创业孵化器进驻媒体公司

    《纽约时报》（The New York Times）或许并不是因为它悠久的历史才被人们戏称为“老女人”，但大多数人认为媒体公司都是步履蹒跚，动作迟钝的企业。现在，旨在启动其在线品牌的《爱尔兰时报》（The Irish Times ）和英国广播公司（BBC）商业分支机构BBC Worldwide公司把希望依托在了初创企业身上，希望借助它们的力量——这两家公司都建立了内部的创业孵化器，以驾驭年轻企业的颠覆性能量。

    《爱尔兰时报》首席创新官约翰尼•瑞安说，挑战的目标非常类似于一部好莱坞电影的情节：一位锐意进取的年轻人与一位性情乖戾的年迈导师携手攻克一道难题，并在整个过程中学到了一堂宝贵的人生课程。就这个例子而言，问题是如何改善一家公司的在线业务收入，人生课程则是初创企业在与一家大公司合作时所获得的经验。

    瑞安是《爱尔兰时报》数字挑战计划（Digital Challenge）的策划者。按照计划，5家初创公司（共有81家公司提出申请）需要在《爱尔兰时报》公司内部工作的8周时间内，将它们的创意转化为虚拟现实。虽然它们的创见各不相同，但最终目标却是相同的——赢得由DFJ Esprit风投基金提供的5万英镑（约合6.1万美元）投资。优胜者必须向《爱尔兰时报》证明，它的产品能够带来最大的潜在收入，同时改善读者的阅读体验。

    作为一个新成立的创业加速器，BBC Worldwide实验室则采用了一种类似但又有其鲜明特色的策略。羽翼未丰的公司之间并不存在竞争关系，也没有奖金，但这项为期6个月的项目提供了一种不同的奖品：初创公司将获得一家身价高达数十亿美元的顶级客户。

    “英国广播公司本身就有能力成为一家卓越的顶级客户，”BBC Worldwide实验室主管珍妮•菲尔丁说。这家广播巨头可以成为“这些公司从事商业化经营的合作伙伴。”

    上面这些项目的与众不同之处在于，初创企业就在产品实施者的眼皮底下运作。这种靠近客户的设计旨在克服初创企业和大公司进行互动时经常出现的隔阂。

    对于缺乏经验的初创企业来说，与大公司合作是一件非常困难的事情。作为英国广播公司数字企业（Digital Ventures）主管，菲尔丁经常亲自指导这些初创企业了解英国广播公司多样化的生态系统。她之所以把这个项目放在英国广播公司伦敦媒体中心（London Media Center）的总部，目的是希望这些小企业能够更快地适应英国广播公司，进而与之进行卓有成效的合作。

    英国广播公司和《爱尔兰时报》都不会持有其孵化的初创公司的股权。恰恰相反，这两家媒体公司希望与这些初创公司建立一种面向未来、最终规模远远大于现在的伙伴关系。

    媒体公司将重心放在由初创企业驱动的创新之上，既是一种利用新一代青年才俊的尝试，也是令人失望的内部工作造成的结果。最初处于在线新闻最前沿的《爱尔兰时报》自1994年启动其网站以来，数字化项目一直萎靡不振；英国广播公司的复杂性则让潜在的初创企业合作者望而却步。

    瑞安和菲尔丁都预料到同行也将采用他们的内部创新孵化器机制。“我认为这个领域的发展趋势是显而易见的，”瑞安说。“报纸经常扮演教堂的角色，我们现在则需要向集市开放。”

    这些内部创新孵化器是一种已经被其他行业采用的做法。作为一个将初创企业与百事可乐家族不同品牌匹配在一起的企业加速器，PepsiCo10即将进入第三个年头，竞赛地点已经从最初的英国扩展到了巴西和印度。

    百事可乐公司（PepsiCo）全球数字化和社交媒体业务主管乔希•卡普夫对于媒体效仿该公司的创意这一事实并不感到惊讶。

    “科技正在影响每个产业，媒体也不例外，”他在发给《财富》杂志（Fortune）的一封电邮中写道。“有些技术将在3到5年内影响一些公司的业务，主动挖掘这些技术的公司最终将赢得未来。”

    译者：任文科

    The New York Times may not be called the Gray Lady because of its age, but most people identify media companies as slow, heavy-footed enterprises. In an effort to jump-start their online brands, The Irish Times and the BBC's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, are turning to startup power by establishing intercompany startup incubators to harness young businesses' disruptive energies.

    The goal of the challenge is akin to the plot of a Hollywood movie: a young up-and-comer works with a grumpy old mentor to overcome a problem, learning a valuable life lesson in the process. In this case, the problem is how to better monetize a company's online presence and the life lesson is the experience startups get by working with a large company, says The Irish Times Chief Innovation Officer Johnny Ryan.

    Ryan is the brains behind The Irish Times Digital Challenge, in which five early-stage companies -- 81 applied -- spend eight weeks working at the Times to translate their pitch into virtual reality. While their ideas widely vary, their end goal is the same, to win €50,000 (about $61,000) from venture capital fund DFJ Esprit. The winning team must prove to the Times that its product provides the largest revenue potential and improvement to reader experience.

    BBC Worldwide Labs, a new business accelerator for startups, takes a similar but distinct tack. There is no competition between the fledgling companies and no prize money, but the six-month program offers a trophy of a different sort: the startups get a first client worth billions.

    "The BBC can be a great first customer," says BBC Worldwide Labs Head Jenny Fielding. The broadcasting giant can be "a partner at the point of commercialization for these companies."

    What makes these programs distinctive is that the startups operate just down the hall from the people implementing their products. This proximity to the client is designed to overcome obstacles usually found in interactions between startups and large corporations.

    Working with big companies is difficult for fledgling businesses. Fielding, in her role as the head of Digital Ventures at the BBC, often has to personally guide startups through the BBC's diverse ecosystem. By situating the program in the BBC's London Media Center headquarters, she expects the smaller startups to more quickly acclimate to and efficiently work with the larger BBC.

    Neither the BBC nor The Irish Times will take equity stakes in the young companies they incubate. Instead, the media companies hope to establish a relationship with these startups that is ultimately scalable into a larger, future partnership.

    The focus on startup-driven innovation is both an attempt to harness the next generation of young talent and a result of disappointing internal work. Originally at the forefront of online journalism, The Irish Times' digital efforts have sagged since launching their website in 1994, while the complexity of the BBC confounds potential startup collaborators.

    Both Ryan and Fielding expect their company's internal startup incubators to get adopted by their industry competitors. "I think the writing is on the wall," Ryan says, "Newspapers often act as cathedrals, and we need to open ourselves up to the bazaar."

    These types of internal startup incubators are a practice already adopted by other industries. PepsiCo10, a business accelerator that matches startups with various brands in the PepsiCo family, is about to enter its third year, expanding from its original U.K contest to ones in Brazil and India. Ryan cites the program as inspiration for his digital challenge.

    Director of Global Digital and Social Media at PepsiCo Josh Karpf isn't too surprised to see media companies adopt PepsiCo's idea.

    "Technology is affecting every industry today, and media is no different, he says in an email to Fortune. "Companies that are trying to find technologies that will impact their businesses three to five years down the line are the ones who will win in the future."