Maestro on Steroids: A newspaper and yearbook planner for the digital age

Looking for ways to get your staff to collaborate a bit more on stories? Wanting packages to be more fully developed? Thinking about ways to mesh the digital and print worlds? The Maestro on Steroids may just be what you’re looking for.

It’s not something new, per se. It’s something that was developed by Buck Ryan in the early 90s and something Jack Kennedy, Mark Newton and I wanted to give a 2013 reboot to.

If you’re not familiar, the Maestro Concept is basically an organizational approach to working as a team to give readers the best story package possible. If you would like to learn more about the Maestro Concept, we have added some links for further exploration below.

Professional papers, college papers and high schools throughout the country use the Maestro Concept. Our aim with this reboot was to take the concept and planning sheets and add something that’s very much a part of newsrooms today — a digital component (ie. web, video, multimedia, social, etc.).

We have created a new 2-page Maestro planner sheet below. You will actually find quite a few resources to help you effectively implement the Maestro Concept on your staff. Below, you will find handouts, videos Jack made walking users through the handouts, and, as promised, some other Maestro Concept Links on the web.