Publishing futurist Bob
Sacks to keynote National Editorial Conference
Meeting set
for July 15–17 in
Washington, D.C.
On his blog for Publishing
Executive magazine, Bob Sacks says he’s “a
journalist, a grizzled reporter” and
his beat is the media landscape. He also says he is
an “avid
publishing futurist.”
So true. Just consider
these blog titles from past issues of
the magazine:
- “The Publishing Community Will Not Perish”
- “I Own Every Great
Book Ever Written and They Are All
in My Pocket”
- “Why I Don’t Trust PIB’s
Ad Revenue Reports”
- “A Quick Lesson
in How to Save the Magazine Industry”
- “Another Paper
Price Increase, Another
Reason to Abandon Print?”
But there’s
more. This prolific information publisher
has an email newsletter, “Heard
on the Web”, and
his own blog, BoSacks “Heard on
the Web” — Media
Intelligence, for which he compiles articles
from numerous other digital publications
about the state of
our media. He often comments on the articles.
He says (tongue in cheek): “I do
not write many of the articles, but have
been known
to add caustic comments
when and where
it seemed appropriate.”
As a veteran of the
printing and publishing industry since
1970, Bob Sacks is a thinker.
In a recent online
discussion about digital publication business
decisions, Sacks
offered an audacious strategy
from his past, similar to what some magazines
are now
trying.
“I do believe
in owning the turf outright,” Sacks
wrote. “I once published a unique
title that was clearly the best in its field.
I started to have competitors
and we made an interesting business decision.
We started our own second magazine to compete
with. It was the
second-best magazine in the field. After
a while, all the competitors
fled the area and we were the only ones
left standing. Soon after, we shut down
the second title. We owned
the turf.”
After several years
in the alternative press publishing newspapers
in New York
and Tucson,
he became one
of the founding fathers of High Times magazine.
Since then Sacks has
been a publisher, editor, freelance writer,
director of
manufacturing
and distribution,
senior sales manager, circulator, chief
of operations, pressman,
cameraman, lecturer, and developer of
Web site companies.
His résumé lists directorships
at Bill Communications (VNU), CMP, International
Paper, McCall’s,
Time Inc., The New York Times Company’s
magazine group, and Ziff-Davis.
Today his firm, Precision
Media Group, does private consulting and
publishes
the daily
e-newsletters worldwide to more
than 11,500 media industry leaders.
“It is purely a very ‘personal’ and slanted
collection of news gathered daily over the Internet, which
to me seems relevant and useful about the publishing industry,” he
wrote. “I do this as
a labor of love and to keep myself as
up to date as is possible with the ever
changing and advancing ‘information
distribution industry’ formerly known as ‘publishing’.”
And how much does
it cost?
“The price for this service is nothing. It is free.
It is just as easy for me to copy three or four of my industry
friends as it is to carbon copy the
current list of 11,500
publishing professionals,” he
said.
Sacks is known to
be an electrifying lecturer about
the media and marketing industries.
He frequently discusses the good and
bad news about what he calls “El-CID,” or
electronically coordinated information
distribution. His presentations often
cover the technological
past, present,
and future possibilities for publishing
at the digital edge.
Toward this end, Sacks
formed a global consultancy last year
called mediaIDEAS to provide
research and advisory services about
the effects of technology on magazine
publishing.
In one of its advisories,
called TH(ink) NOTEs, Sacks writes, “The integration
of technologies like XML, JDF, and
PDF-x1a are giving publishers greater
access
and control over both the production
process
and manufacturing time.”
Related links:
Back to ASBPE News page |
