Meanwhile, at that other trade show ...

I spent much of last week chatting with student journalists at the College Media Advisers convention here in New York.

And since I was at the CMA conference, I could not be at the South by Southwest conferences -- the uber-events revolving around music, movies and emerging tech.

And that's fine. I'm really more the New York businessman type than I am tech enthusiast. And I much prefer chatting with college kids to networking with entertainment execs.

In fact, although it's a decidedly unhip thing to admit, I've never been to SXSW.

But it would be disingenuous to suggest that SXSW isn't important to me -- at least on the tech side. I need to know what folks at SXSW think is cool. Because, as we've seen with applications like Twitter, an item dubbed cool at SXSW often becomes crucial to the media industry.

So imagine my surprise and delight to find that the breakout application at this year's SXSW is apparently the QR code -- an application I've been promoting for ages and that I've written about here. I love the potential of QR codes, and I'm proud to say that one of my clients has had remarkable success using QR code to drive print readers to Web sites.

So I'm feeling positively hip and ahead of the curve.

Note: The news that the coolest app at SXSW is sort of old may mean that my sense "the media revolution is ending" is right. On the other hand, one student at the CMA convention suggested to me that the next "game changer" is the Sixth Sense device, from MIT.

I'd seen the demo of Sixth Sense from TED last year. But after reading about QR code at SXSW and talking to that student, I went back and looked at the video again.

Take a look at it yourself..

I think you'll agree that device is pretty interesting, even amazing ... but since it doesn't really exist yet, it's premature to call it a "game changer."

However, it's worth noting that the device will exist some day soon. And one of the things the device could benefit from is a world where QR codes are more common.

So now maybe someone will modify one of my older (and maybe better) ideas and use QR codes as an editorial tool by adopting the concept of spatial annotation.

Psst. Hey Kid. You want a job?

Ahh March.
You're my favorite month of the year. It's within your few brief weeks that I celebrate my birthday, watch as winter turns to spring, as Lent leads to Easter and as the clocks spring forward.
It's a month of beginnings and youth.
And, as longtime readers of this blog know, March is the month when my earnings take a tumble as I trade billable days for time spent with college kids.

Every year at about this time I find myself visiting campuses, attending college media conventions, etc. It's become a tradition for me. And, like many traditions, I find it both comforting and frustrating.
That's because as much as I love meeting journalism students, the majority of them turn out to be remarkably unprepared for the working world. So by the time April rolls around and I've met a whole new crop of rookies, I tend to be a bit worried about the future of the business.

I'll start my annual trek through academia at the College Media Advisers convention here in New York, where I'll join Dan Blank, director of content strategy and development for Reed Business Information, to co-host a session on "Surviving in a New Media World."
And I'll be using my time at CMA to try to fill at least four entry-level jobs for clients.
So if you're looking for work, get there early while I'm still feeling optimistic.

(If you're new to this blog, you may want to look at my post about last year's academic tour. Or read my four-part series from 2008. If you're wondering what I look for in a journalism recruit, read this post from 2007 called Three Job Tips for Students. )

Penton goes under

Penton is bankrupt.
The B2B publishing giant announced today that it is filing Chapter 11.
And as near as I can tell, the entire industry responded with a great, big yawn.
Because no one who pays any attention to B2B publishing could possibly have been surprised by the news.

Penton's announcement comes nearly a year to the day after I wrote that "I have no faith that a company that has a debt load the size of Penton's and is dependent on a troubled business model for cash flow, can ride out the economic downturn."
Well, now it appears that -- despite some desperate measures taken by Penton last year -- my lack of faith was justified.

So what does this mean for the folks who work at Penton?
Probably not much.
The company has squeezed just about everything that is squeezable, shrunk whatever could be shrunk, sold whatever could be sold, and shuttered the rest.
As a result, I don't expect that today's news will bring more layoffs or closures.
But in a sense, that's bad news.
Here's why:
If anything good was to come from the collapse of companies like Penton, Cygnus, RBI, Nielsen, Ziff et al it would be that those companies actually disappeared after they collapsed.
But what's happening instead is that these print-legacy, bond-selling dinosaurs get back on their feet and just lumber on ... holding on to valuable properties that could actually grow if they were owned by people with more vision and less debt.
It's a pity.
Penton, like many of its peers, employs some talented people who produce some valuable material. There's money to be made in that equation.
But unlike the days of old, there are not obscene levels of money to be made.
And as long as B2B's giant publishers hold obscene amounts of debt, then good people doing good work and producing moderate returns will always lead back to bankruptcy court.
Do you doubt it?
Consider this:
According to Folio magazine, the deal Penton has reached with its creditors as part of a pre-packaged bankruptcy deal would cut Penton's debt by some $270 million.
That's wonderful. It truly is.
But that leaves the company with some three-quarters of a billion dollars in debt. And adding insult to injury, Penton remains in the hands of the same people who borrowed too much, misunderstood the rise of the Web and then collected millions in management fees in exchange for their wisdom.

In other words, Penton and its peers may be dead ... but they're not quite dead enough that they won't continue to do harm.

(DISCLOSURE: Once upon a time I held the longest and most redundant title in B2B. I was the vice president for online content and editorial for Primedia Business Magazines and Media. That company later became Prism, which purchased Penton in 2006.)

Beware of geeks bearing gifts

Don't expect the geeks in your office to get much work done tomorrow.
Because Wednesday, Jan. 27, will be something akin to Christmas for geeks. For it is on that day that Apple will unveil their long-awaited, much-rumored ... something.
Most of the tech world expects the product Apple will unveil to be some sort of tablet-style computer, i.e., something sort-of, kind-of like a Kindle.
But better.
And cooler.
And as excited as I, a bit of a geek myself, may be about the arrival of the iSomething, I'm a little bit concerned about what it may mean for B2B publishing.

To understand why, let's look back at a bit of history.
In April 2007 I wrote a post in which I attempted to share my concerns about a pervasive and troublesome issue in B2B -- our industry's inability to respond to change.
In that post I said that " I expect someone will soon build an "iPod of reading" -- a new, portable device that changes how we read in the same revolutionary fashion that the iPod changed how we listen."
And I wrote that whatever the next big thing in media might turn out to be, in B2B "our next big problem is going to be our inability to respond to the next big thing."
Nearly two years earlier, in November 2005, I wrote a piece asking "How will we create/consume content in the future?"
In that post I wrote about my love of the Bloomberg terminal and my yearning for a user interface of the future that would ease both the consumption and the creation of journalism.

Now, it appears, the future is here.
It's possible, of course, that the iSomething will turn out to be iNothing. Or maybe the iJustaLittleDisappointing.
But given Apple's history with portable devices for consuming, communicating and creating, I'm expecting the iSomething could turn out to be the iChangesEverything.

But if you look around your newsroom today can you honestly say the people there are ready for something that changes everything?
Heck, how many of them are ready today for the stuff that changed everything a few years ago (mobile content, database reporting, multimedia production, Twitter, etc.)?

In other words, if the iSomething turns out to offer a better way to communicate and/or to create, I worry that only a tiny percentage of B2B editors have the skills to capitalize on that or have the mindset to find it exciting.
More troubling -- at least to me -- is that the iSomething may very well turn out to be nothing more (and nothing less) than a better way of consuming print-like material. That, in essence, is what the Kindle is. It takes print, with all of its limitations, and distributes it in a new, arguably superior, platform.
And there's nothing that worries me more than the illusion that the answer to B2B's many woes can be found by slapping print content on to a screen.
Even if it's the coolest screen ever.

Or, as Rich Maggiotto, chief executive officer of Zinio, said, "It’s one thing to shovel print content onto a screen. It’s another thing to think about how to reinvent your content for that medium. That’s the publisher’s responsibility."
And can you honestly say that your newsroom has the enthusiasm, the will, the interest or the budget for that in 2010?

Predictions old and new

(Editor's note: As many of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook already know, my mother passed away on Dec. 30. Since then I've been overwhelmed by the kindness I've received from friends and acquaintances in both the real and virtual worlds. Thank you all.

As my Ma took a turn for the worse in mid-December, much of my working life had to be put on hold. So I wound up running late on many things ... including a long-promised follow-up to my predictions about 2009. But as Ma taught me, there's "a time to die ... a time to mourn" and a time to get back to work. So with no further ado, let's look back at 2009 and make some guesses about 2010. )

I hate to say I told you so, but ....

As 2008 turned into 2009, I wrote a a lengthy piece in which I argued that "the B2B industry as we know it is about to collapse."

If you've never read that piece, I'd ask you to do so now. If you have read it, then you know I was predicting a systemwide failure in B2B. The problem, it seemed to me, was clear: Too many people had been borrowing too much money and making too many preposterous assumptions about the industry. Complicating matters was that far too many B2B journalists -- who are the core of the business -- had failed to keep up with the changes in editorial.

Furthermore, I said that I'd grown remarkably disappointed in the majority of Web-only publishers who had emerged in B2B. Simply put, although such companies had mastered things like content aggregation, most of them had failed to move to the next level.

That's what I said

So let's review.

I made three specific predictions about 2009. They were:

1. The B2B publishing industry -- which is now dominated by giant print companies and smaller Web-only companies -- is about to collapse.
2. When the dust settles, B2B journalism will still be here -- but many of the companies that make up the industry will be gone.
3. The dominant business models of both the past and present will fail.

As troubling and unlikely as those predictions might have seemed in December 2008, it's safe to say that I was right.

In 2009 there were bankruptcies, shutdowns and creditors-take-control actions (Doubledown, Cygnus, Questex, Milo, Incisive, Advanstar), there were staff reductions (Cygnus, RBI, UBM, IDG, Edgell, Access Intelligence), there were salary freezes and pay cuts (Cygnus, Penton, RBI), there were closures of print products (Ziff, RBI, Penton, Crain, UBM, CMPMedica, Randall-Reilly, Nielsen and just about every other company you can name.)

And I'm sure I've forgotten a few ugly events too. I just don't have the stomach right now to read through this list of the major magazine-industry events of 2009.

And it's not like the tough times are over. Just last week we saw more shutdowns and a the-end-is-near memo from RBI's chief executive as well as more closures from Penton.

Follow the money

In 2009, everything that could go wrong, did.

And that's because, as I predicted, "the dominant business models of both the past and present" have failed.
Consider this:

I began the post with my predictions for 2009 by referring to a study by Outsell that forecast a 4.5% drop in print advertising in 2009. But halfway through the year, the drop in B2B print ads was already more than six times that level!

Online advertising rates -- already low -- also plummeted.

Traditional publishers, who had hoped that online ads could save them, found their optimism was misplaced. The newer, Web-only publishers found that low-cost operations with narrow margins had little room to maneuver when things got ugly.

Whether it was controlled-circulation print, SEO-driven long-tail sites or content-aggregation plays, we saw last year that B2B's center (free, ad-supported content) did not hold.

Retreat and delusions

So what's next?

I expect more closures, more layoffs, more trouble.

For example, it seems clear that RBI's parent company has no intention of staying in the business -- they'll close anything they can't sell. RBI will be gone by mid-year.

Nielsen seems to be taking a similar approach -- rushing to the exits by killing whatever brands they can't unload.

The simple truth is that for dozens of brands in B2B there's no way out. It makes more sense to walk away and take the write-off. So that's what companies will do.

I'm also expecting B2B will soon see an influx of the content mills that have caused so much trouble in B2C. That's going to cause havoc among content aggregators as well as original-content brands that have invested heavily in long-tail strategies.

The blind leading the blind

I'm also expecting a tremendous increase in the level of delusional thinking among B2B executives.

Watch for the same folks who forecast revenue surges in 2008 and a bounce-back in advertising in 2009 to predict that the end of the recession means ad rates will return to 2007 levels.

Watch too for executives and journalists to argue that the free, but generally poor quality content that is pervasive in B2B is suddenly worth paying for. (Note: if you're one of the folks who thinks he can salvage his brand by putting it behind a paywall, you may want to read Outsell's latest report on the challenges of the paid-content market.)

Change is good

My predictions last year were not meant to imply that B2B journalism itself was in any danger of disappearing. I was expecting change and shakeouts. And that's what we got.

I expect more of the same in 2010.

I also predicted that B2B journalism would soon be dominated by five types of companies (content marketing, data and tech, family-owned and other small firms, price-benchmark companies and entrepreneurs' networks.) A quick look around the industry today suggests that I was right about all of those except for the last.

At the same time, it would be misleading to suggest that the shift from the powerhouses of old is complete.

For example, content marketing had an extraordinary year in 2009. A year ago it was safe to assume that half the people in our industry had never even heard the phrase "content marketing." But that has changed. (Anecdotally, I can name a dozen or so top-notch B2B journalists of the top of my head who moved into content marketing last year. )

But there's clearly plenty more room for content marketing to grow.

There are still hundreds of B2B advertisers who haven't begun producing their own content ... yet. And my prediction that "sophisticated corporations (would begin) to purchase established B2B journalism brands and use them as the basis of their content-marketing efforts" has not come true ... yet.

For a detailed look at what I expect in 2010, you may want to read my predictions in Folio and Junta42.

But in summary, let me say this: the old days are over. We're in the midst of a fundamental shift in how people consume information and how the cost of producing that information can be covered.

There's no going back.

Ever.

Just like in 2009, there will be people who prosper amid the difficulties. And, just like in 2009, there will be people who suffer through no fault of their own.

Your task -- whether you're an editor, a salesperson, a publisher, marketer, c-suite executive, designer, j-student, etc -- is to position yourself where prosperity is possible and suffering is minimized.

In upcoming posts I'll write about the few bright spots I see in B2B as well as outline some of the moves that B2B companies and journalists should make in 2010 so that prosperity, not pain, dominates.

In the meantime, let me say "good luck."

I get the feeling we're all going to need it.

Happy Birthday, dear blog. Happy birthday to you

God how time flies.
It was five years ago today that I launched this blog.
Much has changed since then -- particularly my career.
When I started this blog I was largely unknown to much of the industry. But because of the kind support of my early readers, my name got passed around. And because of that, I've been able to do what I set out to do on Dec. 22, 2004, -- share my thoughts about the challenges that B2B journalism was about to face.
So I want to take a moment here to say "thanks" to those folks who offered their support way, way back in the early days.

Today it's not all that hard to share my thoughts about the industry.
Heck, sometimes folks even ask for my opinion!
And sometimes my ramblings get published on places other than this blog.
Folio magazine, for example, was kind enough to ask for my predictions for 2010. And although I was late in getting something to them, I did manage to put something together.
Take a look here to read a slew of opinions, including mine, about what next year holds.
(Also, I swear, that I will soon get around to writing a follow-up to last year's prediction that the "B2B industry as we know it is about to collapse." That article is now the most-read piece in the history of this blog ... and it's holding up pretty well a year later.)

Looking ahead at content marketing

It's prediction time. Everyone in media is publishing their lists of insights and wild guesses for the upcoming year.
I'm no different ... except that I'm running way behind schedule since finishing off an eight-month consulting gig last Friday. It's just too hard to do anything other than goof off with my daughter, who yesterday informed me that "working is silly."
So until she takes a nap long enough to allow me to get around to revisiting last year's prediction that the "B2B industry as we know it is about to collapse," I'll just link to other places where my predictions might appear.

First up is this list from 99 of the best minds in content-marketing (plus me) on what 2010 holds for the industry.

Rest in Peace, old buddy

Last night, sitting in an airport and reading the news on my iPhone, I learned that a friend and former boss had died.
And I want to take a few moments here today to remember him ... and to share with you why he was important to those of us in B2B.
Mark Pittman was only 52 when he died. But he was already a legend in the business. If you didn't know Mark or his work, take a few minutes now to read about his accomplishments. CJR has links to major events in his career as well as an interview with him from earlier this year. And the Washington Post has published a fitting obituary.

Mark will be remembered as one of a handful of reporters who sounded the alarm as the world neared financial chaos. That's a good way to be remembered. He did his job. And he did it well at a time when few others did.

When I worked with Mark, he was the team leader of the Public Finance team at Bloomberg. I was the editor on that team. But before I write another word, let me make one thing clear: I had nothing to do with Mark's remarkable accomplishment in deciphering -- and warning the world -- about the madness that had taken over the markets.
Mark was my boss, not the other way around. And he was the guy who first taught me about credit-default swaps, mortgage-backed securities and other derivatives, and the dangers they hid. I don't think I taught the guy a thing.
More importantly, Mark's greatest accomplishment (the Loeb Award) took place well after I left Bloomberg. Although I was a fan of the fantastic stuff he wrote in recent years, I was not his editor for any of it.

But let's put aside Mark's accomplishments for now. Because I can't write about Mark without writing about what he meant to me personally while I was at Bloomberg.
Anyone who knows me knows that I disliked working at Bloomberg. I just couldn't stand what Portfolio called "the famously bizarre corporate culture" at Bloomberg.
But I liked Mark.
Heck, I loved Mark. It was impossible to do otherwise. He was a bigger-than-life, over-the-top, lovable stereotype of the perfect reporter. He drank. He smoked. He worked too hard (he went weeks and weeks limping around the office in a makeshift bandage and untied sneaker rather than take time to visit the doctor after injuring his foot.)
He was also both an inspiring iconoclast and a genuinely kind man in a culture that seemed to disdain both individualism and sweetness.

He was also, ultimately, a guy who loved this game.
He lived for the story. He believed -- in a way that's all too rare in B2B -- that his role was to bring difficult truths into the light.
I think of him often when I run into B2B journalists who spend their days worrying about how advertisers or publishers might react to a story. I think of Mark every time a B2B journalist starts talking about "my industry" and I realize he means the industry he covers, rather than the B2B publishing industry he works in.
Mark was never the sort to wonder what his role was. He wasn't a businessman. He was a business journalist.
And he was one of the best there ever was.
I'm going to miss you, old buddy.

For an interesting take on Mark's career from a former critic, look at this post on Reuters.

A tale of two audiences

I visited the campus of Northwestern University a few weeks ago to do some recruiting for a client. Things worked out OK. I met a few interesting students. And at least one of them may get a job out of it.
But the overall experience of my day on campus was a bit disconcerting, as has often been the case when I visit with academics and students.
And, with one notable exception, things were disconcerting in the same way they've been for years now.

The more things change ...
First, let me mention the exception.
For the first time in the five years or so that I've been visiting with students, every single person I met at Northwestern had at least basic multimedia skills and some Web experience. I cannot begin to tell you what a relief that was.
On the other hand, I saw too much of the same-old nonsense I've come to expect on campuses. One student handed me a cover letter with spelling and grammar errors. Most of the students who signed up for an interview had failed to do even cursory research on me or my client. One didn't even know my name. Not one student could correctly answer my all-purpose, do-you-know-anything-about-business questions (1. Approximately where did the Dow close yesterday? And 2. Roughly what would it cost to buy an ounce of gold today? I was willing to accept anything remotely close to 10,000 and $1,000 as answers.)
And, of course, none of the students seemed to have any idea at all about B2B publishing.

When my day ended I left the old, dusty journalism building and walked about 15 yards to a brand-spanking-new building where a colleague was to give a presentation about opportunities in marketing.
And that brief journey was like walking into an entirely new world.
Whereas only two people had attended a presentation earlier in the day with me and a recruiter from the Village Voice, this room was packed with students from Northwestern's new program in integrated marketing communications.
More importantly, the students in the marketing meeting were engaged -- typing notes on laptops, asking good questions. They seemed excited and eager to learn.
I fell in love with those students.
That was the exact opposite of how I felt about my time with the journalism students.
Most of the future journalists seemed, well, disinterested. Only one seemed truly enthusiastic about the profession. They were largely unprepared and disengaged. Most didn't take notes until I suggested they do so. Two of them needed to borrow a pen.

The nice kids
I shouldn't have been surprised.
Because what I saw in those two buildings was, in a nutshell, what's happening across the entire communications industry. Journalists (and journalism teachers and students) are making incremental adjustments to the new world, but marketers and public-relations professionals (as well as teachers and students in those fields) are morphing like crazy.
Most of the marketing people I know love the new world. They're excited. They can't seem to believe their good fortune to be working in a field where the rules are being rewritten.
But many journalism folks I know can generally be described as somewhat less than thrilled. Those differing sentiments among professionals (and academics) must have an effect on students.
There's also no doubt that the economy has had an impact.
Prospective journalists are being told time and again that jobs are disappearing.
Marketing/p.r. students, on the other hand, seem to understand that the skills they are acquiring have value.

If you're a long-time reader of this blog, you know I'm not saying anything new.
It was more than three years ago that I first wrote of my concern that B2B journalists were adopting the techniques of conversational editorial more slowly than were the public relations and marketing executives of the industries we cover.
And it's been more than two years since I started writing about content marketing, which I see as the the most exciting and fastest-growing area in B2B publishing. And content marketing is nothing more (or less) than marketers learning to perform the tasks of journalists.
But what I saw at Northwestern was new, at least to me: that in academia, as in business, the marketing space is attracting an extraordinary new type of communicator; while journalism programs are producing a more skilled, but not-so-very-different-from-the-old-days type of person.

If you're interested in spreading the word about B2B among journalism programs, there are some things you can do.
First, reach out to the j-schools in your area. Offer to do a guest lecture. Make yourself available for interviews.
Second, offer your support to the ASBPE Foundation. Funding for the foundation is in short supply. It could do with your help. Among other academic-related efforts, the group hopes to endow a university chair for an "ASBPE professor of business-to-business journalism."

If you'd like to learn more about what's happening in the world of B2B marketing, public relations and content marketing, the Web is full of great resources.
Three of my new favorites are Mengel Musings, owned by Amy Mengel; the B2BBloggers site, dedicated to "shaping the future of btob marketing;" and Social Media B2B, described as "exploring the impact of social media on B2B."

Is the revolution over?

I've written a few times this summer about my growing sense of Web 2.0 ennui -- this feeling I have that as B2B publishing bounces back from the recession, things just aren't as interesting as they were a year or so ago.
And I'm beginning to get a sense of why:
The revolution is ending.

For a decade or so now the world of journalism has been one of ceaseless change and challenge. Consider, if you will, just some of the major technologies and practices we've adopted: external links, blogging platforms, mobile delivery, slideshows, podcasting, database reporting, RSS, email newsletters, Webcasts, Twitter, Facebook, search-engine optimization, etc.
Think, too, of the cultural changes we've made in our working lives as journalists: comments on articles, Creative Commons licenses, open-source software systems, user-generated content, revenue-sharing compensation plans, aggregated content, standalone journalists, etc.
It's been a madcap series of never-ending developments. It's been glorious and exciting.
But I think it may be over.

Be honest. What was the last new development in journalism/publishing that you were truly excited about?
Twitter? Sure. It's wonderful. But it's hardly new. It launched in 2006! And it caught fire in 2007.
The iPhone? Yea. I love mine too. But it's already more than two years old.

I got an email the other day from an editorial director for a mid-sized B2B company. He told me that he'd recently discovered that his team was beginning to forget some of the basic skills of online journalism they'd been taught in the past few years.
But that wasn't such awful news, he suggested.
He'd found that the pace of new developments had slowed to such a degree that he had more time to focus on reviewing the basics.

Old Revolutionaries
In the past few weeks, two of the companies that helped revolutionize our world launched media products that simply bored me to tears.
Google debuted its Fast Flip -- a scrollable version of magazines that looks no different than the half-dozen or so products in the digital-magazine world.
Microsoft took a stab at saving the newspaper industry with a new aggregation tool. But the only interesting thing about it was the confusion over whether Microsoft lifted the idea from TweetDeck or from Sobees.
And if there is one thing that is certain about these "new" products, it is this: we won't have to spend any time teaching folks in the newsroom how to use them. They just aren't significant.

If the revolution is over, we shouldn't be surprised.
There's probably no such thing as ongoing change. Things advance at an extraordinary pace ... and then they reach a sort of stasis. We go from massive change to incremental change. We go from revolution to improvement.

This may be the very nature of human technological advancement.
We lived with propeller planes for decades. Then we developed jet engines and the world was suddenly new.
Then it wasn't.
The jets grew bigger and faster. But they were still jets.
Consider this: I am 50-years old, a child of what was once called "the Jet Age." But there's clearly nothing revolutionary left in airplane travel. The Jet Age just drags on and on and on ... seemingly stripped of its ability to inspire.

If I'm right and the media revolution has ended, I'll say now that I was thrilled to be a part of it.
And in the post-revolutionary period -- we could call it "the Web Age," if you like -- I'll continue doing what I do, practicing this profession to the best of my ability.
But I will look sadly at the newcomers to our industry -- just as I look sadly at the thousands of impatient folks I see each week at the airport -- and I will think the same thing:
Can't you see how cool this is?

A little bit about writing very little

I've been so busy lately that this blog has gone without an update for weeks at a time.
I apologize to anyone who is still taking the time to check this site or their RSS reader for something new from me.
Today is no different. I'm swamped...working far from home at a client's office, living in a hotel and missing my family.
But earlier today someone asked my thoughts for an article about creating content for mobile devices. I responded via email. And it occurred to me that this was an opportunity to do two things.

1. Suggest that people check out the most interesting new site in the media world -- eMedia Vitals. You can start by reading the article in which I'm quoted. (Disclosure: Whenever I read eMedia Vitals it feels like some sort of spin-off from "The Paul Conley Show." Nearly everyone at the company is someone that has worked for me or with me at some point in my career. The rest are people I've either written about and/or tried to recruit for clients. So I'm probably a little prejudiced. But I think this is a strong staff. And the site is extraordinarily good -- offering the sort of actionable material that is missing in other brands that cover the media world.)

2. By copying and pasting that aforementioned email into Blogger, I may actually be able to reduce some of the guilt I feel about not updating this blog ... but without actually taking the time to do a real update (eMedia Vitals only published a tiny portion of what I wrote, anyway. And I hate to see it go to waste.)

And so, without further ado, here are some thoughts on publishing content to mobile devices:

Whenever you're creating content for mobile, it pays to remember two distinct and remarkable things about that platform versus any other.

First, your mobile device knows who you are and where you are.
Mobile devices offer the first opportunity in history to create content that is aimed at individual users. With mobile, you're not publishing restaurant reviews for your community -- you're giving the guy at the corner of Main and State three options for health food within a six-block radius. You're not giving the executive at the airport an interface where he can check his flight, you're sending him a text message when the airline changes his gate.
Some of the smartest applications involve the use of 2D barcodes. In parts of Asia, people are using those things to track bus schedules, download videos, etc. Users see something they want on a billboard or in a print publication, and they snap a photo of it with their mobile device. Think about the power of that. I'm not selling an ad for a soft drink to reach a million people. I'm showing an ad to a guy who has expressed an interest in my soft drink, has 12 minutes to kill until his bus arrives and happens to be standing outside a particular store.

Second, mobile devices are sort of crappy ways to consume information.
They're convenient. We need them to function in the modern world . But they are an inferior method of consuming almost any type of content (the one exception is audio.).
The text is too small -- especially for older people. The video screens are too small -- for everyone. You can't multitask with them (I can watch TV and cook. I can't look at my iPhone and do that.)
Content creators need to accept this about mobile: as convenient as the devices are to carry, they are an inconvenient way to consume information.
So don't waste anyone's time.
Keep your copy short -- about the length of an email.
Don't make it harder than it has to be -- give me text-only RSS feeds that I can read or take the time to build an application for my iPhone. Don't ask me to look at your Web site on a device that fits in my pocket. Even the best mobile browser can't turn your Web site into anything I want to read on a phone.
If you can tell me what I need to know in less than 200 words, do so. If not, try harder.
On the other hand, if I'm sitting around staring at my mobile device it's probably because I don't have anything better to do at the moment. I'm stuck at the train station or sitting at the coffee shop or waiting for an elevator. In moments like that, I want to see something I "need" -- crucial, timely information. Or maybe I just want to see something that's funny.
Either way, you have about 2 seconds to catch my attention before I look at something else. So try to be witty or beautiful, albeit brief. And if you can't do that, just be brief.

People, Prophets and Publishing

Twice last week I learned about developments that sent me into frantic, obsessive pondering about the future of B2B media.
Odds are you saw those same stories. Odds are you too have contemplated their significance.

Both of these developments are about the technology of how news makes it way to us. And these particular stories made their way to me through other people using technology -- just as is often the case these days. Technology flagged the news. A person then used technology to notify me directly. And I used technology to discuss what I'd heard.

But somehow the experience left me feeling disconnected from both people and technology.

Allow me to explain.

The pull of search
Early one morning last week a friend sent an Instant Message to say that he'd received a news alert that Microsoft and Yahoo had reached a deal to combine their search assets. The core of the news was that Microsoft's search function, called Bing, would now power Yahoo search.
Instantly I started wondering what, if any, effect this would have on how B2B editors optimize their content for search.
Most of us now create content that works with the Google algorithm. We've learned to post meta data that pleases the Google gods. And Google has rewarded us. When people search for news and information in our space, Google sends those people to us.
But most of us have paid considerably less attention to the needs of Yahoo and Microsoft. Those search engines didn't merit the same level of devotion we gave to Google.
But something was changing.
So, I wondered: will we need to do anything different to please Bing?

In recent years, I'd have sought the answer to such a question by searching for an answer. I'd have typed "SEO for Bing" into the Google search box and started reading.
But this time I went instead to Twitter and asked people for help by typing "Looking for the definitive article on article-level SEO for Bing. Anyone got a recommendation?"
(If you're curious, the most interesting article anyone sent was this one. The best new-to-me site anyone told me about was this one.)

The push of context
The next day I came across another interesting tidbit. Scrolling through Twitter I found that B2B leader Rory Brown had retweeted something by publishing-platform executive Andrew Davies about how the New York Times was now delivering content based on a reader's LinkedIn profile.
So I logged into LinkedIn and then visited NYTimes to check it out.
The result was disappointing. The system seemed to think I worked in technology, rather than publishing or media. So I shared the news and my reaction with folks on Twitter: "LinkedIn and NYTimes think I work in tech: RT @rorybrown RT @andjdavies NYT using LinkedIn profile data to target news - http://bit.ly/NynAY."

But as much as the execution of the Times/LinkedIn deal fell short, the concept was intriguing.
And within minutes I was chatting online about what B2B publishers might learn from it.

People, who need people, are the luckiest people, in the World Wide Web
If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that I'm growing bored with Twitter and the rest of the newest media even as I grow more dependent upon them.
The way that I heard about, and then talked about, the Bing and NYTimes/LinkedIn news is just the latest example of the conflict I'm feeling -- the technology that dominates my information consumption/distribution is both wondrous and unsatisfying.
Search functions find information for me.
Contextual engines find me for information.
LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and instant messaging find people for me to talk to about subjects that matter to me.
Things are faster. News is more relevant; data is more useful.
Everything about how I consume and process information in my business life is better than it was years ago.
Yet, in the end, I feel unconnected and shortchanged.

Alone at the drive-in movie
My brother David is an actor. His latest role is as "Miller" in the sci-fi thriller "The Surrogates," staring Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames. The movie is set in a future where everyone stays at home, logs on, and then lives life through surrogate robots.
David's character is the henchman and follower of a character called "the Prophet," who wants people to abandon the surrogates and return to the real world. In one scene David punches Bruce Willis, who represents the status quo.

I'm not saying I want to punch anyone.
If anything, I want to punch things up.
I'm not saying I want to go backward. I'm not calling for less of what we are now and more of what we once were.
I'm hoping for -- longing for -- the next stage.
But there's a small voice in my head that warns that the next stage will disappoint me as well. It's a voice that suggests I've become less of the real me in my business life than I ever was before.
It's a voice that says I've become a surrogate me trading information with a surrogate you.
I'm not sure what to do about this. But I find it very unlikely I'll find a technological solution to my Web 2.0 ennui.
(Note: I recognize there's something absurd about feeling bored with Web 2.0 and then blogging about it. Even sillier is the fact that I'm about to tweet about this blog post.)

New-Wave News

I'm having one of those moments where I need to blog as a way to organize my thoughts. Longtime readers know that much of what I write here is less than perfectly organized. In a sense, blogging has become part of the act of thinking. This blog is less a place to share my opinions than it is a place to explore them.
So with that said -- bear with me.
I have no idea where this blog post is heading.

Earlier this week I found myself obsessing over a single line in a lengthy post by fellow B2B blogger Dan Blank. Dan was writing about how his company, Reed Business, was using Twitter. It's a good post. Take a look. There's valuable information in it.
But the part of the post that jumped out at me was a sub-headline that said "We are Coming Closer to a Day Where an Industry Will Report on Itself."

He's right, of course.
In a very real sense, we're already there.
Any journalist with the sense to track the online conversations about the industry he covers knows that Twitter, blogging, content marketing, etc. have already created a world where publishers' monopolies have disappeared. In a world where anyone can be a publisher, thousands of people and hundreds of companies have done so.
It was more than three years ago that I first wrote of my concern that B2B journalists were adopting the techniques of conversational editorial more slowly than were the public relations and marketing executives of the industries we cover.
Fast forward to 2009 and we find that the marketplaces for our content seem to have transformed into marketplaces of ideas. Everyone, it seems, is writing, sharing, tweeting, commenting.
But for every B2B publication that is participating in -- even leading -- the conversations, there are still plenty that lag years behind. (The charts in Dan's post illustrate the gap. Some Reed brands have thousands of Twitter followers and update often. Others have only ventured on to Twitter in the past few days.)

But the more time I spend watching the social-media world, the more I realize that it only seems that we're experiencing a true marketplace of ideas.
What's really happening is that the world of B2B content has transformed into a limited marketplace of ideas. The new world may be broader than the old. More people are participating, more people are creating. But this new world is really just a larger version of the old world.
Look around the Web in the vertical you cover. In most cases you'll find that the conversation is no longer dominated by your publication. That's a good thing. But you'll also find that the conversation is dominated by folks very much like the ones who work at your publication.
Twitter -- at least in most B2B verticals -- is a media phenomenon. Most tweets come from journalists, marketing execs and public-relations pros. If you're a reporter for Paper Bag Weekly walking the floor of the Paper Bag Expo trade show, you're likely find dozens of folks tweeting. But they will nearly all be someone from the media side of the paper bag industry. You can read tweets from flacks and tweets from hacks, but you won't find a tweet from anyone who actually makes a paper sack.
The obvious exception to this is in tech. Walk the floor of a tech trade show and you'll find that everyone really is tweeting. Tech really does cover itself.
So this poses a question: What will it take to reach the point where a non-tech industry actually reports on itself?

The Next Wave
I suspect the thing that may push the entire business world into a more collaborative, more conversational mode -- creating the situation where all industries can report on themselves -- is right around the corner.
And it's coming from Google.

Late last month, Google offered the developer community a preview of something called Google Wave. It's the brainchild of the same team that gave us Google Maps, and it was born of three tough questions, according to the announcement by Google:

• Why do we have to live with divides between different types of communication — email versus chat, or conversations versus documents?
• Could a single communications model span all or most of the systems in use on the web today, in one smooth continuum? How simple could we make it?
• What if we tried designing a communications system that took advantage of computers' current abilities, rather than imitating non-electronic forms?
  

I hesitate to try to explain exactly what Google Wave is. That's partly because it seems that Google Wave -- like Twitter -- will be different things to different people.
Rather, I'd suggest you visit the Google Wave site and watch the video explaining the concept.
What you'll find is that Google Wave seems to be both a project-management tool (sharing documents, collaborating on changes, talking about plans, etc.) and a communications tool (email, instant messaging, Twitter or something like Twitter, etc.)
Or, as Google puts it: "A "wave" is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more."
After you've seen the video, you'll likely find yourself wondering: What does this mean for journalists?
Can a news story be a wave? Can trade show coverage be a wave? Can a recurring feature or major issue in the industries we write about be a wave?
What does that look like? Who participates?

The lament of the early adopter
Part of my interest in Google Wave is born of my growing concern that Twitter has jumped the shark. (The folks at InfoCommerce seem to have a similar concern.)
Part of my interest is also that, as has been the case before with technologies I love, something crucial and valuable is lost when a movement grows.
Look: I'm not saying Twitter is dead.
Nor am I saying that it has no value.
Heck, much of my life these days involves talking to journalists about how valuable Twitter can be as a reporting tool. But the fact that so many journalists, public-relations executives and marketing folks are interested in Twitter is exactly the sort of thing that makes me worry about Twitter.
The whole thing reminds me of Second Life. Back in January 2007 I lamented that something was being lost there, as well. And some two and half years later, I don't know of anyone who still finds Second Life to be place of promise for journalism.

This time next year
I don't know what all this means.
I don't know if we'll look back at the summer of 2009 as the time that Twitter lost its luster. Nor do I know if Google Wave will have the same impact that Twitter has had on how we collect and distribute information.
But I'll tell you this: I'm pretty sure that in the summer of 2010 I'll be spending a fair amount of my time thinking, talking and consulting about what a news wave might look like.

Layoffs at IDG

I'm hearing word that there have been a number of layoffs today at IDG.
I don't have an exact number. Nor do I have any official confirmation from the company.
But what I'm hearing is that number of folks being cut is substantial.
And I'm hearing that many of the folks being let go are multimedia journalists, not just old-time print folks.
Even more disconcerting is that some of the bigger names in B2B journalism are said to be among those let go. Although I have not confirmed this yet, I'm told that one of discharged journalists is Don Tennant, a winner of the Timothy White award for editorial integrity.

Although I remain convinced that the worst is over in B2B, there can be no doubt that it will be a long time before things have stabilized.

(Update: Folio confirms the layoffs, saying 8 percent of IDG staff was let go.)

The Nanny Diary

I've been running an ad in recent weeks for a live-in nanny for my toddler. It's a part-time gig in exchange for room, board and a small stipend. And it seemed to me it was a nice job for someone enrolled in college.
I've posted the ad in a number of places ... particularly on college campuses near our home in lower Manhattan.
As the resumes have come in, I've been saddened to see that the most common applicant is someone who is about to graduate with a media degree of one kind of another.
I've been saddened. But I have not been surprised.

Long time coming
A year ago this month I wrote what is the most-read post in the history of this blog -- a lengthy piece in which I said that "much of B2B publishing -- weighed down by the twin albatrosses of junk bonds and rising print costs -- has sunk into a death spiral."
In that piece I told the "editors, salespeople and designers of B2B" it was well past the time for them to "walk away from print."

Since writing that piece, I've found myself listening time and time and time again to B2B executives complain that I've overstated the problems in the industry and/or that by writing about how bad things are, I'm actually making things worse.

So look: I think it's beyond silly to suggest that reporting the news actually causes the news. And it would be beyond presumptuous of me to suggest this blog has sufficient influence to make things worse (or better.)
But regardless, I think we can probably all agree at this point that I did not overstate the case -- things were, as I wrote at that time, "awful and getting worse."

Does anyone doubt still doubt this? Is it not clear that B2B has sunk into nearly as much trouble as the newspaper industry?
If so, please consider the news of just the past few hours:
Penton is going to a four-day workweek and cutting pay.
BNP is cutting salaries by 25 percent.
McGraw-Hill's media unit said its revenue and profit have plunged.

Hate to say I told you so, but ...
Another of the most-read posts in the history of this blog was published on Dec. 11, 2007. In it I wrote that I had a sense that "something is about to go wrong" and that 2008 would be "an awful year for B2B publishing."
I said then that "everywhere I go I meet people with revenue targets that seem delusional." And I said that the "lust of investors, the demands for growth, the need to justify ourselves to the people who control the purse strings are pushing us into a new era of preposterousness."

Nearly a year to the day after that, I published what is now the second-most-read post in the history of this blog: a lengthy piece in which I argued that "the B2B industry as we know it is about to collapse."
In that piece, I wrote that not only had most traditional publishers dug themselves into a hole from which it was unlikely they could emerge, but that the new Web-only publishers were also proving to be a major disappointment. Those "Web-native companies are finding themselves unable to assume the core journalistic functions needed by the B2B world," I said. And I repeated a concern I first wrote about two years ago this month that as the Web was growing more competitive, the Web-only publishers were demonstrating "the exact same attitudes, beliefs, work rules, chains of command and silos that I saw in the print-only companies that failed to respond to the Web."

And so, as Web-advertising revenue shrinks, I'm no more surprised to learn, as I did today, that T3i has shut down editorial operations at TelecomWeb, than I am to see that the Baltimore Sun is laying off editors. (Note: T3i's consulting and research units will continue to operate, according to a senior executive at the company.)

Just as I am not surprised that graduating seniors, just days away from receiving their journalism degrees, would be applying by the dozens for a nanny job.

Reasons to be cheerful
Today I'm making another prediction. And many readers of this blog may be surprised by this one:
In B2B, the worst is over. From today forward, the industry begins to recover.
(Please don't misunderstand. I'm not predicting that debt-laden B2B publishers like Penton will survive. I wouldn't say than any more than I would predict that debt-laden radio companies like Clear Channel can survive or that debt-laden newspaper companies like Tribune can survive.
Nope. Those companies are doomed. They'll cut costs as much as possible. They'll sell brands when possible. But their primary purpose now is to come as close as possible to making the investors and the creditors whole. For companies that borrowed heavily, we've reached the end game.)

Let me tell a little story:
On a single day last week I ran into three different journalists I know. Each had been laid off in recent months. And each was sort of killing time in Manhattan. I ran into one outside a diner where I had breakfast. I met another coming out of the place I had lunch. And I met the third on a subway platform.
Normally, seeing three unemployed journalists on a single day would be sort of depressing.
But on that same day I also met with a guy who is launching a new company (and needed some recommendations for journalists he could hire on a contract basis), had a phone conversation with another guy who has launched an agency aimed at increasing online ad revenue, and I deposited a check from a consulting gig I'd finished the week before in which I helped launch a data-driven news product.
And so, for the first time in a long time, there was a balance between the good and the bad news that I experience first hand.

Since then, I've seen a continuing -- albeit a very small -- shift in which good news outweighs the bad.
I'm still getting emails from recently laid off journalists. But I'm also hearing from slightly more folks who are finding contract work to pay the bills.
I still hear a panic in some voices. But I hear confidence in others.

The good news is coming from the places where I expected it would.
In that same post late last year when I said the B2B industry as we know it is about to collapse, I also said B2B would soon be dominated by five types of companies, "all of which exist today, but as much smaller players in the industry."
If you're out of work or worried that you soon will be, I'd urge you to look to those five areas for your future:

• Content marketing
• Data and tech companies
• Small, privately held, debt-free publishers
• Price benchmark publishers
  
• Entrepreneur networks

The Nanny Indicator
Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic.
Certainly I'm aware that the state of my business and my life are not particularly reliable indicators of the economy or the B2B industry. I've been blessed. I know that. And I am grateful to God, my family and my clients for the support they have offered me. Even as the media industry and the economy have suffered, I have prospered (although my close friends know there were a few very difficult months last year.)
I am aware, in other words, that a guy who is looking to hire a nanny may not be representative of people in the media industry in 2009.
So make of my prediction what you will.
But I believe the worst is over.
I believe the B2B publishing industry as we have known it has already collapsed. It's not coming back. But new B2B publishing models are emerging quickly (and new B2C models will follow soon.)
And, as a result, I believe that should I be looking to hire a nanny again next year, the application pile won't be filled with resumes from student journalists.

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media, journalism education, content marketing, brand journalism

Penton goes to four-day workweek to cut costs

Penton is moving to a four-day workweek through the summer in an effort to cut costs.

According to a memo sent to employees this afternoon by Penton CEO Sharon Rowlands, the move effectively translates into a 20 percent pay cut. However, the memo also says the company "we will spread the pay reduction in smaller increments throughout the end of the year to reduce the immediate financial stress on you and your families." (Clarification: a comment on this post correctly points out that it's misleading for me to call this a 20 percent cut. If Penton does, in fact, return to a five-day week after the summer, the effective pay cut will be considerably smaller when averaged out across the rest of the year. )
Furthermore, the move to a four-day week "will not impact" benefits, the memo said.

I've pasted a copy of the memo below. I'll be looking forward to coverage from Folio and BtoB magazines in the near future.

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to provide a brief update on how we did in quarter one and share with you some important steps we are taking to further control our expenses going forward.
The first quarter was the toughest in my business career. Not only did many of our properties report results that were significantly below a year ago and well below budget, but while we were reorganizing along the lines of markets, we were forced to eliminate a number of positions across the company. This isn’t uncommon in the world today especially for companies in the media industry and ones that have a heavy debt burden. We squeaked through the first quarter thanks to all of your efforts - but the next couple of quarters aren’t looking easy.
So we have to balance short and long term decisions in times like these. Some of these are really the right decisions for the businesses - like resizing audiences and identifying more efficient ways of doing things. Others may seem counter to what we want to accomplish long-term - like dramatically reducing the sizes of magazines or the amount of content. After all, if our content is so valuable, wouldn’t our readers need MORE of it right now? Sure, but remember that one of our Achilles heels is that we are mostly supported by advertising which has collapsed.
Speaking of advertising, it has not only collapsed in print, but as a company, we haven’t shown the growth we should on the web. Penton is really tracking a long way behind the industry in terms of percent of revenue that is digital, and we are not showing growth. The good news is we have great focus on changing this picture and longer term I am bullish on what we can do here, but it won’t change overnight.

We have some tremendous exhibition franchises that on the whole pulled us through 2008 and contributed a lot of our growth last year. There will be pressure on these businesses as customers are forced to cut back all their marketing spends. Even some of our strongest shows will show negative growth this year.
Despite incredible pressure on our businesses, we achieved a great deal throughout the first few months of the year - we reorganized our business into a market-facing structure; we delivered our audit significantly ahead of prior year; a number of our businesses delivered great financial results given the economy; and in response to my request, Penton employees provided over 150 ideas to help reduce our expense base.

While we are proud of these achievements in quarter one, the stark reality is that our overall revenue picture continues to rapidly decline. This is not a reflection of our efforts but the result of the widespread financial erosion impacting almost every business and importantly the industries we serve. I wish I could wave a magic wand and change the momentum to a positive one quicker, but it’s not possible, and whilst I continue to believe we have tremendous opportunities ahead and we will see this business flourishing in the future, today we still have a tough road ahead for a few quarters.

As you well know, over the past several months, we have attempted to offset our revenue challenges with proactive cost saving measures – as I listed above. These actions, coupled with your contributions in scrutinizing every expense, have lessened the impact. However, with no clear indication that the economy will turn in the short-term and with our revenues continuing to decline, further action is required to ensure Penton remains fundamentally sound.

Please know that the senior management team and I have carefully weighed the need for the measures I am about to announce. We consider our employees our company’s greatest asset. We are committed to doing everything possible to keep our company on track and to provide you with stable and rewarding employment. With that said, in light of the current circumstances, I have made the very difficult decision to implement temporary measures that will impact each employee’s pay.

We are instituting a reduced work schedule during the summer months. From the week before Memorial Day through the week before Labor Day, the Company will reduce its operations from a 5-day work week to a 4-day work week. For many of our businesses this will involve closing our offices on Friday. Other businesses may need to take the reduction in blocks of days. The end result will be the same for every employee at every level however - it will equate to a four day work week and a corresponding reduction in pay to reflect this reduced work schedule.

Whilst the reduction in work week will be contained only to the summer months outlined above, we will spread the pay reduction in smaller increments throughout the end of the year to reduce the immediate financial stress on you and your families. Special rules may apply to employees in California and to non-exempt employees, and we will be reaching out to these employees and their managers with information and specific instructions.
This revised work schedule will not impact your benefits. In some states, you may be eligible for unemployment for the unpaid leave. If you are interested, please contact your local unemployment office. We have prepared a set of Frequently Asked Questions<http://thepulse.penton.com/News/Pages/FrequentlyAskedQuestionsRegardingTemporarilyReducedWorkSchedules.aspx> regarding this revised work schedule, which you can find posted on the Pulse. In the next few days, your local leadership will organize group meetings, and there will be follow-up communications from your HR reps giving you more detail.

I understand this is difficult news. Thank you for your understanding and continued dedication. I am confident that if we continue to keep our focus on our customers and commit fully to delivering solutions that drive results, we will not only overcome these short term challenges, we will be better positioned to achieve new levels of success in the years to come. I urge you to try and find some upside in this temporary change and use the extra time for yourself, your family, and your friends – time can be a gift. I don’t say this to belittle the financial impact – I know that this is a big deal. I also want to reinforce that I am determined we will come out of this recession strongly and will go on to do great things. We have some tremendous initiatives across the company that this note isn’t the right vehicle to discuss and plan to share my thoughts with you through a video communication that you will see in the next 10 days. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your manager, any member of our Human Resources Team, or me directly. And thank you again.

Regards,
Sharon

Journalism by any other word would smell as sweet

March is academia month for me.
Each year at this time I visit with college journalists and their teachers. And each year it is both a rewarding and frustrating experience.
This year was somewhat unusual in that I did less college-focused stuff than usual. I had too much work to do much travel. And some academic events were canceled. But I did get to spend a few days at the annual College Media Advisers convention in New York.

I saw many of the same disheartening things this year that I've written about before -- journalism departments that have not converged; students just weeks from graduating with nothing to show for it but a working knowledge of Quark; teachers and students with no understanding of how the media business operates; etc.
On the other hand, I saw less of some of the stuff that upsets me. This year, for example, I was pleased to find that only one person in a room full of journalism advisers didn't own a cell phone or PDA.

As you'd expect, much of the conversation at this year's convention focused on the troubles of the media industry. No one seems to be landing a job. The kids are frightened.
So I spent a lot of my time talking about where I see opportunities.
And the place where I see the most opportunity for the next few years is in content marketing.

Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, I didn't meet a single teacher, adviser or student who was familiar with content marketing.
And so, repeatedly, I found myself giving a brief overview: Content marketing is about removing the middleman. Companies that once spent their marketing budget on advertising are now spending it on creating content themselves. Content marketers are free of the greatest pressure that the rest of media faces, i.e., content marketers don't need to make a profit from their content. I talked about some of the content-marketing sites that I've written about earlier such as Security Focus as well as Kraft, WeightWatchers and the sites of Waterfront Media.
And, of course, I talked about Joe Pulizzi's Junta42, which is ground zero for the content-marketing movement.
But what I found was that the folks I talked to seemed to have tremendous difficulty with the word "marketing." No matter how much I talked about content marketing as a new form of journalism, they seemed to think it could be nothing more than a new form of marcom.

So it was with great pleasure and gratitude that I stumbled upon a recent post by David Meerman Scott.
In David's "Open letter to journalists," he talks about the opportunities for "open-minded" journalists in the new world of content marketing.
But most importantly, David introduces a new (or at least new to me) term to describe the content-marketing industry.
So you can expect that in March 2010 I'll be telling students and teachers about the opportunities in "brand journalism."

To read my four-part series on college journalism from last year, click here and follow the links.

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media, journalism education, content marketing, brand journalism

Awards for the dead

Congratulations to the folks at "Heavy Duty Trucking" for winning the Grand Neal Award from American Business Media.
HDT, a monthly magazine owned by Newport Communications Group, picked up the prize for a special report called "Fuel Crisis Survival."
It's a pretty good piece of reporting and writing. And the people involved should be proud of their work.
But seriously, wouldn't it make more sense in 2009 to give the top editorial award in B2B to something that at least had a Web component?
You can read "Fuel Crisis Survival" on the HDT site ... but it's hardly a top-notch Web experience. This is shovelware, pure and simple. Take a look. See if you can spot anything that indicates anyone at the company has even looked at this thing online.

There was one other bit of news from this year's Neal ceremony that I found a little disconcerting.
Crain's FinancialWeek and FinancialWeek.com picked up a number of awards -- including Best Web Site.
And as close followers of the B2B world know, the FinancialWeek brand is no more. The print product shut down in December. The website closed earlier this month.

Layoffs and shortcomings

The layoffs are coming so frequently in B2B media these days that the announcements have become little more than background noise. It's getting harder to remember who has lost their jobs, which publications have folded, what companies have had their debt downgraded, etc.

But sometimes a piece of the bad news catches my attention and I feel obliged to say something.

So it is today as I hear that Crain is laying off 150 of its staffers.
I'm terribly sorry to hear this. I offer my sympathy to the folks who have lost their jobs. I've been laid off in the past. And it's a painful experience.
But there's also a part of me that is somewhat less than sympathetic.
Here's why:
Way, way back in the days before the Web, Crain was my idea of just how good a B2B publisher could be. I was a fan of the company and many of its brands. I thought of Crain as a guide to what all of us in B2B were supposed to do.
But since the arrival of the Web, Crain has become a company I tend to use as an example of what not to do.
And it was nearly two and a half years ago, as I wrote a piece criticizing the company, that I decided Crain would never "get" the Web.

I have no doubt that the folks who have made bad decisions at Crain in recent years will survive the layoffs. That, as unfair as it may be, seems to be the way the world works. Many of the newly jobless are likely innocent of any sin against journalism or the Web. A quick read of the comments in that post I linked to above shows that at least one journalist at the company was struggling even then with the limits placed upon her. And I assure you, I've met several other Crain journalists who have voiced similar thoughts.

I would like to think that things can change at Crain. I'd like to think that somehow the difficulties of the economy and the shock of the layoffs will prompt the survivors to take more risks and practice a more serious form of Web-based journalism. There are reasons to be hopeful -- the Web sites at Crain have in fact improved -- albeit slightly -- since November of 2006.
But tonight I don't see the one thing that would convince me the company is still serious about journalism.
That's because as I write this piece tonight, I can't find a story about the Crain layoffs at either of the Crain sites dedicated to covering this industry: Media Business and B2B Magazine.

UPDATE (3/19) As a comment to this post points out, Crain did eventually publish an article about the layoffs. It appeared on Wednesday. March 18, at 1:25 in the afternoon EDT -- nearly 24 hours after the layoffs were announced.

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media

What would you do?

Could you handle a 13% pay cut?
Could you pay your bills? Support the folks who depend upon you?

American Business Media's Business Information Network released figures today showing that B2B publishers saw their advertising revenue fall 13.1 percent in the fourth quarter, essentially giving B2B magazines a 13 percent "pay" cut.

Certainly those publishers with subscription, data or exhibition revenue didn't see such a dramatic decline. But for the sake of argument, let's just use that 13 percent figure as a benchmark.
So what would you do if your pay was cut 13 percent?
Do you have debt? Would you try to renegotiate? Default?Most B2B publishers have quite a bit of debt. And they're finding their bankers are less than patient these days.
Do you have anything to sell? A second car that you don't really need? Perhaps an investment? Some old LPs? Many B2B publishers are finding that the market doesn't assign much value to what they own. Buyers are hard to find and financing for purchases is hard to come by.
Are there things you love to do, but you know you can do without them? Would you still go to the movies and the ballgame? Would you keep that membership to your local chapter of the International Order of Friendly Sons of the Raccoons? Publishers are cutting back on memberships, meetings and business "fun."
Do you have anyone working for you? A housekeeper? Babysitter? Someone who trims the grass? Would you keep them on? Would you let them go? B2B publishers know that their biggest expense is labor. So they're cutting staff. And they're hoping that, in the end, they will have cut the "right" people and saved the ones they truly need.
Would you hope that your pay would rise soon? Would you borrow in anticipation of that future pay hike? B2B publishers, like much of America, have found that the banks and the credit markets aren't as friendly as they once were.

So what would you do?
What would you do if it were your paycheck? Or your company?

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media