Author: Dan Blank

Jane Friedman Interview – How Digital Media Empowers Writers

This week, I chatted with Jane Friedman, visiting assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati where she teaches full-time in the e-media department. Previously, Jane worked at F+W Media most recently serving as the publisher of Writer’s Digest.

You can find Jane on Twitter at @JaneFriedman, and her blog: There Are No Rules.

My goal is to share conversations with those doing interesting things in the world of publishing and media.

Click ‘play’ below to learn about Jane’s thoughts on how publishing is evolving with the advent of digital media, and how the web is empowering authors.

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Community Is About Measuring Impact Beyond Sales

How do we measure success? By sales? By revenue and profit? Sure, that makes sense, but I’d like to explore some other options today. Sometimes I feel like we pick the easy measures, and that does a disservice to our brands and our customers in the long run.

A lot of brands are embracing social media nowadays, but the way they talk about it is kind of odd – that it is a new thing to actually consider talking to customers; To treat them like a community with its own power, instead of a list of demographics in a buying cycle.

All too often, I feel that businesses are very concerned with what happens BEFORE they buy a product, and not very concerned after as to its impact. So we measure sales, not effectiveness.

Maybe a brand follows up with a survey with questions such as “would you recommend this product to a friend?” But I’m not convinced that this is an effective measure either. We often answer questions like that to validate our behaviors and choices.

In education, we do similar things. We measure a student’s retention of facts in the short term, not their knowledge in the long term. And more importantly, we don’t measure IMPACT at all. So, if a student gets good grades in history and economics, we measure them mere seconds after they memorize the material, not years down the road to see if they used that knowledge to help society or build value for a business they work for.

There’s a lot of talk about “community” and how we have to be community managers. I think part of what people mean here is that we have to stay engaged with our audience AFTER the sale. That if you sell a Star Wars novel, that you need to constantly engage with those fans in order to understand how good the product is, and where it needs to go. What was the effect of that book beyond the number of copies sold?

To better serve communities, and grow strong brands, we need to measure our impact in the long term, not just the next financial quarter or bonus cycle.

We call people “consumers” partly to justify our reliance on the point of sale as the key measure of success. But I can’t help but feel that people don’t want to consume, they want to become. And that by focusing on how we impact their ability to do so will make us stronger both individually and as a society.

-Dan

The Commodification of Publishing & Media

Yesterday I talked about “the magical elves” of new media – how some publishing & media companies are confusing “strategy” with cost cutting. Today I want to give an example of what I mean from another industry, and another time. Inherent in this discussion is the exploration of how we value a brand and the trust it has built over the course of years.

Let’s talk about two events in 1970, and how each illustrated different approaches to treating the value of a brand’s assets. The companies are MGM and Disney, the former sold some of its most precious assets to fund the building of a Las Vegas hotel. The latter spent money to archive and preserve it’s history.

(note: huge thanks to Jim Hill for his blog post covering this topic.)

Okay, let’s dig in:

  • The MGM Auction of 1970
    In 1970 MGM auctioned off its entire history of costumes and props. Warehouses of items including costumes from The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, and countless other items worn by stars such as Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, Fred Astaire, Susan Hayward, Greta Garbo, Vivien Leigh, and others in some of their most famous roles. Dorothy’s dress? $1,000. Cowardly Lion’s costume? $2,400. They also sold off their historic back lots, and flattened sets used in classic MGM films. That land is now filled with faceless condos, turning history into real estate.

    Stories of the auction are scattered across the web. One person describes that a friend of his bought a large container of unknown costumes in the sale. Within it were two of the Lollipop Guild costumes from Wizard of Oz. This was not historic preservation, these items were sold in bulk, unmarked. How many treasures were lost in this manner? What if the person who bought it didn’t recognize them as Wizard of Oz costumes?

    There is an entire website dedicated to tracking what happened to the famous Time Machine from the from the 1960 movie of the same name. One of the flying saucers from Forbidden Planet turned up in someone’s garage, considered lost for years after the MGM auction.

    These items were not sold off to preserve them better or to make the MGM brand stronger – they were done so to raise funds for a hotel. The new owner of MGM had no real interest in the movie studio or its history.

    Further reading on the MGM sale here.

  • Disney Creates an Archive in 1970
    That same year, Disney did the opposite of MGM, they created the Disney Archives. Now, it should be noted that 1970 was not necessarily Disney’s heyday, they were still building their empire. Check out the list of movies released during that time period.

    Disney hired Dave Smith as archivist, a position he still holds today. Jim Hill describes Dave’s role:

    “Back in 1970, Smith’s duties involved regularly prowling around the studio looking for things that actually needed preserving. Which often meant opening up janitor’s closets and then finding maquettes that had been used in the production of “Snow White,” “Pinocchio” & “Fantasia.” Or – better yet – actually fishing animation cels from “The Aristocats” out of the studio’s dumpsters.”

    In 1970, Disney was funding something else entirely, actually something not too dissimilar to what MGM was doing: the Walt Disney World Resort, which opened in October of 1971. 30,000 acres of swampland converted into a theme park, a project Disney worked on since 1963.

    The difference is that Disney saw it’s past as something to covet, to fuel their future, not something to commoditize and offload to fund other ventures.

Why am I obsessing over these two events, and why should you care? Here are a few lessons I am considering from the examples above:

  • It Takes Decades To Build a Brand, Moments to Destroy It
    Today, many companies talk about their valuable “content assets” and the “communities” built over the course of decades. Media and publishing companies change hands constantly, often based on the value of their content and reputation. Like the MGM sale – one result of this is that the most valuable aspects of these brands are slowly dissipated over the years. Yes, some gems are cherished forever, but many others are lost into the ether, a shadow of what they once were – a hollow brand, existing in name only. For instance, we all know that the Gourmet brand will resurface again and again in the future as its brand name is “leveraged.” But will that name represent the expert content and authority it once did? Or is it just a label on a can?

  • If You Don’t Respect the Past, You Can’t Respect the Future
    Many businesses that are created by passionate experts in niches are later bought by larger companies and managed by business people who only understand the financial aspect of what has been created. What can happen in this case is a shortsighted understanding of value of community and content, and short-term decisions on how to “unlock value,” where the “value” always means money. That’s fine, until that precious content and community is exploited again and again, and the reputation of the original brand has little social capital to leverage further.

  • Hire Leaders Not Managers
    Many of the brands we covet were created by passionate experts – oddballs who knew how to take an idea and make it a reality. As time moves on, it is important to put those brands into the hands of leaders who will extend those creations, not exploit them. Who will allow them to grow, not be “managed.” Again and again, we see great brands sliced, diced, bought, sold, and merged. Sure, it’s a reality of the business world. But it shouldn’t be confused with truly creating something new. Sometimes the value of the parts are greater than the whole.

  • Create Something That Grows in Value Over Time
    Paul Carr has been talking about this in terms of new media: questioning how our efforts online create long term value. He framed this discussion in terms of social media vs long form writing, with a great title: Thnks Fr Th Mmrs: The Rise Of Microblogging, The Death Of Posterity.

    “A million blogs withered and died as their authors stopped taking the time to process their thoughts and switched instead to simply copying and pasting them into the world, 140 meaningless characters at a time. The result: a whole lot of sound and mundanity, signifying nothing.”

    Publishers and media companies are at similar crossroads – choosing between cheap aggregation vs the cost and creating high quality original content; between relying on social media vs building an expert marketing team.

  • Don’t Turn Art Into a Commodity
    The art world is a bizarre place- judged by auction prices, not the inherent revelation of art. In the end, we spend millions on paintings in order to buy transcendence. It’s well worth your time to check out the documentary “The Art of the Steal” which covers this topic in an incredibly compelling manner. When you commodify something unique, you rob the world of something. It’s a complicated topic, I don’t want to simplify it too much, but I do think it’s worth discussion.

Overall, I think I am sensitive to the tradeoff we make with success, or more specifically, revenue. Sometimes, success truly creates something that never existed before – it is a skill, a gift when that works out. But other times, there are hidden costs. In a world where quarterly numbers seem to be valued more than anything, when you take the long view, you notice what is – AND ISN’T – being created over the course of years and decades.

There is a great term – “unlocking value,” which many people use to justify a new strategy that turns art into a commodity. Be careful not only in what is created, but what is lost.

-Dan

The Magical Elves of New Media

Last week I made mention that USA Today’s new media strategy includes a staff reduction of 9%, which is a common headline. Jenni Spinner responded with a great phrase: “New media is produced by magical elves that work for free.”

Now, I realize that there are realities of business economics. Staff reductions are a fact of life in today’s world, I’m not going to pretend to be surprised by that. But I do often wonder about the decision process that lead to the pairing of a new strategy with a staff reduction.

Are these new strategies chosen because there are sophisticated business models behind them? Because they have done extensive research with their audience, gone through experiments in the wild, combed through metrics to distinguish perception vs reality? And after the result of this research and insight, came up with a solid plan to preserve the best of the past, and leverage new technologies to extend that value?

Or, are these new strategies and staff cuts enacted because, by traditional metrics, those businesses can reduce costs? In other words, are they choosing new tactics based on old measures, and calling the difference between the two numbers a “strategy.”

Too many new media strategies rely on the following ideas, among others:

  • An algorithm that “aggregates” relevant content.
  • Leveraging non-employee content contributors.
  • Hoping the social media and “viral” marketing efforts will drive traffic.

Now, each of these items can be very effective, and media companies would be smart to pursue them. But it can also be a dangerous road if chosen for the wrong reasons.

For example: if a company suddenly embraces social media simply because they don’t want to hire more marketing directors, and can find savings by reducing their existing marketing staff by 9%.

Why does this concern me? Well, recently I have been considering how many current day brands have such power and esteem because they continue to leverage the quality of the work they created over the course of decades. Their brands are extensions of that quality, and it grows in strength as time moves on.

The flipside of this is cutting the quality of ones content to save costs; Of making their product less unique in the marketplace in order to follow immediate trends. To rely on those outside of the brand to create the content, to create the buzz. In the end – whose identity is it? How deeply etched is it?

I definitely understand the value of leveraging a network of content creators; of the power of a distributed social channels to drive attention and engagement. But I also think that brands are wise to keep an eye down the long road ahead. Where do these decisions lead beyond the next quarter, the next bonus cycle?

When we dilute the quality of the content, and the strength of our marketing skillset, we are not building the future, we are putting the very pillars of our companies at risk. Clearly, I am a huge fan of the world that new media has given us. But I am also appreciative of what have built publishing and media brands into well-known names: quality content, and a deep connection to their industries. As these companies move forward to reshape the economics of what they do, I simply hope they keep an eye on who they are becoming, and the lifetime value of their investment – measured in years, not days.

-Dan

Profit Is Not the Best Measure of Serving a Community

“Without community, none of us feel accountable to anyone else.”
-Colin Beavan

I found that to be a compelling line of dialogue from the movie No Impact Man.

This has me considering the current state of publishing and media. As I watch companies look for sustainable revenue streams that ensure their survival, I often wonder if decisions are made in order to be accountable to shareholders (profit) or the communities they serve.

Dan Blank
I do not mean this in any sweeping anti-corporate manner, nor that anyone at any publishing or media company is intending to do harm within their market or business. I consider it more in terms of how do we measure and value the effects of our actions. And how often does profit overshadow other benefits at a company, within a community, and within our culture. Is that how one becomes a part of the fabric of a community, because they drive more dollars through it than anyone else?

Every day, we read headlines about big negotiations over ebook pricing, partnerships and acquisitions, new product launches, and the like. And often, they are framed in business jargon.

“Community” has become a catch phrase in media and marketing. I discussed this the other day in a post titled You Don’t Sell To A Community. You Support A Community. It is always tempting to believe that revenue equals properly serving a community. That if dollars are flowing, if product is moving, that the community must be happy, and the company must be a linchpin in that market. But I think that’s a dangerous measure.

Cartoon Breakfast

That’s why we have 20 kinds of Pop-Tarts, 60 kinds of cartoon branded fruit snacks, and hundreds of sugary cereals available as breakfast food in a single aisle of my local supermarket. NONE of these products are adequate nutrition for a breakfast, and yet they are marketed and sold as if they are.

So, are the companies producing these sugary treats best serving their market? From a revenue standpoint, I suppose. But from a health standpoint, from a community standpoint of working parents trying to feed their kids nutritional items on a budget? Nope. They are failing by that measure.

Without a doubt, the kids won’t complain. They sugary treats are tasty AND they have Dora on them. What’s not to love? And shareholders at the food companies are happy because revenue is up.

Who complains? No one does until the cumulative effect of consuming this junk catches up with people in 30 years. But then it’s not a cartoon breakfast problem, it’s a health care issue. As if one has no relation to the other.

What does this have to do with media and publishing? Simply illustrating a point – because product moves, because revenue is up, it does not always equate the best way to serve a market and the communities within it.

Not All Cartoons Are Marketing Machines

Why did Bill Watterson never license his Calvin & Hobbes comic strip into products such as stuffed animals, bumper stickers and t-shirts? In the 80s and 90s it was a very popular strip, fans would have loved the merchandise, and Mr. Watterson would have made millions. Consider how much the Garfield creator must have made off of those suction cupped stuffed animals in everyone’s car windows back in the day, in the cartoon revenue, and in the 27 categories of merchandise for Garfield products on Amazon.com.

Why didn’t Bill Watterson follow this route? Because he knew it served the marketing machine, but not his fans. Because a market is not a community. That producing millions of products made in factories didn’t extend the Calvin brand, didn’t better serve his community, but merely lead to taking money from these fans, and filling our landfills with more plastic junk.

Sure, he would have profited, but he seemed to feel there is more to life than money. As Mr. Watterson states in a 1987 interview:

“With a lot of the marketing stuff, the incentive is just to cash in. It’s not understanding what makes the strip work. The motivation is the work itself and having a job I’ve aspired to since I was a kid. I wouldn’t be doing this if I were just in it for the money.”

Do publishers and media companies need products to sell? Absolutely.
Do they need to scale these sales across enormous markets? Absolutely.
Should revenue be the only way we measure how we serve our communities? No, they shouldn’t be.

Revenue is awesome. I have nothing against it, and am not an advocate of the “everything should be free” meme. I believe in paid content, in digital products, in the App economy. I believe publishers and media companies should diversify their product offerings and expand into being service providers as well. I think they would do well to expand the definitions of what their role is, the types of products they offer, and the markets they serve. And yes, publishers and media companies should strive to be VERY profitable.

But they should not confuse this with serving a community, and should consider what metrics do measure their effect within the communities they serve. These companies are a part of a complex ecosystem, one whose needs and health can’t be measured by profit alone.

Let me know if you think I can help you better serve your community.

-Dan
973-981-8882 | Twitter: @DanBlank | dan@danblank.com