The Innovation Polka

As the entries for the annual TechNews Best Practices Awards were rolling in late last year, one fax jumped out–most likely because of its use of the words "polka" and "pagination" in the same sentence.

Allow me to share what the vaguely anonymous major-metro author called his "polka pagination system":

"Keyboards of pagination computers make ‘happy’ accordion sounds as keys are struck. Bubble machines behind monitors generate a pleasant stream of bubbles when page-order workaround is successfully completed." (Actually, I think the time and effort devoted to submitting this entry brings new meaning to the term "workaround." But let’s waltz on.)

Our first-ever prank submission aside, some common trends have arisen among Best Practices Awards entries in the past few years. For instance, homegrown tracking and reporting systems seem to be sprouting like kudzu. Newspapers are apparently fertile ground for a generation of Excel and Access wizards. I’m not entirely sure why–it could be because systems that do these things are lacking, it could be one of those quirky newspaper things where no one-size-fits-all solution exists, or it could be because systems that can do these things and fit all sizes are too expensive. Or maybe Access and Excel are just fun to play with. (I’ll have to take someone’s word on that.)

Our writers and judges–the newspaper experts of NAA’s technology group–introduce you to each of this year’s winners, beginning on p. 6. Taken as a group, the winning entries offer a good cross-section of the kinds of innovators you find at newspaper plants. A few build state-of-the-art technology from the ground up. Others take standard, off-the-shelf software and apply it in new ways. Some winning entries are more impressive for the common-sense thinking that goes into them than any specific piece of hardware or software. And there’s always the "MacGyver" factor–the gizmo seemingly constructed out of chewing gum and baling wire that makes a big hunk of heavy metal run far better.

If this were the software business, the winners would all be hand-coded, hard-wired, object-oriented, WAP-enabled wonders. If this were, say, the steel industry, they’d all be gadgetry of such precision and daring they’d make Rube Goldberg weep tears of joy. But newspapers aren’t either–they are, as others have said, the last workplace that marries Industrial Revolution manufacturing with Information Age thinking. And we get the best of both worlds in the way our staffers tackle problems.

Perhaps most encouraging, not one of the winners of this year’s Best Practices Awards seems content to rest on his or her laurels. One winning team already has version 2.0 in the rearview. Many continue adding features to their applications. Another winning team wonders whether its system could help drive address-specific delivery. Even the winning recycling program is literally digging deeper into the recesses of its facility in hopes of finding more to save.

So no polkas and no festive bubbles this year–just good old-fashioned innovative thinking.  

Mark Toner
Editor
tonem@naa.org

TechNews Volume 7, Number 1: January/February 2001

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