Take Polaroid and Kodak. Fifteen years ago, those were the names you thought of when you thought of photography. They both had histories of innovation and were well-positioned to corner the digital market. And Kodak did try early on, producing one of the first digital SLRs used by newspapers. But they were committed to film, and even when thinking about digital, they had a film mindset. Now they’re cutting back on film production and have a line of (mostly) excreable consumer cameras.

Polaroid thought that their photos were superior to digital ones. And they were, for a while. But sensors got better and better and cheaper and cheaper. And gradually, almost no one except artists and the elderly were using Polaroid cameras. The company didn’t plan for such a market shift. And I don’t know that anyone can.

Those kinds of changes are exactly what newspapers are facing today. And the innovation programs that are under way really are a good start. But newspaper companies need to stop thinking like newspaper companies. Easier said than done, for sure, but look where thinking the same way got Kodak and Polaroid.

I had an editor who once asked if we were going to do the same thing differently or something really different. We’ve tried doing the same thing differently. Now it’s time to try something different.

Now Polaroid pictures weren’t the best, but a lot of people my age and older grew up with snapshots whirring from the front of a camera and slowly developing into view. When digital cameras came onto the scene, Polaroid stuck to its guns and thought the marketshare it had was permanent. It wasn’t, of course.

Sound familiar?

After some painful reorganization, it kept producing it’s standby product, but diversified, too. Layoffs kept coming, and I think you’d have a hard time finding an analyst telling you to buy Polaroid stock. The idea seemed sound. Keep producing film for artists and people who for whatever reason don’t want to use digital cameras, and branch out. But the niche Polaroid was trying to fill wasn’t profitable.

Now they’re coming up with new products, including a portable printer that connects to your cellphone’s camera and can print a 2×3 picture. Not that they asked me, but I’m not sold on the idea. It has some value as a novelty, but you can look at the picture on the screen, and most people are content doing that. But it’s a good experiment.

The analyst at the end of the NYT article has a good quote, and one that everyone involved in innovation in any business should bear in mind:

However ingenious the process, Mr. Hoffenberg of Lyra said, people might still not be tempted to convert camera clicks into prints.

“Potential markets can exist because they aren’t tapped, but also because they aren’t actually a market,” he said. “It’s not always evident up front which is the case.”

Newspapers have long acted the way Polaroid did, but are branching out. They can’t wait any longer, though. Polaroid is a good example of what could happen if they did.

More tomorrow