Services vs. content: creating value for the people you're here for
Most newsrooms are great at making content. This workshop is about the next step: designing services people can rely on.
As part of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism’s Live LENs event series, we're convening a small group of news practitioners in Philadelphia to work through three ideas that change how you think about your audience relationship:
the difference between content and services, and why the distinction matters for how you design, grow, and monetize your work.
value exchange: what your organization is actually asking from your audience, what you're giving in return, and where the gaps sit between what you intend to offer and what people actually experience.
measurement: how to define success in terms of outcomes for the people you serve, not just the things you produced.
By the end of 90 minutes, you'll have reflected on how to map value exchanges and begin with outcomes-based measurement.
We'll share short frameworks you can take with you to run small service experiments in your own practice, whether you're an individual creator, a large legacy newsroom, a consultant, a technologist, or somewhere in between.
About the Service Desk
We are a service design practice for civic media, with support from the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, we've worked with dozens of newsrooms and independent creators across four continents to identify concrete service and revenue opportunities, map the obstacles that prevent follow-through, and translate good intentions into specific, testable services audiences can actually use.
We focus on realistic quick wins: small, practical changes that unlock momentum and reduce risk. the aim is to build internal capability and decision-making clarity so teams can keep iterating independently, with greater intentionality.