Product Development: Off-domain publishing research

Complete: December, 2016

Senior leadership at MIT Technology Review wanted to better understand off-domain or distributed content publishing as a means to improve our reach and subscription numbers. A "task force" was assembled to investigate what other media companies are doing, and make recommendations around how we might take advantage of what's available. Because of my cross-functional role within the organization, I lead this initiative. 

Research methodology: 

Guiding questions

• Took a look at 21 different platforms and asked a series of questions to help shape our understanding of each. Raw data of guiding questions can be viewed here.
• Task force members individually tackled 3-5 of these platforms and became resident “experts” on them.

Competitive/comparative analysis: 

• For each platform, we examined what other publications within our competitive set are doing well, and what could be improved. 

Research findings: Below is the executive summary of recommendations we put together as part of our research deck. Prioritization and work proposed can be found here. 

My role: 

• Planning research methodology
• Wrote guiding questions
• Organized weekly check in meetings
• Synthesized data
• Wrote presentation and wrangled priorities

The team: 

• Megan Barnett: Editorial
• Kyle Gibson: Ad Ops
• Julia Sklar: Social Media
• Kyanna Sutton: Production