Blog

Thanks to all of the people who shared feedback on the first round of 9 cover designs for the Lean Media book project. I really enjoyed reading through your comments, which helped me see the proposed designs in a new light. Like any design-oriented Lean Media project, the feedback is not intended to be a popularityRead more

As I have noted many times on this blog, I actively solicit feedback from potential readers about chapters, diagrams, examples, and other elements of the book. Feedback helps me understand my audience, identify elements that are working well, and also head off potential problems. It’s Lean Media in action. This week, I am soliciting feedbackRead more

I’m nearing the end of revising the third draft of my Lean Media book. While researching industry trends, I found two fascinating pieces of data. First, Bowker’s data for ISBN registrations for self-published books: Printed self-published books with self-purchased ISBNs or “free” ISBNs from Createspace and other providers have doubled every few years. While the ebookRead more

Last month, N.E.O. Bernhardsson, a Hong Kong-based publisher, reached out to me after reading about Lean Media online. Independently, he and his Modes Vu team have developed a system that uses Lean Media principles and processes to develop art photography books featuring relatively unknown photographers from China and elsewhere. This post and interview will describeRead more

The Lean Media flowchart has undergone several iterations. In 2015, it looked like this: The idea was feedback cycles could take place at any stage of the production up to the hard launch. The soft launch was an integral feedback stage, as it allowed a highly polished version to be exposed to a public audience andRead more

In my forthcoming Lean Media book, I talk a lot about the digital-driven convulsions of traditional, 20th century media. Some sectors of the media industry have had it worse than others, though, such as newspapers and recorded music. This post will look at one data point from the music industry that illustrates how much thingsRead more

When I first started to devise the Lean Media framework for media production, I expected to encounter others working on similar methodologies. So far, though, I have yet to find any structured frameworks that are expressly about making media. That’s not to say that media people don’t think about what we do. We in theRead more

The Lean Media book project is still on track. In November, I wrapped up the second draft and sent it out to a group of beta readers including media professionals and lay readers. I am now synthesizing their feedback and determining what parts need to be brought back into the third draft. There are someRead more

Regardless of whether they use Lean Media methods or not, media pros frequently rely upon surrogate audiences to understand the market for new media. Surrogate audiences are groups of people who like media that’s similar to what you are working on. Let’s say you are producing a new TV show, Rodent World, which explores theRead more

The following post is excerpted from my draft manuscript about Lean Media. Please leave comments below to help me improve the draft! Looking at the Lean Media flowchart, some creators may be aghast at the use of “prototype” to describe early or incomplete versions of a work in progress: The concern is understandable. The termRead more