Digital Media is NOT the Same Thing as Digital Distribution

If the past fifteen years has been about disseminating content in new ways (think site design, search engine optimization and social networking) the next fifteen will force fundamental changes in how we produce what we produce. Central to this position — advanced by Jeff Stanger in the most recent episode of the Communication Network’s Diavlog Series — is native digital content.

If you could have developed it before the web, it’s not native. Kindle, for instance, won’t make the grade because it simply disseminates the printed word in new ways. Video doesn’t make the grade because you could have watched it on TV. Fuggedabout downloadable PDF’s.

Made more obvious by the advent of the iPad, new digital approaches are daily emerging for those of us advancing ideas that matter. These include interactivity that enables users to customize how they view your data. The most cutting-edge include live data feeds coupled with vibrant data visualization.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation has been creating native digital content for years through its annual Kids Count survey. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has developed a wealth of interactive maps that enable viewers to slice and dice information about the magnitude of the nursing shortage, the progression of the obesity epidemic and other healthcare-related issues. The Wallace Foundation has developed a cost-calculator that enables youth development advocates to understand youth development program expense variables based on the Foundation’s extensive data collection on the topic.

As I discussed with Jeff, who recently founded the Center for Digital Information, some of the most robust examples are coming from news organizations. One we discussed is an
interactive graph from the New York Times which showed the most popular World Cup players based on a live data feed demonstrating how many times their names were mentioned on Face Book each day. (You can find other great examples of native digital content — some with topics even more important than soccer — by checking Jeff out on Twitter (@jeffcdi).

If you are like me, once you begin to fall in love with this type of approach, you want to learn how to make it your own. These days that usually means some sort of platform or template that you can hire a brainy juvenile to program for you. Google Public Data Explorer let’s you create interactive graphs from public data but doesn’t appear (yet) to let you do the same with your own. While the data sets from which it lets you create interactive charts are severely limited, that’s bound to change fast. If you are advancing messages about the impact of philanthropy or working to increase the transparency of your foundations grantmaking, you would do well to check out The Foundation Center’s Philanthropy In/sight service that lets you create your own interactive maps from the Center’s data base.

As you might sense, I am geeked about digital content. Please let me know about examples you are working on so I can share them more broadly through the Communications Network.

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