Does Medium Realize Its Iceberg is Melting?

Medium curation has always operated this way — why does it have to change?

Change is hard. I know. I get it.

We don’t like change.

It’s tough to change jobs. It’s tough to change careers. It’s tough to change cities.

Some editors and writers don’t like the recent changes on Medium, especially when it comes to the coveted curation.

We all want to be curated by Medium.

Curated stories meet Medium’s strict distribution guidelines. When a story is curated, it’s distributed to a bigger Medium audience and promoted on the Medium home page/app, topic pages, and in their emails.

That has changed.

The Medium Staff, on its official blog, announced updates to their curation and distribution system.

Medium is becoming more relational in order to give writers more freedom and agency over building and maintaining relationships with their audience.

We still value editorial curation but recognize that our system did not always serve writers as well as it could. Our goal with a more relational Medium is to make it easier for writers to build and connect with their readership. We don’t want curation to be a hindrance to that. We will discover and promote stories, and are investing in improving our mechanisms for doing so.

So, what does this mean?

Medium curation has been minimized. Medium will now focus more on relationships over algorithms.

Medium CEO Ev Williams outlines where Medium is headed in his toward a more relational Medium story:

..the new [Medium] app is “reoriented around following — so that readers can be sure they’re not missing anything from writers they love, and those writers and publications can more actively engage and grow their audience.”

One of the things I loved about blogging back then — and that people enjoy about writing newsletters today — is the feeling that you’re publishing to a relatively consistent group of people who care what you have to say. Even if it’s a small group. This lets you write with more freedom and confidence. You build context and trust over time. Your success is less dependent on your latest headline and more on delivering on the trust your readers have given you by showing up.

Our distribution mechanisms became more transactional and less relational over time. More concretely, while you can build followers on Medium, our algorithms have played a bigger role in what gets distributed. As a result, readers have been less likely to follow writers because it doesn’t have a huge effect.

Medium realizes it needs to change: re-focus on relationships over algorithms to thrive now and in the future.

So what do these Medium changes have to do with an iceberg?

Is the Medium iceberg melting?

We are passionate about Medium and to realize that it’s changing is scary.

It was also scary for the Antarctic penguins in the business fable, Our Iceberg is Melting, written Harvard Business School Professor Dr. John Kotter and his colleague, Holger Rathgeber. The fable is the short story version of John Kotter’s research into the eight steps of change in his book Leading Change.

The emperor penguins realized their iceberg near the coast of Antarctica was melting. They correctly made the right changes to survive. But it wasn’t easy for them to change.

Medium is realizing it needs to make the changes to survive as well.

We all fear change

The penguins feared changed. They were not motivated to take change. Life was good for them.

We, as Medium community, fear change too. The Medium community is an engaged, tight, and helpful. We are making money on Medium so why change and why now?

With the penguins, it all started with one curious bird who first discovered a potentially devastating problem to their iceberg. It was shocking to the penguins because it threatened their home.

Just like on Medium. Editors of publications and writers are worried about the changes that Medium is making, as Dr Mehmet Yildiz writes.

Nobody initially listened to the bird who found the problem.

Is the same happening to Ev Williams?

He was upfront that changes were coming…

As a Medium community, are we really listening to him?

With the changes to Medium, which character are you going to be in the Our Iceberg is Melting book?

Are you going to be the character, NoNo, who says “no, no” to everything?

Or are you going to the character Fred, who is curious, observant, and creative?

Fred motivates his fellow penguins to take action to save their home and help the penguins realize they needed to change for the colony survive.

NoNo was negative, change-averse, and antagonistic. He did his best to undermine those who challenged the status quo.

The Our Iceberg is Melting story is a tale of dealing with change and how the penguins overcame obstacles. It’s a quick read and it’s an inspiring take on how we all struggle with change.

Are we struggling with the Medium curation change?

Managing change

Change is hard. It’s not easy. For the penguin colony, it was necessary.

And it’s necessary for our Medium home to survive. We may just not realize it yet.

Are you going to be NoNo or Fred?

The choice is yours.

“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” — Charles Darwin, an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist. He is best known for his contributions to the science of evolution.

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