Joe Smith in Kansas City is always my guy.
He is my go-to audience whenever I’m writing about a new innovation or technology. He is always on my mind.
Of course, Joe Smith isn’t one person. He is a readership of everyone I hope will learn something new about the topic I happen to be covering.
And it was Joe Smith who I brought with me to a recent class on how to cover innovation news.
I have been writing about Israeli innovation, specifically, for over a decade. I give talks about the innovation stories from here, too.
There are innovation hubs the world over.
Every country is innovating.
And yet, my job is to find a way to tell a story that will tweak interest. Every time.
So, I call on Joe Smith.
As I explained to the students via Zoom, it is crucial to think about Joe Smith from Kansas City and what would interest him.
When writing for a global audience it is the global perspective of things which must be kept in mind.
We spoke about the wider picture – looking at news trends, news pieces and why it is important to know what others are writing about or saying.
We also spoke about press releases and why copying-and-pasting given text is not how to write an article.
We spoke about how to tell a story the journalist wants to tell and not just the curated story a firm prefers to tell.
We spoke about telling of the essence of a technology and not about the nitty gritty codes.
And we spoke about Joe Smith.
If Joe Smith is interested in a novel technology that could change how he does something in his day-to-day or how a breakthrough algorithm may change why he does something, the article – and journalist-- will succeed.
Everyone telling innovation stories needs a Joe Smith.
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