My first week at The Guardian Mobile Innovation Lab
ºFirst, I should explain that I am not a journalist. I have never worked in a newsroom before, I’m not familiar with the pace, and I understand editorial content differently mostly because I’ve been an avid consumer of news media my whole life. Until this week, the closest I have come to this experience is having worked closely with journalists for the past two years. But it was never like this; I had never been at the heart of the action.
The Guardian US office is located on the 23rd floor and has an amazing view of the Hudson River. But that is honestly the least impressive aspect about this place. The moment I stepped through the front door I felt welcome. People were smiling at me even though they don’t know who I am or what I am doing here.
I am here as a Chicas Poderosas — ICFJ fellow to work with The Guardian Mobile Innovation Lab for five weeks. The Guardian Mobile Innovation Lab, which is led by editor Sasha Koren and senior product manager Sarah Schmalbach, is a space to experiment and understand how to deliver news on small screens. My first day here was an important day for the Lab, after 6 weeks of experiments and testing, a series about web notifications was published.
I was right here, sitting next to Madeline Welsh, the associate editor, when she pressed publish and the content went up, exciting!
I have dozens of notes I’ve been collecting, and I will post them in full at the end of my time here. The notes will be in order. But as the first week ends, I would like to summarize key lessons learned for this first 5 days.
1. Ask a lot of questions: And by this I do not mean that I’m just asking a lot of questions, which I do tend to do, but rather that asking questions is a constant activity at The Lab. It’s not about finding the right answers. It’s about asking all the questions that need to be asked for something as real-time and fast-moving as mobile technology and digital content. And broad reaching too; this work requires that we ask questions about ranging from ethics to elements, from users to editors, from usability to awareness.
2. Test, test, test: As a product designer my M.O. is to always test things before launching, test features, test prototypes, test ideas. But here, they take the idea to a new level.The Lab is about testing not just features and products, but also about testing contents, formats, the pace of information, messages, media, interactiveness. In short, it’s double the testing challenge.
3. Teamwork: The Lab started with Sarah and Sasha, now the Lab also includes Connor and Alastair (the development team) and Madeline (the associate editor). They discuss everything, make decisions together, and in those meetings everybody gets heard. Here, all ideas and opinions are welcome, and conversations lead to debates to build better notions and plans. But the lab also encourages teamwork that goes even further. Every Thursday there’s a space where teams in the newsroom can pitch ideas and thoughts to collaborate with the Lab. These sessions inspire the creation of new experiments like the notifications on jobs report.
4. Documentation: When documenting activities, results and technological processes it’s key to observe, measure, and understand the process and advances of experimentation. It’s also a space for reflection, review and a place in which to find opportunities to do things better or differently next time.
Now, I’m asking myself the following questions: how do I translate this experience to Mexican and Latin American newsrooms? How will Mexican and Latin American contexts react to this? How do we experiment this for Latin American audiences?
My conclusion for my first week at The Guardian Mobile Innovation Lab is that there are no failures, only opportunities.
I want to thank the amazing team for having me here, they really make me feel like I’m part of this Lab. Their inclusiveness is an essential part of spreading knowledge and I am honored to meet them and to get a chance to learn from them.
PS: I’m also thankful that cats are part of everyday conversation, gifs are part of global meetings and presentations, and that memes are part of our everyday experience. I just felt right at home here since day one.
