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The news organisations that succeed today share a simple strength: they know who their audience is, and they understand the specific needs that bring people to their journalism.

In this new smartocto webinar at the beginning of 2026, we show how any newsroom can work in a more audience centric way. Which steps matter most? Which strategic choices have proved successful for publishers? Through User Needs Labs, smartocto and Dmitry Shishkin have helped dozens of newsrooms see their audience more clearly and act on those insights with confidence.

This session also marks the introduction of User Needs Labs 3.0, the newest edition of our year-long programme. News organisations can already register their interest.

If you are planning a project built on experiments, data, AI or the User Needs Model 2.0, this session will give you a clear and practical starting point.

What you’ll learn
• How to build an audience centric workflow that guides day to day decision making
• How the user needs approach sharpens storytelling and improves performance
• How data and AI can support experiments without adding confusion
• How to design an audience centric project that delivers visible, measurable results

8 January 2026
15:00 Central European Time (or watch the recording)

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Speakers:

Rutger Verhoeven, CMO and cofounder of smartocto. Coauthor of the influential whitepaper User Needs for News 2.0 audience driven publishing. He has helped many newsrooms bring the methodology to life.

Marcela Kunova, managing director and owner of JournalismUK. She adopted the user needs model for her own newsroom. As a smartocto client and participant in User Needs Labs 2.0, she offers both hands-on experience and a wider strategic view on how newsrooms can put audiences at the centre of their reporting.

Dmitry Shishkin, independent strategic editorial advisor and former CEO at Ringier Media International. He is the most prominent voice behind the user needs for news and coauthor of the smartocto whitepaper. He worked on the earliest user-needs initiatives at the BBC and now contributes to User Needs Labs 3.0 as trainer and consultant.