Last week, the CEO of one of the largest companies in America asked me privately how I feel about new media insurgents like BuzzFeed disrupting traditional media models. BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti was sitting right beside me. (Hi, Jonah.)
The answer’s easy: Every meaningful insurgent has something to teach us.
When disruptive new businesses succeed, their achievements inspire us to approach our own mission with more vigor, creativity and imagination. When they fail, as have many of the start-ups I’ve loved and rooted for, we mourn their demise and learn from their mistakes.
In most cases, those who thrive become important partners, sometimes friends, sometimes even investments. Twitter is a powerful example of a platform that amplifies many “traditional” media properties in exciting new ways. So is Buzzfeed.
Ev Williams’ new start-up, Medium, could become one, too.
Right now, the platform’s so new, it’s not yet clear how big media companies can play. But what was abundantly clear from my visit to Medium’s San Francisco headquarters last week is that we can learn a lot already from Medium’s approach:
Design. Medium makes people want to read. As opposed to traditional publishing houses, who stopped doing that decades ago. Medium reminds us what happens when compelling content meets intelligent design. From palate to font to proportion — simple, clean, crisp. A sophistication that ups the game of every post.
Value. By telling us how long each post will take us to read, the proposition is clear up front. And Medium’s done a great job of calibrating. Now, Medium needs to do a better job of surfacing gems and diminishing the duds. It will.
Culture. The design thinking of Medium extends — or begins — at the office itself. Last week, I spent an afternoon with Gabe Kleinman, Head of People Ops (who arrived at Medium two months ago from IDEO), in the San Francisco headquarters. First thing I saw (after the modular desks, nap alcoves and TriBeCa style kitchens)? A mapping of how Medium intends to improve its recruiting and on-boarding process. Peter Drucker would swoon.
Content. Medium’s Senior Editor, Kate Lee, an old friend from her days as a literary agent at ICM, is making major headway, as more and more thought leaders contribute posts. Like this one by Elon Musk.
Sharing. Unlike SquareSpace or WordPress, Medium is a community built to connect and share. It’s as if the co-founder of Twitter created a blogging platform for the social web. Oh wait, he did. The tribes already forming on Medium are getting bigger, fast. That’s due, in large part, to the platform’s inherently social back and front end.
Urgency. Right now, Medium’s pull is minimal. I don’t feel a compulsion to return, there’s no worry I might miss something or fall behind. But that may soon change with the launch of new sections and initiatives, such as Epic, the platform’s journalism experiment. Let’s see how it plays out.
Transparency. Sure, we take it for granted with any start-up these days. But the way the creators of Medium share their experiences feels different. Posts like this one from Ev don’t just pull us in for a quick read — they invest us in the mission itself.
Big media companies know many of these things already. Hard to do with precision, at scale, but some do. And there’s something new and fresh about how Medium’s going about it all. Rolling live, learning from itself, figuring it out as it goes, sharing.
When we started our own insurgent a few years ago, literally from Scratch, deep inside the belly of one of the biggest media companies in the world, we committed to many of the same principles. To survive inside our own business, and to thrive in service of our partners and clients, we had to.