Building and running a Data and AI-driven news-media organization(c enrique-ortiz)

© 2018 Carlos Enrique Ortiz | digitalworks.ai
Building and running a Data and
AI-driven news-media organization
Carlos Enrique Ortiz
digitalworks.ai
December 2018
1

Law of Entropy: Natural processes have a
prefered progress towards chaos. (i.e. Chaos will
happen)
Pareto Rule: People use 20% of their tools 80% of
the time because people stick to what they
know. (i.e. Users are resistant to change).
Conway’s Law: Organizations which design
systems … are constrained to produce designs
which are copies of communication structures of
these organizations. (i.e. Orgs are resistant to
change)
2
Vicki Boykis, Sr. Manager, Data Science + Engineering at CapTech

What is driving the adoption of Data & AI in News Media?
● New revenue opportunities.
● Print readership, demographics
and consumption have been
declining in favor of digital
content consumption.
● Google and Facebook have been
capturing most of the growth in
digital advertising.
● Automation and Optimization.
3

Data and AI across a news-media business (Examples)
Targeted content based
on readers preferences
Content
recommendations
based on reader’s
preferences
Personalized Content
Content optimization
Insights to increase
newsroom productivity
Insights for Registration &
Paywall optimization
Home delivery route
optimization
Learn user behaviors
Anticipate subscriber
behavior for retention
strategies
Targeted Advertising
Insights for Advertising
performance monitoring
and campaign optimization
Segments for
multi-touchpoint
contactability
Subscriber and
Print Revenue
Editorial Content Commercial
Revenue
4

Building and running a Data
and AI-driven organization:
from organization and ops, to
data products.
5

Organization, Operations and Culture
Organization, Operations and Culture
6
Democratization and socialization of “data” at all levels
Operations,
Compute,
Storage, Services,
Processes,
Toolsets
Team and
Culture Data
Visualization,
Analytics, BI

Strategies
Without Strategies, Entropy progresses...
7
● Short and Long-term strategies
● Why, How, Who and When
● Across People and Teams, Tech, Data,
Processes & Monetization

Core and Data Tech
Core and Data Tech -- from Data to Intelligence
8
Core Tech, Data Sources, Data Lakes, Compute,
Storage and Long-term Storage, Data and ML tools
and Cloud-based Services

Data Org and Operations
The Data Team and Ops
● Data Science and Engineering
● Data Insights and BI
● Data Operations, intake process for data
requests and SLAs
9

Data Segmentation and Enrichment
Audience Segmentation and Enrichment
10
Enrich

Data Visualization
Data Visualization, Strategies, Tools
11
● Strategize
● Visualization tools
● Data democratization and
socialization across company
● Metrics and analytics, charts and
reporting
● Across departments: the
Leadership team, Editorial, Reader
Revenue, Commercial Revenue

Business Intelligence and Data Science
Data Insights and Business Intelligence Analytics
Business Intelligence
● BI Analysts by area (domain)
● Monitoring and Analysis
● Trends & Forecasts
● Actionable Insights
● Facts-based storytelling and
narratives
12
Data Science
● Predictive and Descriptive
insights on registrations,
subscriptions, churn, join
membership, display
advertising, consumption
patterns, demographics
distribution, etc.

Data Products
Data Products, Solution, Apps, ML
● Personalized content
● Recommendations
● Targeted Advertising
● Behavioral dynamic paywall
● Audience Segments
13

Applying Data Science
● A software and data science-driven mindset and team culture, all
working together to solve domain-specific problems
○ (Organization and skill-sets and clearly defined roles & responsibilities)
● Access to compute, storage facilities and toolsets
○ Not all problems require hard data science or ML
● The problem domain and available budget shapes the data strategy
Operations for Compute,
Storage, Services,
Processes, Toolsets
Team and
Culture Data Visualization,
Analytics, BI
14

In Summary
● Building and running a Data Organization goes
beyond pure Tech
● Clear Strategy: tools, visualization, internal
communication (democratization of data), data
ops, and deliverables
● Roles: BI, Data Science engineer, Data Ops
● Data-driven mindset, culture and operations is at
the foundation
15

Thank you!
16
Carlos Enrique Ortiz
digitalworks.ai
enrique@digitalworks.ai, @eortiz
“Software is Eating the World”, Marc Andreessen (2011)
“Software and Data Science are Eating the world”, CEO (2018)

About Carlos Enrique
Carlos Enrique Ortiz is Founder and Principal of digitalworks.ai, a digital and data
transformation technical consultancy focused on the digital media publishing industry.
Before that Enrique was Chief Digital Officer at GFR Media where he ran technology,
engineering, data and IT for the number one newspapers in Puerto Rico. Prior to that Enrique
was employed at Amazon creating large-scale mobile and cloud systems for Advertising and
Logistics. Enrique started his career writing software for the Space Shuttle's operating
system, later on, he focused on mobile technologies, and most recently on data intelligence
and AI. He is author or co-author of 2 books on mobile development, dozens of tech articles,
and has 5 patents.
17

Building and running a Data and AI-driven news-media organization
Print readership, demographics and consumption have been declining in favor of digital
content consumption, affecting revenue in major ways for the printed papers. In 2016-2017
alone, print consumption declined 2 points while digital gained 5 points.
For years, many news media publishers have been slow monetizing their digital content
beyond display advertising, resulting in a love-hate relationship with Google and Facebook
especially since 2016, as Google and Facebook have been capturing most of the growth in
digital advertising. In addition, for many media publishers their mobile apps, their websites,
Content Management Systems (CMS) platforms and processes are dated in part contributing
to the fall in digital revenue.
How to successfully transform news media requires a new way of thinking that is referred to
as digital and data transformation. In this presentation we will cover the role of data and
machine-driven intelligence in the transformation of news media.
18

Great time to be in Software and Data Science
“Software is Eating the World”, Marc Andreessen (2011)
“Software and Data Science are Eating the World”, CEO (2018)
Open Access and Innovation (Academia, Industry, Research, SW, ML/Dev Tools)
Access to low cost server, storage and services and infrastructure
Why now?
Industry recognizes the benefits of automation and optimization
19

Building and running a Data and AI-driven news-media organization(c enrique-ortiz)

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