In an article last month on the Eventbrite blog, Adriana Gascoigne of Girls in Tech was asked the most compelling element to get attendees to attend their virtual events? “...the speakers: high-caliber speakers and content that’s difficult for attendees to access if it weren’t for [us].”

“It may seem to be verging on madness to make this move during such unusual times, but we have found this new currency, properly communicated, has given everyone involved a new sense of purpose at a strange time.”   That quote comes from Tim Part, a manager at FT (Financial Times) Strategies in London, in an article on the INMA website yesterday.    The new currency he is talking about is the introduction of a reader lifetime value (LTV) into their editorial lexicon. “Long ago we realized the story of reader engagement was a better one to tell to the newsroom compared to a simple volumetric yarn about pageviews,” Part wrote. “Quality reads and RFV (revenue, frequency, volume) scores have long been embedded in the newsroom, but it was important to move toward LTV as a key metric.”   Interestingly, I looked up reader lifetime value and came across pre-pandemic research from Northwestern University’s Spiege ...

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the successful quizzes that Lessiter Media is doing—an initiative they started well before the pandemic hit. For one, they received a few thousand submissions with almost 2,000 new email addresses; more than 120 new subscribers emerged from the list of quiz takers.   This week I came across a quiz from a publisher in the UK that ties into the pandemic. The Investment Week Virtual Quiz 2020 was designed to help "heroic frontline NHS [National Health Service] staff tackling the coronavirus crisis." Today at 4 pm their time they held the live quiz "hosted by a special industry guest." Participants were sent a link and also could dial in to a video/audio call. They would even show a leaderboard in real-time so the winner can be revealed instantly.   To take part they asked people to choose a donation fee with all proceeds going to CASCAID's NHS fundraising campaign (minimum donation was £15).   Coinciden ...

I just scored 5 out of 10 on Financial Times' FirstFT newsletter's weekly quiz. I did at least get the question on what percentage of fantasy sports players are women—7%, 15% or 29%. (See below or take quiz yourself here.)

Walking up to Studio Theater here in Washington, D.C., last week to attend a play, I saw a huge RECODE/DECODE banner overtaking the front glass doors—referring to the very popular podcast hosted by media star Kara Swisher, co-founder of digital publisher Recode.

Gavyn Davies writes in an April 30, 2017 Financial Times piece that “there have been some signs that productivity growth may be starting to recover from the low points reached a few years ago.”  Davies notes that Jan Hatzius from Goldman Sachs shows somewhat improving labor productivity growth starting in 2016 – Hatzius used official data and numbers from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) purchasing manager’s index.  And Juan Antolin-Diaz is slated to publish work in the Review of Economics and Statistic next month showing an increase in trend productivity growth from 0.3% in 2012 Q2 to 0.7% now.  Davies himself, however, concedes that these numbers are tentative.