Mantras (III): Aron Pilhofer

I read on Alberto Cairo's webpage about this interview with Aron Pilhofer, editor of Interactive Newsroom Technologies at the NYT. These are some of the sentences I will keep on mind:

"In terms of what makes a powerful interactive, I think it depends on the story, obviously, but the best ones I believe are the ones that are truly … interactive. That term is widely used to describe a lot of web features whose level of interactivity is limited to the user clicking on a button and watching things move around the screen. That’s absolutely a form of online story telling, but it’s not interactive in any way, shape or form."

"Collaboration is maybe THE key ingredient to what makes a powerful interactive. One of the great things about our newsroom is that it is unusually collaborative, and most of the projects you’ll see involve multiple desks."


And I also want to highlight another thing: Pilhofer says that all the software they use is opensource. While there's still fear to use opensource software on many newspapers, at least in Spain (I still don't know any using Open Office, using a very simple example), the biggest one uses it. A good lesson for the managers.