
Rolling Up My Sleeves - th0ma5
http://cmdrtaco.net/2012/03/rolling-up-my-sleeves/
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danso
This has to be one of the most forward-thinking hires ever by a news
organization. There are great tech people involved in journalism, but few are
at a position of authority.

The news industry, sadly, has plenty of people with ideas but very few who
have any idea how to implement them. They need someone who can understand and
influence the logistics...I would not be surprised if a large part of why
innovation is stifled by something as mundane as a poorly-implemented CMS.

I do see the potential for cmdrtaco to have minimal impact, through no fault
of his own. Something as mundane as office politics (I'm assuming editor-at-
large is a position outside of the chain of command) also stifles innovation.

~~~
noobface
Agreed.

But the fact that they've setup an internal division to explore the changes in
technology and their impact on publishing is a solid positive indicator.

That said, large models are slow to shift, and there's plenty of examples of
boneheaded executives within all media clinging helplessly to the titanic.

Hopefully the leaders at WaPo are genuinely interested in the lifeboat that
cmdrtaco is sure to provide.

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cmdrtaco
Thanks for the friendlies HN.

~~~
morganpyne
Well done and congrats. Glad we nabbed you for a visit to New Zealand before
you got lost in work again. Good luck in your new job.

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DanBC
Make it easy for me to pay for great articles. Make it easy for me to
subscribe to online content (and maybe give online subscribers an ad-free
Readability option). Consider a scheme for people to subscribe and donate the
dead-tree paper to schools / colleges / prisons / hospitals / etc.

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sgtsugarfingers
Out of curiosity, what other well known corporate R&D / internal incubators
exist out there?

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mirkules
Bell Labs immediately comes to mind.

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adestefan
They've changed hands so many times between AT&T, Lucent, Alcatel and Alcatel-
Lucent that they're long gone. I think Alcatel-Lucent said they were basically
disbanding the sliver of Bell Labs that was left around the 2007 time frame.

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samstave
No link to WaPo Labs :(

<http://www.wapolabs.com/team/>

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staunch
Congrats. I hope it works out well. They're lucky to get him.

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dtran
Congrats Rob! WaPo Labs is lucky to have you. Excited to see 14 years of
slashdot learnings applied to Social Reader/Trove and to reinvigorate
journalism-at-large.

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ChuckMcM
Awesome to hear! The post newspaper journalism world is just taking shape,
wonderful to see such a strong voice riding that wave.

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joshu
Alas, it is newspaper distribution and not newsrooms that consume the vast
majority of profits at most newspapers.

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bane
Congrats! Glad to hear you working for an org down in my area that's _not_ the
government!

