What does it take for a product to sell? Besides an infinity of things, there two that are most important: need and desire. Another couple of questions: why is mainstream media in so much trouble? Because people don’t need it anymore (there’s a lot of all-you-can-eat-information on the net) and most publications are far from being desirable. The last question: why do independent magazines sell? The answer for this is quite obvious but I would love to read your comments here.

The problem with most newspapers across the globe today is that their editors are too ‘closed minded’ to see past the 70’s. People simply don’t need an ‘old’ newspaper anymore. By the time someone gets out to buy the day’s newspaper all the breaking news have been heard or seen or read on a screen.

Do I believe that this is the end of print age? Not really, not even the end of newspapers. What every newsroom must do (and this is asking a lot) is to find the ‘iphone effect’ on their publication. What must one publish to transform the boring, not-needed, old publication into a desire object? Find this and you’ll be publishing a very successful ‘old medium’.

To start – and you MUST start now – you can see a lot of independent magazines and fanzines. Really see and read them. And then start trying; as design thinking can teach you, this is an on going process, a trial and error curve. It’s a fun path to travel and one every reader will appreciate.

What makes a publication desirable? Creativity! Innovation! What makes Monocle magazine ‘sail’ past this crisis is the fact that; not only it’s beautifully written and designed; but also because every page is full of good ideas, of news that you might not even consider to be interested in before reading it. That’s creativity working on a newsroom, to find the different story, the different approach to an ‘old’ story.

The only way to become the object of desire for an audience is to give them your most, all of your sweat and tears on a daily bases. Desire is having every reader eager for the next issue. That’s our goal – for everybody working on a newsroom – and the public has already told us that what we have been doing so far is not working.

Like Apple going back to the drawing board to reinvent the phone, newsrooms must reinvent communication with an audience. To do so, creativity and innovation are the recipes and everyone’s brilliant minds are the ingredients. Working together for something desirable.