Page 173 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2015173flashy, but unless the content itself is arresting or interesting, your output will simply be style over substance. This is something community sites desperately need to be aware of; all that glitters is not gold. That balance, of style and substance, is something CPN has always come up against.Gaining information through individual comments so that members feel they can say something to a human behind the site.What’s worked for us in addressing this balance over the past three years has been to adopt a content strategy that contains rigour, routine and flexibility, although not always in equal parts.Rigour is important for a site like CPN because it means we bring a thoughtfulness and carefulness to our publishing. While we accept and launch contributions from our community alongside those of our own inhouse journalists (a central concept of open journalism) thatdoes not mean they are not exempt from the practical, legal and ethical considerations that must be taken into account before hitting that “launch” button. Editorial oversight – consid- ering content for its quality, relevance, accuracy and any legal or ethical issues – is important if a site like CPN wants to maintain its integrity and ensure the “substance” aspect of the balance is strong and consistent.Routine is equally important. Establishing a sense of regularity to what the network publishes brings order to proceedings and helps to avoid a random, scattergun approach. In much the sameway a newspaper reader will browse headlines and pages, but home in on features, series or columnists they like to read, online sites should follow suit. For CPN, series include: Arts head11 – a regular feature in which we interview some of the most influential and inspiring people heading up UK arts organisations and venues – and App story,12 a blog series in which the digital brains behind some of the best arts apps out there tell us how they made them. We also run a series for young arts professionals (Tech talk13 ) and regular formats, such as live webchats.14The third aspect, flexibility, simply meansbeing able to break from the rigour and routine where time and resources allow to bring readers new and exciting articles and experiences (the “style” aspect of the balance). This could be reactive, for example a news story for which you have to drop everything else – or proactive, ie deliberately breathing some fresh air into your usual formats through new digital platforms or social tools. A good example of this is CPN’s use of embedded multimedia in new articles.Stylistically, it’s a great addition to what we do, but we have to be careful it doesn’t overshadow the core message of the story, nor cloud the team’s editorial judgement, for example, overlooking the quality of content in an article because the overall picture quality is so high.Flexibility also means knowing when to quit. The idea that something is failing is not always an easy one to come to terms with, especially in new projects with lots invested in them. But being smart about failure is key. Small startups do this very well, finding lessons from projectsMatthew Caines