BoSacks Speaks Out: Why Media See 'Depression' As Real

BoSacks Speaks Out: It was Dr. Joe Webb who reminded me yesterday of the old Harry S. Truman quote, "It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours." The publishing industry along with the rest of the economy is hurting right now, although as is usually the case, some few titles are bucking the downward trend and showing some actual gains.

I think it is sadly a double whammy on print, because the economy will surely rise again, but will the advertisers return as they used to when the economy bounced back? At best the answer is yes for some and no for some others. We were struggling enough in this digital transition period and don't need an additional economic anxiety attack to have advertisers focus on identifiable ROI while tightening their belts and reducing their budgets.

If you add the increasingly visible sustainability factor into the publishing caldron of issues to contend with, you start to see the makings of a perfect storm. That storm is still on the horizon, but it is looming and it is large. As with any storm there is always hope it will remain distant with only the booms of thunder to remind us of our peril and help us keep our focus as we steer correctly towards open waters and profitable information distribution.

It is going to take very nimble, very aggressive, visionary management to lead the way.

I wrote a blog a few days ago for another site where I listed the following as the last of several predictions for the end of 2008 and that that seems fitting and appropriate to refer to here:

More publishing dinosaur management who don't already have their own facebook page, nor the knowledge of how to build one, will be asked to either jump from the executive terrace or take what's left of the money and run.
BoSacks
-30-

"We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure. It is a powerful obstacle to growth. It assures the progressive narrowing of the personality and prevents exploration and experimentation. There is no learning without some difficulty and fumbling. We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.
John W. Gardner (American Writer and Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, 1912-2002)


Layoffs And Closings Help Explain Why Media See 'Depression' As Real
By DAN GAINOR
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=299972638233093

One of the hardest things for reporters to do is to distance themselves when they become part of a story. That's precisely the problem with journalists covering the U.S. economy.

We're a long way from it being what NBC claims is "a bust." We're not in another "Depression" either, despite dozens of network stories to that effect. But many journalists think things are that bad because their own industry is in chaos.

Ad sales have plummeted and online sales aren't making up for it. Media outlets are closing or laying off staff. There are at least 4,000 fewer jobs for reporters and editors than in 2000, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The list of media laying off or buying out staff includes some of the best-known outlets: the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, St. Petersburg Times, Media General, Tribune and Thomson Reuters. And those are just since May.

Top names in journalism are walking out the door or being pushed. Such popular writers as David Broder and Tony Kornheiser joined more than 100 co-workers to take the latest buyouts at the Washington Post - the third round in just five years. The newsroom is down 25% as a result, according to the paper's media critic, Howard Kurtz.

In just a month and a half, a media blog run by the Poynter Institute cited roughly 40 stories detailing the red ink being spilled on the floors of newsrooms nationwide.

Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews Group (which owns almost 60 dailies), said recently that there will be two types of newspapers in the future - "those that survive, and those that die." He went on to claim "as many as 19 of the top 50 metro newspapers in America are losing money today, and that number will continue to grow."

That adds a little perspective when news reports dwell on problems at General Motors or the possible sale of Anheuser-Busch. Journalists have covered market changes in other industries with obvious anxiety.

An American Journalism Review analysis was titled "Why a lot of newspapers aren't going to survive" and included a prediction that "a lot of major metros" will close.

The few that survive will be smaller and possibly even free. Tribune has announced plans to trim the news hole in its papers. Stock pages have followed classifieds in moving to the Internet. Whole sections of newspapers have gone away.

Those are the news outlets reporters and producers turn to every day. TV and radio news departments have long been famous for "rip-and-read," where they lift an entire story from the newspaper.

That's the context for your economic news. Your paper screams disaster with every story about business. The evening news broadcast repeats the claim. Both reflect the media mind-set about their changing business as much as they do reality.

In December 2005, the big issue was the declining auto industry. CBS's Trish Regan might as well have been discussing journalism when she said: "Jobs in traditional industries, the ones that helped build this country, are slowly disappearing." That could be the epitaph for traditional journalism except for the word "slowly."

Journalists know it but seem unable or unwilling to adapt. Instead they do what they do best - they communicate. They tell stories. The news becomes one long ode to a dying economy. Mortgage crisis, debt crisis, housing crisis. Every story is a crisis, but the unstated crisis is the very one reporters are coping with.

The Washington Post's Neil Irwin recently tried explaining the disconnect between economic reality and ordinary Americans' opinions. People are saying, "It is not just bad, it is run-for-the-hills terrible," he said. Irwin's pathetic defense of the economy: "It's not all that grim."

What followed should have been a detailed analysis of how the mainstream media have misrepresented the economy of the greatest nation on Earth. But Irwin didn't even try. He mocked claims that the media could have a major role in the gloom.

"There is no obvious reason that it (media impact) would be more pronounced now than in 2001 or 1990, when consumer confidence did not drop as much as it has recently," he claimed.

But he ignored major changes in the media landscape - the rise of the 24-7 news cycle, the increased power of the Internet and, especially, the blurring of lines between unbiased journalism and so-called "analysis."

Reporters blur those lines every night on the evening news, convinced the problems impacting media must reflect society in general. That same sense of self-importance has undermined journalism for decades and now does the same to the U.S. economy.

Gainor is the Boone Pickens fellow and vice president of the Media Research Center's Business & Media Institute.

BoSacks Speaks Out: Truth on the IDG Story

BoSacks Speaks Out: Truth on the IDG Story

BoSacks Speaks Out: This article has an interesting perspective on the IDG story I posted yesterday. Here is my take on this whole process.

Publishing and making money on the written word is not going out of style or business. We have been writing and recording our history for 25,000 years that I know of. Yes, I said 25,000 thousand years. But that publishing time line is another story for another day.

The only thing that is interesting and important now is that the medium upon which we survive is changing. If you think that people are going to stop writing and stop making a profit on that writing, then you are reading the wrong newsletter, at the wrong time, on the wrong day, and you are also grievously mistaken.

This planet will have profitable writing and advertising until we transcend the needs for any physical instrumentality at all. So what we need to focus on is this - where is the money? Where is the money coming from to pay for writing all the interesting words?

Do you think that in five years or ten or twenty no one will be writing, publishing and making a profit on the enterprising work? Do you think that organizations, both big and small, will not be distributing news, stories, and, perhaps most importantly of all, the "craft" information of how to do things to the general Public?

The real question is not if there is going to be any publishing; no, the real question on every body's mind is this - where do I fit in? What will my employment be like in five, ten and twenty years? How will I feed my family? Do I have the necessary skills to stay in this industry and make money? Those are the real questions.

And the answer to those questions is still in formation. There are still multi-billions of dollars in the print universe. Media that matters is in flux. Media that makes money is in flux. Our media universe is changing faster than we can possibly comprehend.

Here is Bo's last part of this rant. Stay loose. Stay informed. Broaden your professional interests and experiences to the maximum. You will never know what part of your training will be important until it is flying at you at Internet speeds. You need the smarts, the agility and the experience to recognize the next opportunity as it speeds by your desk. The future is bright for publishing, and there will be a need for employees to make that new world a profitable one. The only thing that is changing is the distribution platform, not the need for people to run the systems that distribute the words to the people who wish to read those words.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I

Happy IDG story no salve for dying media companies
Posted by: Aaron Pressman
http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=monkzmcab.0.n6eujccab.cuf4zubab.1&ts=S0340&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessweek.com%2F


There's a happy-dappy profile of tech publishing and conference giant International Data Group in today's New York Times. The story notes how IDG's publishing arm got 86% of its revenue from print and 14% from the web five years ago but now its getting slightly over half its revenue from the web. Wow. Indeed, this is seen as some kind of important and hopeful sign for the publishing and media business at large, with a comparison to the decision by The Capital Times newspaper to abandon its print edition and a closing quote from venture capitalist Stewart Alsop that "what's happening at I.D.G. is a fairly accurate map for every other publishing organization."

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, especially for my own industry, but using what happened at IDG as a map for the rest of the publishing industry would be like using Christopher Columbus's charts to fly to the moon. There's a publishing pink elephant in the room that nobody in the NYT's story seems to notice. Most of IDG's publications are what's known as controlled circulation. Readers paid nothing but were selected to receive titles like Infoworld gratis based on their attraction to certain advertisers. There is no subscription revenue to the publisher and the publisher still bears all the costs of printing and mailing. So when IDG shifts a publication to the web and stops printing, it can cut costs to the bone and shift advertisers to its web site.

But most publishers charge for subscriptions - in fact they charge a lot. The New York Times collected $227 million from subscribers in the first quarter, for example, along with $458 million in ad revenue. For mainstream publishers, that's a much bigger potential loss from the seemingly obvious and simple shift online depicted in the IDG story.

The article also raises questions about advertiser behavior. A tech-industry trade publication's advertisers come from a narrow slice of the entire ad market, a slice that's likely more comfortable going online and more likely to be selling directly online than other segments. But when you look at the whole ecosystem of advertisers, especially the big players in mainstream publications, you find a rather different attitude. It's a lot easier to imagine Cisco Systems and Salesforce.com shifting ads to a web-based version of Infoworld than it is to see Tiffanys or Bulgari moving from the New York Times Sunday Magazine to the web. Research I've cited in the past examining the revenue shift for mainstream publishers concluded that its an almost insurmountable mountain.

Finally, I'm also a little wary of stories about private companies that don't disclose all their financial information the way public companies do. We know that publishing is only one part of IDG's business but not how big a part. We know the publishing division got a higher percentage of revenue from the web in 2007 than in 2002 but not anything about the dollar amounts involved. I emailed a PR rep at IDG to see if they'd disclose more info but haven't heard back. In the meantime, there's less than meets the eye for the rest of the publishing industry from IDG's transformation.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I worked at an IDG magazine called The Industry Standard for a few years that was shut down by the company.

BoSacks Speaks Out: Where are Today's Mentors?

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."
John Quincy Adams (American 6th US President (1825-29), eldest son of John Adams, 2nd US president. 1767-1848)


BoSacks Speaks Out: Where are Today's Mentors?
By BoSacks
Publishing Executive Magazine
http://www.pubexec.com/story/story.bsp? sid=48494&var=story

In these pages I have pontificated many times about the positive nature and direction of our industry, about the belief that we are headed to a new golden age of publishing, and that new technologies should be considered the friend of information distributors. But there is one aspect in this new world environment that has me worried and concerned. It is the area of mentorship where, it seems to me, we have fallen behind and by that loss as an industry we have been greatly diminished.

What has happened? When and where did we loose the skill set and the will to teach the younglings? Have we so trimmed our business models and our work force that there is just no time to teach and mentor? Have we lost sight of the power of the properly groomed apprentice? Is there just not enough time now with the diminished workforces to add the burden of schooling for the future?

I do not know how to quantify the value of a properly mentored apprentice except through my own experience. But I know that as I passed up the corporate ladder, each of my teachers built upon the foundation of the other guild members that went before them. And I can tell you this, having been a mentor myself, there is a tremendous joy in the successful transfer of knowledge and power.

I have had the great pleasure to be mentored by supervisors, many of whom were great leaders in an era that fostered and promoted genuine leadership. Today I am paying homage to the process and naming names of those friends and giants.

For me, Vito Coliprico, (NY Times Magazine Group), Lowell Logan (McCall's Publishing) and Irving Herschbein (Conde Nast) were giants in their day and took the time to reach out to a young and inquisitive subordinate. The results of their tutorship is the man who stands before you. I have attempted to return the favor to them and the industry by using the technology of the day to mentor others, through my e-newsletter, and my column in this magazine.

Without mentorship we are collectively less than we might have been. It is the aggregate of this loss that will be felt and perhaps is being felt now. Who are the leaders of your corporation? Who are the genuine leaders of this industry? I don't mean who is your immediate supervisor or who is the CEO - those are just job titles. I am asking, where is the leadership? A generation ago if you asked anyone in publishing who the leaders were, the names I mentioned above would be high on the list. Who is on the real leadership list now?

We have many problems ahead of us as an industry. We will need good leaders to provide direction. If you think about it, we are trying to prepare publishing personnel for jobs that don't yet exist. These publishing students will be using technologies and concepts that haven't yet been invented, and they will be trying to find the solutions to problems we don't even know are problems yet. What we can do is take the time to teach our subordinates to think and reason. We can teach them to take reasonable risks. We can teach them to be leaders.

Here is an idea taken and amended from my mentor Vito Colaprico. Each and every one of you should start a "publishing school" in your company. It doesn't matter how big or small your company is. It could meet once a week or once a month. Here is how it works.

All magazines have the basic components of editing, production, ad selling, ad management, circulation and distribution. In most corporations there are walls around those functions. I say it is time to breakdown those walls. Have the apprentices teach their disciplines to the apprentices of the other departments. What happens is, in order to teach you must learn your own skill set first. In order to teach, you must learn to stand up in front of a group and be articulate. The learning of your own field and the capacity to teach it is the start of leadership skills.

The byproduct of this process is the cross-pollination of skill sets. Various departments will have comprehension of exactly what the guys in the other departments in fact do for a living. This will promote a greater team spirit throughout the company and facilitate unimagined efficiencies, and perhaps even camaraderie. And among those students will be the leadership of tomorrow that we so desperately need today.

Where the Heck is the Industry Going?

Where the Heck is the Industry Going?
By BoSacks
www.bosacks.com

As an industry, who are we, where are we going, and will we recognize ourselves when we get there? This rant is intended to be a look in the media mirror—call it a “State of the Union” address of sorts.

There has been a lot of news, conjecture and posturing about what the media industry may be morphing into. These changes are not only affecting the industry, but the psyche of the people who work in it. As I travel around the country, I see some members of our industry who are terrified, some who are exhilarated, some who are fearful of losing their jobs, and some who have already lost them. On the other hand, some are adapting to new business models and thriving.

Where are you in this cycle?

There is wild positive speculation mixed in with some doom, gloom and panic. My good friend and industry analyst Dr. Joe Webb says that some people call him Dr. Doom for stating the facts of an industry in transition. Dr. Joe and I forecast change, but in no way do we forecast doom. In fact, I see it in the opposite light. It is an era of tremendous opportunity and growth for electronically coordinated information distributors (publishers).

Look at the past 10 years. Ten years ago, we were arguing about whether or not digital plate-making was a good idea. Ten years ago, we were wondering what the heck a PDF was, and why we would ever use it. Ten years ago—that’s right only 10 years ago—the Internet was in its infancy. Ten years ago, we all had job security.

But, one thing has not changed in 10 years. Publishers still hire writers and editors. Production personnel still format the information, and send it to vendors for global distribution.

You could say that nothing has changed except the speed and mechanism of delivery.

The underlying conclusion is that we, as an industry, will not be going out of business. We have a fine and honorable future ahead of us, just not quite as we knew it. So what? It is time to get used to it. Your career depends on you adapting to these inevitable facts of change.

Printing ink on paper is a science. Analog publishers had to learn and fine-tune that science to distribute their products. Now, in the Internet age, there are several methods of distributing content. It is still nothing more nor less than a science. This new technology is actually an advantage to publishers and their age-old franchise of information distribution.

Are people getting laid off all over the place? Yes, but new jobs are being created just as fast, if not faster. Page make-up and design is off the scale in actual growth, even production jobs are up, but not producing only ink-on-paper products. Writers are still writing, editors are still editing, and publishers are still publishing, but in new creative mediums, as well as old ones. Even printers are still printing, but they are consolidating like crazy and trying to establish a new survival mode in preparation of the “screenager” years, when today’s tech-savvy teens enter the adult consumer market.

Eventually, even the screenagers will grow up and be expected to perform in the work force. They will grow up with some type of real bona fide reading. The lawyers can’t practice law, the doctors can’t doctor, and the engineers can’t engineer without real reading. And they will be reading what publishers publish. There still will be money to be made with words that have meaning that equates to value.

Bob Sacks (aka BoSacks) is a consultant to the printing/publishing industry and president of The Precision Media Group (www.BoSacks.com). He is publisher and editor of a daily, international e-newsletter, “Heard on the Web.” Sacks has held posts as director of manufacturing and distribution, senior sales manager (paper), chief of operations, pressman, cameraman and corporate janitor.

BoSacks Speaks Out: On Publishing Prognosticators

BoSacks Speaks Out: On Publishing Prognosticators

Perhaps I have finally been in the publishing business long enough (30 Years) to reach the state of sage-ability. At this time we are obviously experiencing a negative, if somewhat common, business trend. I say common because from a historical perspective it's clear this happens on a regular basis. It's not fun, it's hard on everyone, but it is an oft-repeated event. To deny its reoccurrence is ridiculous. We have had large downturns before and we will have them again. Unless you really believe that America is going out of business, there is nothing to fear but the fear of being laid off.

I have been laid off in other bad economic times and now I'm a self-appointed publishing sage. Bad times like this happen, in fact must happen, at least once in a while. It is hard on me and no doubt hard on you. But to think that we are going to just ride some alchemist's pipe dream of growth upon growth upon more extended growth is no less foolish than turning lead type into golden bestsellers.

The following article is gloomy in its truthfulness, but just a tad too short sighted for my tastes. As I've been saying, my experience has shown me that healthy business has an ebb and a flow, a pulse if you will, not unlike the story of Joseph and the dreams of a distant Pharaoh, the old story where a dream of seven years of feast was followed by a dream of seven years of famine.

Let me say here that I do not believe we are in for seven years or five years or even four of famine after the last amazing long bull market and it's effects on our industry and on others. But I do think we will be in for another 12-month period of belt tightening and business model deliberation. Here is where Goethe gets it right, at least in a business sense, "That which does not kill me makes me stronger."

Is it time to reassess our business plans? Yes. Is it time to develop new and creative sales programs? Yes. Is it time to seek new avenues of diversified distribution? Yes. Is it time to pack in the tent poles of publishing and become plumbers, carpenters and god forbid anything other than the fifth estate. Nah. Not at all.

All I see is that we are in a common economic trough and from deep in the trench it is very hard to see the way out. Now I am not crass enough to forget that there are people, humans, in this equation, real people with children, people with plans, people who need a comfortable retirement, that are going to get hurt. I am a father, a grandfather and a husband myself, who would shelter as best as I can/could the pain and angst that these cycles bring to my family and my publishing compatriots. I cannot succor you or predict the upswing other than it will happen. Oh yes, I can tell you that it will happen when the best of the prognosticators say it won't happen. That is the way of it all. Those who say they know really don't know at all, including me.

Bosacks Speaks Out: What is content?

Bosacks Speaks Out: What is content?


Content, Content, Content What is it good for? Nothing!
All this talk of content and mergers and increased content and increased
mergers. Phooey!


It's not about the content. Piles and piles of content is just that -- piles and
piles of junk. Useless to most, perhaps somewhat useful to some few dogged
focused pursuers of information. Content is not king, but quality content
might be queen. And focused quality content might be considered a king.
And Presorted Personalized Focused Quality Content might be the "Emperor of All Information" Content is the workshop where I store all my tools. Information is the exact and only "hexagonal wrench" I need to finish the damn job. Now where was that wrench? When did I use it last? I don't remember. It could be anywhere.

Here is a question -- what makes this newsletter useful to you? I think it is
the fact that I have spent 30 years doing a job very similar to yours. Not
exactly the same, but close enough. My experience empowers me to act as your "agent." I sort through the information of our industry and forward to you the best that I can find that might be useful for you to know, based on my parallel experience to yours. Am I 100% correct? No, not even close. But I am useful enough to have a very large readership. So where am I going with all this? It is not the volume of content that is important; it is the focused practical usefulness of information that makes the content valuable.

All this talk of content and the power of mergers, and the power of combined
content... Phooey! Mergers are good for business due to tangible efficiencies. Smaller head count, less office space and greater buying power. The rest is bull! Synergies? BULL! All this jabber of a "volume of content" is terribly misleading.



AOL ... and Time and Warner... Think of them as three separate companies for
a minute who have more content than the Great Library of Alexandria. So What?
Do you know that in the old great Library of Alexandria they had no idea
what they had? All they had were rolled up scrolls. Piles and piles, shelf
after shelf, room after room. I'm mean huge! For that time, it was the combined knowledge of all the ages. Awesome Huh?. NOT!


Most scrolls were not labeled at all, Just rolled up and tied parchment, placed in piles. They had little or no titles once unrolled. And absolutely none had an index or a table of contents on any publication. The concept of indexing or a TOC wasn't invented yet. So what did they have? They had tons and tons of content, without the ability to get to what they needed, when they needed it. There were no labels. Where would you begin? How would you find what you want? How would you even know what you want? Sound familiar?


I am a huge Internet user, and the truth is I love it. But there is still so
much to do. The billions of pages of information out there are for the most
part useless, until we reinvent indexing and a new system of personalized
delivery. What we need is a "true" personal agent. A computer program so
sophisticated and detailed that it does the searching and sorting based upon
our unique and personalized individual needs.

We need that computerized personalized agent that I have spoken of several times in this newsletter. An "agent" or "concierge" of cyberspace. An "agent" that fits where our wristwatches fit now. A total voice recognition system, answerable only to us. A program that will know all that is knowable about us. An "electronic friend" that will send birthday cards and meaningful presents to friends and family. It will pay all the bills and make all appointments with coworkers and doctors. An agent so integrated into the

cyber paths that my agent will call your agent to confirm or deny our availability to meet without our intervention. An agent that knows so much about us that it knows not only what we want to read, but also what we didn't know we wanted to read. That is to me the key to growth. This agent has to be so "smart" it will deliver to us not only what we have "asked for," but also information that we need to know about, but didn't know that we didn't know.

This "thing" or something very like it will happen. In fact I think it will
happen in our lifetime.

BoSacks Speaks Out: Fastest-Growing Ad Medium?

BoSacks Speaks Out: Fastest-Growing Ad Medium?


Does anyone on this list think that advertising in the Cinema is not an absolute abominable intrusion?

How would you feel if you paid for Broadway tickets to see Phantom of the Opera and before the Curtain rises for your expensive evening's entertainment, you had to sit through 10 or 15 minutes of advertising? Why should going to the movies be considered any different?


My reaction is pure disgust. We now have a situation where it costs over $10.00 per person to see a movie, and then I get the privilege of getting assaulted by unwanted advertising before my paid for entertainment starts. I must admit that I like the coming attractions, which is of course a style of advertising, but that is okay with me. It is consistent with the evening's expectations and agenda. But being forced to watch generalized consumer advertising is wrong, and I shutter to think, as the article below suggests, that it will be growing at a faster pace then the Internet, TV or magazine advertising.

We better get a consumer watch group started right now, and at the very least put a legal limit on cinema advertising. How about this -- five years from now the ads can't play for a longer time than the actual movie runs? Does that seem fair to you? 50% advertising and 50% movie? If not that, where should we draw the line?


BoSacks
-30-

BoSacks Speaks Out: Positive News Only from BoSacks?

BoSacks Speaks Out: Positive News Only from BoSacks?
www.bosacks.com


I received a letter from a reader who said that some of his friends have stopped reading BoSacks because of all the bad news. I wasn’t shocked at the note, but I was a little disappointed. I thought that my position was clear. I wrote back that I did not think that the industry is in death mode, nor has that ever been the intent of my coverage.

Indeed I am very upbeat about our industry, and I see a bright future for the industry and the people in it. But there are a few things that have to be stated. The industry is never going to be the way it was, it is not even going to be the way it is. But the stories I send out give my readers a chance to see how the future may bend, blend and hopefully offer a place of employment if they’re smart enough to read between the lines.

The industry is changing. So what? Do you find that depressing? I do not. Change is an elixir, and should be treated that way. The possibilities of information distribution in the next few years will be nothing less than staggering. Quite possibly we could be heading into the great, golden years of publishing. Is that a downer? Not in my book.

There are no age qualifiers on my web site when you sign up, so I’ll ask this question: What were you doing five years ago? If you were in the business, what were you doing ten years ago? Are you doing the same thing now that you were doing then? I doubt it. What do you think you will be doing ten years from now?

Our technology is growing geometrically. What used to take ten technologic years to advance now takes five, perhaps even less. My advice is to be very prepared to face the future with full frontal aggressiveness and make it your friend and not your combative enemy. If technology and the future are not your friend, you are fighting a battle you can not possibly win. Basically the future is here now; it is just not widely distributed yet.

Oh, yes and I might mention that I do try my hardest to find articles that are positive about our industry. It’s just that they are very few and far between. When I find them, I send them. I also think most negative articles are not fully understood by the authors and are written with a very limited perspective. But what I do send out is important to any one in the industry. Remember, this industry's future is your future. The world of publishing is not going to evaporate. I think it will grow and prosper, in fact, I guarantee it.

As I suggested to my reader, there are two options -- we can stick our heads in the ground in denial and hope that the industry problems will somehow go away, or do our very best to stay informed about the industry and grow with it. Information is our power. That is why I am bullish about the publishing industry. We own the content. I do not care how we distribute that content. Some of it will always be on dead trees and some will be distributed electronically. So what? Once writers needed quill pens to write. Many years later came fountain pens, and then typewriters. Now we have computers. Are my words, typed on a laptop and distributed by electrons, any less important because of the method of delivery? The reading of the written word is what is important, not the pathway to receiving them. The truth is they are more important when they are as fresh as possible and only a few electronic hours old.

BoSacks Speaks Out: Shakespeare Was Wrong!

BoSacks Speaks Out: Shakespeare Was Wrong!
www.bosacks.com


“What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet”
William Shakespeare quotes (English Dramatist, Playwright and Poet, 1564-1616)

I was collaborating on a new project with some fellow publishing futurists today. Communicating internationally via SKYPE, as makes sense to us futurists, I came across a new term that I had not heard of before. I think it is brilliantly simple in describing this particular next generation.

The term is Screenager. This would be the demographic born into the world of ever present computerization. Screenagers are technologically proficient young people at the earliest of ages. They are the first generation who at the time of their birth, grow up with 500 television channels, multiple computers and the ability to use them. They have MP3’s, instant messaging, cellular phones with cameras and an instant connection to the Internet anywhere at any time. They absorb and retrieve information like no other generation before. They have a googolplex, (the number not the company) of global information possibilities that is unprecedented and still endlessly growing.

How Screenagers affect the publishing world is still being played out. Do they read? I think the answer is yes. Yes, but not like us pre-screeners. Are they knowledgeable? Again I think the answer is yes. Yes, but, but they do not absorb and process information like us pre-screeners.

And the final question tonight for us publishers is, will Screeners need and want actual books, magazines and newspapers as we pre-screeners have grown accustomed to? Will they be comfortable reading our valued content in the traditional method of dead tree delivery, or will they in fact insist on the screened version?

BoSacks
-30-

Have You Started Planning for E-Paper?

Have You Started Planning for E-Paper?
By Bob Sacks
Publishing Executive Magazine
http://www.printmediamag.com/doc/28808071312222 4.bsp


“Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.”

Leonardo da Vinci (Italian draftsman, Painter, Sculptor, Architect and Engineer whose genius epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. 1452- 1519)


Sometimes I think our industry tries to predict the future by looking at the past and assumes that if its holds its collective breath long enough, the conditions will remain constant. This is like driving a car by looking in the rear-view mirror. Where you have been is not necessarily a good predictor of where you are going. But it can be enlightening, if you know where to look.

Let's, for a paragraph or two, intentionally look in the rear-view mirror. In the 1970s, magazines were still setting type using hot lead. In the early 1980s, long- run magazines were still printing with letterpresses— the same letterpress technology Gutenberg invented 500 years ago. In the 1990s, we learned to make digital plates that gave us unheard of speed and accuracy. Now, in the 21st century, we have adapted into an entirely new phase of publishing, exploring new and more effective ways of distributing information in the digital universe.

We now have the ability to deliver information to multiple platforms in an instant and on a global basis. We no longer consider ourselves publishers, printers, journalists and media professionals; we are information distributors. Well, at least those that are going to survive think that way.

New information delivery methods, combined with the potential for customization, promise to level the playing field for the industry's established players.

E-paper 'Ready for prime time'
One of the most exciting developments in the delivery of our franchised content is e-paper. What is e-paper? Or, perhaps I should start with, what is it not? It is not an electronic simulation of a magazine. It is not downloaded facsimiles of printed magazines, although that is an offshoot of what e-paper can produce.

E-paper is essentially a tool, a new technology for an age old format. To the publishing community, it will provide an electronic substrate that can be connected to the Internet and acts as a direct alternative to traditional paper. It's not a replacement for all paper, but much that is printed today could be reproduced by e-paper.

E-paper, in general, uses thin, lightweight displays that simulate the form and flexibility of traditional paper while providing the immediacy of a computer screen. It is a thin layer of transparent plastic that contains millions of small microcapsules randomly dispersed. When a voltage is applied to the sheet's surface, the microcapsules move to present one side to the viewer according to the polarity of the charge. So, in order to display text, microcapsules targeted to serve as the "ink" would move to the top of the sheet.

Importantly, the beads do not require a constant voltage to hold their position. Electronic ink allows a fixed image to remain on the screen even after the power source is shut off.

Companies are developing mass-production techniques for these materials that would allow them to be manufactured inexpensively in a variety of shapes and sizes. For example, Plastic Logic Ltd. (www.PlasticLogic .com) is investigating locations for a large-scale manufacturing plant for its flexible- plastic electronics displays. A director of the company says it's "ready for prime time."

Many of the devices we take for granted today, such as handheld computers, digital cameras and color printers, were once in the realm of science fiction. E- paper is not science fiction.

Is this in your business plan?

When e-paper is finally perfected will it mean the death of the printing press? Not by any means. But it will mean the end to the status quo and the creation of yet another parallel universe in the digital information age.

The future of publishing is actually something we create with our minds, our technologies, our will and our unique business plans.

5 Easy Steps to Publishing Nirvana

5 Easy Steps to Publishing Nirvana
By Robert M. Sacks
Publishing Executive Magazine
http://www.pubexec.com/doc/291275178443975.bsp


Let's get down to some serious business. Does anyone in their right mind think that writing, journalism or publishing is just going to fade away and disappear? Does anyone think that there isn't going to be the need to be informed, be knowledgeable, or just know stuff? Here is news for those in doubt of their careers and the continuance of the honest profession of being a publisher/printer. People have always had the need for information and will always require news, instructions, directions and knowledge.

The only difference now from yesterday or last year or last century is how they get to know what they know. The human race has always required and worked to improve information distribution. As far back as the caveman, they processed the information of the day, and transferred those ideas and thoughts to the walls of their homes and religious places. As society progressed, we improved the process.

The first tool for storing portable information outside of the brain is called, in today's terms, a baton. It carried thoughts and stored information on an inscribed stick to be carried about by a shaman. It stored the phases of the moon and other important astrologically dependent information, such as the best time to plant seeds. Planting seeds at the proper time is a good idea if you like to eat on a regular basis. Think of the baton as the first Flash memory JumpDrive.

We have been drawing on walls, carving on rocks, inking on papyrus, and cloistering men in monasteries who repeatedly copied information ad infinitum with mistakes and all.

So have no fear about your chosen profession. The process of information distribution is not going to go away. Indeed, it is accelerating at an unprecedented rate.

What you need to consider is the true value of your information to the general public and the process by which you distribute this knowledge.


Five easy steps to publishing nirvana:

1 Who is my target audience?

2 Where is my targeted audience?

3 What is the real value of my edit (information) to that audience?

4 What is the most efficient method to reach the maximum targeted audience?

5 How do I keep my information valuable and fresh for my targeted audience?


These may seem like simple concepts on the surface, but they are not. They constitute a complex, Zen- like formula. Success is measured by the antique term called profit. And to achieve the Zen-like state of profit, you must follow the Bo-formula to publishing nirvana (in the box above). On the atomic level, it can all be distilled down to the simple equation of RV = RP or, for the laymen, real value equals real profit.


In this era of abundant information, is your edit of any real value? If so, how valuable is it? If it is valuable, to whom is it valuable? This is where the concept of niche comes into play. The value of when to plant seeds is only valuable to a select few. And to those few, only information on certain types of seeds would be of value.


In today's publishing world there are three key components: the jewels of extremely valuable edit, the readers who need and desire those gems, and the ability to get the booty into the clients' hands by the most efficient means possible. In my experience great edit trumps the other two. To paraphrase loosely, if you have the appropriately precious edit, they will come.


The last necessary element to the so-stated condition of publishing nirvana is the honest and sometimes brutal truth. This can be the hardest part of the Bo-formula. Like an alchemist of old lore, here is a Bo-exercise for you to try. Find a hand-held mirror and hold it up about 18 inches from your face. Look into the mirror and ask yourself the five questions listed to the left. Did you flinch? Did you grimace? Did you honestly know all the answers? Did you divine the truth? Only you know that for sure.

BoSacks Speaks Out: Where are Today's Mentors?

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."
John Quincy Adams (American 6th US President (1825-29), eldest son of John Adams, 2nd US president. 1767-1848)


BoSacks Speaks Out: Where are Today's Mentors?
By BoSacks
Publishing Executive Magazine
http://www.pubexec.com/story/story.bsp? sid=48494&var=story

In these pages I have pontificated many times about the positive nature and direction of our industry, about the belief that we are headed to a new golden age of publishing, and that new technologies should be considered the friend of information distributors. But there is one aspect in this new world environment that has me worried and concerned. It is the area of mentorship where, it seems to me, we have fallen behind and by that loss as an industry we have been greatly diminished.

What has happened? When and where did we loose the skill set and the will to teach the younglings? Have we so trimmed our business models and our work force that there is just no time to teach and mentor? Have we lost sight of the power of the properly groomed apprentice? Is there just not enough time now with the diminished workforces to add the burden of schooling for the future?

I do not know how to quantify the value of a properly mentored apprentice except through my own experience. But I know that as I passed up the corporate ladder, each of my teachers built upon the foundation of the other guild members that went before them. And I can tell you this, having been a mentor myself, there is a tremendous joy in the successful transfer of knowledge and power.

I have had the great pleasure to be mentored by supervisors, many of whom were great leaders in an era that fostered and promoted genuine leadership. Today I am paying homage to the process and naming names of those friends and giants.

For me, Vito Coliprico, (NY Times Magazine Group), Lowell Logan (McCall's Publishing) and Irving Herschbein (Conde Nast) were giants in their day and took the time to reach out to a young and inquisitive subordinate. The results of their tutorship is the man who stands before you. I have attempted to return the favor to them and the industry by using the technology of the day to mentor others, through my e-newsletter, and my column in this magazine.

Without mentorship we are collectively less than we might have been. It is the aggregate of this loss that will be felt and perhaps is being felt now. Who are the leaders of your corporation? Who are the genuine leaders of this industry? I don't mean who is your immediate supervisor or who is the CEO - those are just job titles. I am asking, where is the leadership? A generation ago if you asked anyone in publishing who the leaders were, the names I mentioned above would be high on the list. Who is on the real leadership list now?

We have many problems ahead of us as an industry. We will need good leaders to provide direction. If you think about it, we are trying to prepare publishing personnel for jobs that don't yet exist. These publishing students will be using technologies and concepts that haven't yet been invented, and they will be trying to find the solutions to problems we don't even know are problems yet. What we can do is take the time to teach our subordinates to think and reason. We can teach them to take reasonable risks. We can teach them to be leaders.

Here is an idea taken and amended from my mentor Vito Colaprico. Each and every one of you should start a "publishing school" in your company. It doesn't matter how big or small your company is. It could meet once a week or once a month. Here is how it works.

All magazines have the basic components of editing, production, ad selling, ad management, circulation and distribution. In most corporations there are walls around those functions. I say it is time to breakdown those walls. Have the apprentices teach their disciplines to the apprentices of the other departments. What happens is, in order to teach you must learn your own skill set first. In order to teach, you must learn to stand up in front of a group and be articulate. The learning of your own field and the capacity to teach it is the start of leadership skills.

The byproduct of this process is the cross-pollination of skill sets. Various departments will have comprehension of exactly what the guys in the other departments in fact do for a living. This will promote a greater team spirit throughout the company and facilitate unimagined efficiencies, and perhaps even camaraderie. And among those students will be the leadership of tomorrow that we so desperately need today.