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What Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey learned from journalism
Published: 1/23/2013 12:29 PM
Last Modified: 1/23/2013 12:35 PM

"I really like that model at both Twitter and Square because it allows for people with the most information around the company to bubble something up," Jack Dorsey says. Bloomberg

It's not everyday that you hear one of the world's innovators saying he looks to journalism as a model for success.

Jack Dorsey is a co-founder of Twitter and the founder of Square, the company that makes that little square device people can plug into their iPhones and instantly begin taking credit card payments. I bought all of my Girl Scout cookies from someone using one.

Near the end of a recent interview with Forbes, Dorsey, who reported for his high school newspaper, talked about how he runs Twitter and Square.

His inspiration? A newsroom.

"I really like that model at both Twitter and Square because it allows for people with the most information around the company to bubble something up," he told Forbes. "But it also allows the leaders in our company to recognize trends and intersections, and (assign) teams to those intersections."

But then he goes one step farther in two areas that are key in journalism: transparency and trust. His insistence for everyone to be on the same page at Square is why he has a rule you won't believe: "At every meeting involving more than two people, someone must take notes and send them to the entire staff."

No matter the subject, all 400 employees get an email about the meeting. So far, with dozens of websites dedicated to finding leaks in the most innovative tech companies, Square's secrets haven't found themselves on any of them.

I've never heard that kind of rule in place at either small or big businesses. But I certainly understand why he does it. Internal communication problems can be common. But I think he follows that rule because of another truth: He trusts his staff, just like any editor trusts his newsroom.

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The focus of this blog is to write about what we are doing at the Tulsa World to continue to serve readers in a digital age and how the Internet is changing journalism.

Jason Collington is the web editor at the Tulsa World, where he works on the company's digital products with a team of four web designers, two web production techs, a web content coordinator, a web advertising coordinator and nine web developers. Before moving to web editor in 2006, he was the web content coordinator for tulsaworld.com.

He also teaches a class at his alma mater, Oklahoma State University, called Internet Communications, where students learn to use online tools to create offline results.

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Contact by email: jason.collington@tulsaworld.com

What I read

Poynter Institute: Dedicated to teaching and inspiring journalists and media leaders

Gangrey: Great narrative journalism

Nieman Journalism Lab: Pushing to the future of journalism

David Carr: NY Times media columnist

Jim Romenesko: Latest media news

SmartBrief: Business of News

Reynold Journalism Institute: Ideas, experiments, research and solutions in journalism

Advertising Age: Ad and marketing news

Digital Desk: Everything you ever wanted to know about NewsOK.com

Freedom of Information Oklahoma: News about public records and opening meetings

The Daily O'Collegian: OSU's student newspaper

MediaStorm: Incredible videos

Fast Company: Design and tech

Inc Magazine: Tech advice

David Pogue: NY Times tech columnist

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