February 21, 2008
Folio Publishing Summit: Day One Executive Session
This past week I had the opportunity to attend the Folio Publishing Summit, held at the Doral Golf Resort & Spa in Miami, Florida. Sadly, I didn't bring my clubs. However, it was probably one of the best conferences I have attended.
First, the sponsors of the event, Red7Media, are not just event planners but also a B2B publisher, so they know what they're talking about. Their CEO, Kerry Smith, is clearly a visionary, and it was really enjoyable to listen to his vision for his company and B2B in general. Tony Silber, the Editor & Publisher of Folio Magazine and the master of ceremonies of the Summit, did a great job setting the interactive tone for all sessions. The idea was to have more of a roundtable feel to each meeting as opposed to the old lecture-from-podium format that just makes me want to bury my head in my Blackberry.
I attended a number of great sessions, but one particularly stood out with Tony Uphoff (CMP) and Bill Holliber (US News & World Report) serving as moderators. The attendees to this executive session were clearly at sea with what to about their ‘digital' strategy - many admitted they didn't have one and weren't sure whether they needed one since print still comprised 90% of their revenues.
After some general grousing from the audience about organizational silos, the cost of technical implementations online, and uncertainty in following the crowd on Web 2.0 ‘strategies', a few speakers on the panel hit some key points. For instance, Alex Kam (American Lawyer Media) aptly stated that a company needs to start with definition(s) for success online. His point was that you can't just look at page views and uniques, you have to have a clear understanding of your business objectives and financial goals online and those have to be documented as Key Performance Indicators (KPI's).
Tony (Uphoff) brought up that a digital strategy is foremost about the Who and How rather than the What. Tony contends that getting a digital guru for your business is the first step, but that role (referred to a few times in the room as CTO) is often difficult to fill with real visionaries. He suggested that working with a reputable consulting firm that can fulfill that role may help smaller publishers get to the next level.
Tony continued on that the digital culture has to be embodied in all talent, not just one voice, for a company to be truly successful. Larry Burstein (New York Magazine) noted that every staffer they hire today has to have deep digital experience to become part of the team. Everyone on the panel seemed to agree that by bringing on the right ‘digital' talent you will get the best results since more people will be able to make great composite decisions necessary to thrive online.
Posted at 12:32 pm by Joseph Bachana
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