The leak is growing

At this point, the leaked New York Times innovation report might well serve as the best piece of investigative journalism the Times has produced all year. (Embedded below.)

Mashable's summary provides brief, insightful commentary.

The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard offers a lengthy and adroit examination.

Edward Boches,Scott Monty and David Armano have all skillfully summarized the report in the context of marketers and advertising agencies.

Read all of the links above - you'll be smarter for it.

I agree with the Nieman subhead: "It’s an astonishing look inside the cultural change still needed in the shift to digital." It is, in fact, a look inside many of our own organizations.

The report is a mirror of our age, and of the challenges corporations face. 20+ years into the commercial Internet, we are still mostly adrift -- clinging to old habits, treasuring declining assets. "It is essential to begin the work of questioning our print-centric traditions," says the report. Yes, finally. Which traditions do you cling to?

Many who lead the creation of ideas today lack basic tech fluency, despite compelling reasons to get on board. Witness Healthcare.gov. Inside the Times, a lack of fluency bets unprofitable attention on the home page, all while, "Only a third of our readers ever visit (the homepage)... And those who do visit are spending less time (there)." Willful ignorance -- and there is no better label for the behavior -- is abundant.

So we are fortunate a brave cadre of reporters were empowered to self-examine a large, creative bureaucracy (their own) and in the discovery and telling, illuminate common conditions and articulate the means to a better expression of the idea of digital for all of us.

What makes this leak worth our attention is its professionalism, its subject matter (a storied, valued and large bureaucracy) and the report's breadth, honesty and clarity. This is a story you can sink your teeth into and find nourishment. It is a text book for why digital innovation stumbles inside big companies and what to do about it. Kudos to the team who researched and wrote the report -- they have done us all a service by putting distinct language to a 20-year old conundrum.

And as the leak spreads, hope grows.

Here's the full report: