to the audience - by allowing people to comment upon, critique, shape, recommend, share and even manipulate and recombine our material - and to create and tell and share their own stories as well.
2. I want CBC.CA to do a really good job covering the FIFA Men's U-20 World Cup and the Women's Cup.
Soccer's one of the most popular sports in Canada; a million Canadians play it regularly, and who knows how many watch it at either an amateur or pro level? This coming summer, we've got the Men's Under 20 World Cup coming to BC and in the fall, we'll get the Women's World Cup from China. These are going to be huge sporting events.
CBC did a fabulous job of offering comprehensive platform-neutral coverage of the Torino Olympics; we offered it on TV, on terrestrial radio and satellite radio, on the website and via cell phones, Blackberries and e-mail. And people loved it - traffic to CBC.CA practically doubled for the duration of the Games. I would like to see us offer the same comprehensive, fun, up-to-the-second coverage of the FIFA soccer events this summer and fall.
3. We're going to make it a whole lot easier for the audience to find and use the [vast amount of] audio and video on CBC.CA. You can listen to live streaming radio from across the country. You can watch The National from last night, listen to a radio documentary from two weeks ago, watch live streaming of [major] news events, or even get an occasional advance look at shows that haven't yet aired. Over the past six months or so, we've done a lot to make our audio and video more user-friendly - everything from introducing new podcasts to launching a new "video" page. Over the next year, I really want [us] to be able to make more audio and video available to people, make it easier for people to find what they're looking for and give them more control over how they can store and share it with each other.
Speaking of sharing - want to share your To Do list for 2007? Contact me. Got a question or comment for Sue? Share it in the comments below. I don't know about you, but I'm still wondering what fantasy hockey is? Guess I'll stick to shoes.
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