| President’s
Letter
Optimism shines through stormy state of b2b press
by Steve Roll, National
President, ASBPE
Senior State Tax Law Editor,
BNA Tax & Accounting
 “No
matter what editorial function you perform
for your
publication,
the people who own the company see you as
a cost center,”
keynote speaker Paul Conley told the attendees
of ASBPE’s National Editorial
Conference in Kansas City last July.
Conley lent a sense of
urgency to the conference’s
educational
mission by describing how the b2b publishing
world is transforming into
an fast-paced, unrelenting, information
machine.
For a long time the b2b
publishing industry was a happy backwater.
He said
you could
put a weekly issue to bed on Thursday morning,
take a long lunch, and show up late on
Friday. Oftentimes, the paycheck that accompanied
this comfortable schedule helped take the
sting out of the yawns emitted by new acquaintances after you’ve
told them that you write for a poultry
magazine.
Now, “we are all teletype reporters,” Conley
said, explaining that “when someone
checks your publication’s Web site,
but can’t find coverage of a hot
topic, they don’t think ‘they’re probably saving this story
for the print edition.’ ” Instead,
they think “you suck.”
I admire Conley’s
willingness to speak the truth to his colleagues
in the
trade
press. He has an established record of
telling publishers things they’d prefer
not to hear. Even though he earns his living
as a consultant, he’s not afraid to
cry foul on his blog when he believes a company
has crossed the line by engaging in activities
such as embedding
advertisements within the text of articles.
I
asked him if he ever lost clients because
of a blog post. He said he hadn’t,
but added that he believes that some
potential clients may be avoiding him.
He added
that he is
willing to pay that price to be able
to write about the issues he cares about.
Pushing
through the warnings
As the day progressed
and attendees gained practical advice from
sessions aimed
at helping them meet digital’s
challenges, a sense of optimism shined
through the dire
warnings.
For example, in a session
called “Multitasking
in the Digital Age,” two editors
and a
publisher shared tips on how to maximize
your time as a print editor who is now
tasked to do both print and Web. One
editor, ASBPE Washington, D.C., chapter
president Katy Tomasulo, noted some of
the keys
to success are to gauge what subscribers
are reading, plan ahead so that print and
digital initiatives can be accomplished,
and
to make use of interesting but unused
materials for other media, such as slide
shows or podcasts.
During break-out sessions,
attendees learned the basics on producing
a podcast
or
Web video. Experts also examined technical
editing or conducting an interview.
Foundation quickly gets
donors
Perhaps the biggest cause
for optimism was the successful launch of
ASBPE’s
nonprofit foundation.
One of the foundation’s
chief aims is to create a series of continuing
education
workshops aimed at maintaining professional
trade editors’ mastery
of new-media communication platforms,
including Web video, audio and video podcasts,
webinars, blogs,
and social media environments.
Led by
ASBPE past president Rob Freedman, the
foundation has already received contributions
from more than two dozen institutions
and individuals.
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