Shaping your digital business for 2010

What struck me most about the AOP’s forum was the gentle patter of realism.

Similar digital publishing seminars and conferences in the past have often boasted what might best be described as “digital extremists” who argue that traditional media is doomed and digital business should be built from scratch. At this event, speakers from the FT.com, Deloitte, WAN-IFRA and Auto Trader focused on the challenges for any traditional media company trying to increase the percentage of its digital business. But they also argued that this current, hybrid state was not just inevitable but appropriate.

The best parallel came from Deloitte’s Howard Davies. He pointed out that a hybrid car like the Toyota Prius was absolutely essential until cheaper rechargeable batteries or recharging points became widely available. He then argued that traditional media similarly had to “run a mixture of models for a while” because “the digital motorway still did not run everywhere in the UK” and its take-up was slowing.

I’ve copied my Twitters (and expanded some of those that are less than comprehensible!) from the event below.

FT.com’s Head of Product Management Mary Beth Christie

• All attendees to the forum were invited to draw smiley faces on a flipchart – FT realised its employees had as diverse views of the web as the variety of smiley faces drawn by the attendees of the forum.
• FT’s solution to the conflicting demands of journalists, protective of the value of their content, and management focused on revenue was pay wall for each user after 10 free stories a month.
• FT’s advice: make all those impacted by a launch (journalists, sales or operations) make the time to find out about a new launch. No one (CEO to reporter/sales exec) is too busy. Or don’t complain after launch!
• More expensive to make a traditional business digital than from new – like rewiring an old house than building new.

Deloitte’s Media Partner Howard Davies

• Don’t just push yourself into an exclusive digital space because everyone else appears to be there; the boundary between traditional and digital media is an area not a wall.
• “The digital motorway does not go everywhere.” In fact the numbers for digital conversion are slowing leaving the percentage of those using traditional media at a considerable number remains substantial (only 84% on mobile, 76% have a PC and only 62% are on broadband).
• Just as the electric hybrid car, the Prius was produced because it was just too early for pure electric cars, so media will continue to run both traditional and digital media for a while.
• Good leaders see digital’s frequent failures as part of the learning process.
• Take some breaks from your digital journey.
• Few publishers value the Long Tail any more (a reference to Chris Anderson’s book which argues that the web allows retailers to sell a large number of unique items, each in relatively small quantities), claims Davies, since who has resources to cater for the visitor who comes once a month.
• Digital forces not just a change of behaviour but also culture. And you cannot change culture, you can only build it.
• Why resistance to digital? Lack of vision, goal, structure, support, communication, information and involvement lead to a climate of fear.
• Most problems with change management occur because people are expected to implement without explanation and adopt without support.

WAN-IFRA’s Dr Dietmar Schantin

• Digital forces a change to a company’s culture, not just behaviour. Yet you cannot change culture only build it.
• Why resistance to digital? Lack of vision, goal, structure, support, communication, information and involvement from team leaders create a climate of fear.
• Most problems with change management occur because people are expected to implement without explanation and adopt without support.

Trader Media Group’s Digital Publishing Director, Edwin Ulak

• Historically, the Trade Media Group set up its digital business as a national one to compete with its existing 13 print businesses.
• When the company’s digital revenue overtook print revenue there were only 250 employed on digital and 3500 still on print.
• Incentivise and motivate sales team not just on revenue but also profitable growth.

Runcat Consulting’s Tom Turcan

• Don’t underestimate the value of a good party to help relieve stress during a period of change.

Here is the AOP’s own report on the forum.

JEEcamp 2009: Interview with Paul Bradshaw – on the future of journalism

Paul Bradshaw, JEEcamp organiser, has strong views on journalism’s future.

People will not pay for content but only a platform, he argues, so journalists should create their content around services. Hear what he has to say in a short interview outside the event. See pictures from the event here.

If your reader does not let you see the video, click on this link to access the post and see the video.

Paul Tweets @paulbradshaw and writes the Online Journalism Blog.

JEEcamp 2009: pictures from the event

For coverage of the event go Martin Belam here or here, Michael Haddon here and Kasper Sorensen here.  But for those wanting pictures, my photos are in a slideshow below and can be found in a Flick set here. And finally here are Jemimah Knight’s photos of the event.  

JEEcamp 2009: Interview with Martin Belam – on the future of journalism

I was in Birmingham yesterday for JEEcamp. It’s a great opportunity to talk about journalism and, more specifically, how to make money from it.

I met Martin Belam and asked him his views. I’ve always been a great fan – I put him in my list of UK bloggers and Twitterers who are beginning to rival their US peers for my attention. Listen to what he had to say.

Martin Tweets @currybet and blogs at Currybet and MediaGuardian.

Interview with David Cohn – the future of investigative journalism

David Cohn’s Spot.us is an experiment “to preserve investigative journalism” in the San Francisco bay area. 

This is how it works. Members of the public choose which topic should be investigated by a journalist, pledging anything from $5 upwards. 

Listen to how David sees his idea taking off and his plea that journalism will only survive if others are as experimental. 

David’s Twitter handle is @Digidave, here are his Shares, which I have written about before, and he writes a blog DigiDave.

This is my fourth interview from the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

A list of UK bloggers and Twitterers who are beginning to rival their US peers for my attention

Six months ago, my daily fix of blogs and Twitters originated in the US or Canada Whether it was Jeremiah Owyang, Jay Rosen or Mark Potts, their posts and Tweets provided me with a swift and fascinating education in both new and social media. 

But I have noticed how my RSS subscriptions have begun to change. My list, once dominated by US and Canadian bloggers and Twitterers, is increasingly peppered with UK and Irish ones. 

There have always been good UK and Irish bloggers on new or social media. But some of those attracting my attention have appeared only during 2008 or, even more recently, 2009. Some are former journalists and media executives turning their hand to blogging for the first time, the new wave I predicted late last year.

Here is a list of US/Canadian bloggers and Twitterers I admire and their UK/Irish equivalents. 

Comparisons of online media

• Mark S Luckie’s 10000 words is at its best when it publishes one of its comparative lists such as 8 Interactive online projects that educate and captivate. 

Why not try out Martin Belam’s Currybet with its equally ambitious and detailed comparisons. Just last week the UK’s Bellam kicked off a four part series contrasting the navigation on UK national papers.

The future of newspapers

• Jay Rosen, New York University’s maverick professor of journalism, cannot be bettered for Tweets which question the role of journalism in this digital age. Follow and learn. 

Back in the UK (although from the US himself) is uberactive Ben LaMothe who fills the Twittersphere with breaking news about the US and UK news industry.   

Analysis of B2B magazines

• Paul Conleyhas led the tiny B2B community of bloggers for years with his detailed analysis of the US sector’s failings and finality.

In the UK Rory Brown, previously of Incisive, launched his blog late last year and  Neil Thackray, formerly Quantum and Nexus, kicked his off only a fortnight ago. Both write with the confidence of years at the top empowering them to raise issues that were once swept under the carpet.  

Short, sharp lessons in writing posts

• The US writer Seth Godinisn’t inspirational just for his opinions. His writing also motivates you to improve your own style and his counterintuitive opinions challenge your own views.

Gloucestershire-born Richard Millington (although now temporarily locate in the Baltic States) only started Feverbeelast year. But his posts show a rare focus and his writing style evokes the minimalism of Godin (the UK blogger did an internship with the US guru). Is this the UK’s future Godin? 

What about local papers?

• The Media Managerby Kirk LaPointe, also editor of the Vancouver Sun, is essential reading for any journalist in north America who wants to keep up to speed with rapid changes in the industry. His output is phenomenal with around 25 posts a week.

We now have our own LaPointe in Jon Slattery, the former deputy editor of Press Gazette. Jon’s blog covers so much of the J-news in the UK that one blogger has already questioned whether he needs to read both Jon and the Press Gazette.

How technology impacts on life

• I’ve always loved Sarah Lacy’s blogfor her opinions and her “go shove-it” attitude towards start-ups and technology. She now joins TechCrunch while editor Michael Arrington takes a break from the stalkers.

Jemima Kiss is an equally tough technology thinker but pours her views and opinions into MediaGuardian and her Twitter. 

The entrepreneurs/ start-ups 

• The US has Kevin Rose, owner of Digg, a celebrity on Twitter, a very visual blog and a liver of life.

 We have Paul Walsh, founder of Segala – and yet to be launched Wubud. Walsh also boasts a popular blog, a vast number of Twitter followers and a great line in meet-ups. 

Are there any other bloggers or Twitterers that you would add to the list?

If you think your followers/community on Twitter would be interested in this post, show them your value by reTweeting it to them!

Photo credit: Anthony Mayfield

 

Is an MA in Social Media strictly necessary?

Would you be impressed by a candidate boasting the University of Salford’s proposed MA in Social Media (hat tip Chi-chi Ekweozor)?

Recruitment is becoming a key issue for any traditional company building its digital business. Does it continue to appoint people in the image of its existing employees, and then spend months training them, or should a company only consider candidates with a minimum social media footprint?

The Guardian has just recruited Lauren Luke, a 27-year-old single mother and YouTube make-up star, as a columnist. As Online Journalism Blog’s Paul Bradshaw says

I’ve written previously that if you want to get into journalism you should have a blog. I’d add to that: if you want your own column, you should build up a following on YouTube too. News organisations will increasingly not just be looking for people who know what they’re talking about, but how to distribute it effectively online.

Note that Ms Luke is a make-up artiste first and a YouTuber second. Similarly no company, whatever its legacy, is suddenly going to drop its requirement for core skills and be seduced by social media. 

Calculators, emails and now Twitter

Social media is just the next technological development to impact on the workplace. When the excitement has died down, what would be the point of knowing about the kit rather than the core skills themselves? Did we appoint people in the 1970s who knew how to use calculators or shortlist candidates in the 1990s who were good at sending emails?  Why appoint someone skilled in Twitter if they cannot write, market or sell?

No. All we need are people good at the core skills who happen to have set up a blog, a Twitter account and/or used LinkedIn.

It does not seem much to ask. But it ain’t an MA.

Photo credit: David the Pimp Daddy

Why are so many B2B media blogs anonymous?

To be honest, occasionally it has been a pretty lonely existence being a blogger.

Of course there is instant gratification when you can get to know and collaborate rub with Peter Kim, a leading social media marketer, or Jay Rosen, the head of journalism at NYU. But to find someone actually blogging about my core competence – the business of B2B media – is rare.

Perhaps it is beginning to change.  In just a week, Paul Conley, the US-based B2B consultant launched a hard-hitting analysis on the future of the sector. Rory Brown, a former boss at Incisive Media followed. News sites, blogs and Tweets carried the question can B2B magazine brands survive?off into the blogosphere. Alone? It is beginning to feel like a B2B media online community!

So I have spent today updating a previous posting on a list of bloggers who focus on B2B media. And as I did, I got rather depressed. A significant minority of B2B blogs are anonymous. Stranger still is that many of them are also well written and posting good stories. So why the anonymity?

I spent many years as an editor trying to avoid – and often failing – to run stories based on unattributed quotes (“Sources say….”). Hell, we weren’t the New York Timesbut it always seemed worth trying. And yet, here I am coming up against anonymous blogs.

Postings as thought-provoking as those by Paul Conley, Adam Tinworth and Rory Brown are also authoritative because they are clearly bylined. How are we to develop a really effective online B2B media community if some of the key participants keep their identities hidden?

As the news from many B2B companies becomes tougher and tougher, anonymous blogs taking swipes at these companies seems increasingly lame. Anyone can write anything without putting their name to it. But it takes someone to write something of importance.

Why does such anonymity plague blogs about B2B media and not national or local newspapers? All sectors are equally under pressure. In the meantime, all links to anonymous blogs on my list have been removed.

Links suggest collaboration. Calloboration suggests support. I am not sure I support them.

Can B2B magazine brands survive?

lThe impact of digital on national and local papers dominates. The fate of B2B media has been all but ignored. So you can imagine my delight, after a week offline, to discover a real debate.

Well “delight” might be the wrong word here. Paul Conley, a US B2B magazine consultant, has clinically assessed the likely survival of the B2B media sector in the US. It ain’t pretty. Neither a debt-laden, traditional print sector rushing to go online nor more recent, web-only companies can get it right. Advertising revenues decline. Both sides lord it over each other. Rory Brown, a former MD of Incisive Marketing Division, has joined the debate. He argues that B2B companies need to recognise and embrace niches within business sectors. Then use web hosted apps to service readers. I do both an injustice. Read them.  

I recognise the problems. But here’s my countercyclical take on it.

1. The mood among traditional B2B journalists has swung dramatically. The conversation is no longer “why digital” but rather “shall we use a corporate Twitter address and use DM to communicate. Oh, and let’s feed it through the company Wiki”.
2. B2B editors are already brilliant networkers so well placed to be what Clay Shirky, among others, would call ambassadors between small world networks. Encourage them and you draw the rest in.
3. The smaller, monthlies are already such niche titles that their new digital footprints translate smoothly into online communities.
4. Editors’ specialist knowledge is extremely effective when they go out to comment on stories in the national press or other blogs.
5. Even the names of the titles, particularly some of the smaller ones, help since they often mirror key search phrases – Service Management, Security Management, Publican, Building.
6. Web-hosted, social media apps have brought an excitement to editorial teams and provided many of the former prohibitively expensive solutions  for their sites.
7. A successful B2B titles has not been a stand-alone brand since the mid-1990s. Conferences, awards, exhibitions, roundtables, all extensions to a magazine’s brand sit far more comfortably within digital than endless supplements.
8. Our exhibitions are now spawning high quality conferences. They might not look like journalism but by God they feel like it when you are live blogging them.
9. Content will remain a priority but digital allows former print titles to withdraw from some areas – why compete on data when others do it better?
10. Digital revenues might be 5-10 per cent on average. But that figure will rise quickly.
11. Clients know they must move their marketing online. They, like the media, are just struggling with the cultural changes necessary.
12. B2B sales teams have a relationship with clients that allows them to mentor them as they learn about digital together.
13. Sales teams are absolutely up for it.
14. Not all B2B companies are debt-laden. United Business Media (my company) has money in the bank following sales of the Express newspapers and shares in C4 and C5 TV channels over the last decade.
15. And finally, the return of humour. Adam Tinworth, RBI’s blog maestro on the current downturn: “I’ve just registered fromb2btob&b in preparation for the implosion of the industry and my inevitable move from B2B to running a B&B in Devon…”

What do you think. Can you add to this list?

A list of bloggers who focus on B2B media

You can meet everyone in the blogosphere: leading social media marketers such as Jeremiah Owyang; top journalism teachers such as Jay Rosen and creative programmers such as Yongfook. But try and find a decent group of bloggers posting about Business-to-Business media and you will be disappointed.

First, there are not that many (one on my list isn’t actually a blogger yet) and, second, why are so many B2B media blogs anonymous – of which I do not approve. You just do not find such high levels of anonymity in other parts of journalism so why B2B media?

UPDATED AND REVISED: 31 January 2009

1. Paul Conley –  As a US-based consultant to B2B media, Conley is a witness to the rapid changes taking place in the sector. I just wish he would write more.
2. Adam Tinworth- RBI’s blogging maestro takes you on a great ride through digital with One Man and His Blog. Originator of the word “Hackopalypse”.
3. Rory Brown - Incisive Marketing Division’s former MD is a welcome addition to the B2B pool of bloggers.
4. Neil Thackray - Reed, the Miller Freeman, then CEO of Quantum and finally Nexus. What more could you want from a B2B blogger.
5. Asia Business Media – Paul Woodward of Business Strategies Group in Hong Kong.
6. ASPBE National Blog – blogroll of the American Society of Business Publication Editors.
7. Harmeek Singh- Publisher based in India and obviously someone who carefully reads and conscientiously comments on blogs. But Singh does not appear to have his own blog – he should!
8. Business Media Blog - well written blog focusing on US B2B media but drawing on UK media but an anonymous blog. Not to be confused with…
9. Business Media- a blog focusing on UK B2B. Anonymous.
10. illiterato - A B2B journalist who covers general business news but can comment really well on B2B media – and should do more of it! Anonymous.
11. Private Frazer’s Doomed Magazines – named after the hilarious Dad’s Army character, Private Fraser maps the decline of the magazine sector. Anonymous.

So here’s my list. Have you got any to suggestions?