Fall 2011 Kickoff: Look to the Future with CWIP
How have the writing and publishing industries changed, and where are we going?
These were the focal questions of CWIP’s fall reception. On Thursday, September 22, members and guests gathered to “look to the future” from what Executive Committee member Judith West called this “wild and wooly” time of great change and transformation.
While game-changing developments have altered the way we do business, and while we know more change is in store, we don’t know where we’ll wind up, which is, West intoned, both “wonderful and scary as hell.”
To address these issues by way of personal experience, featured speaker Jennifer Parello, director of marketing and communications for World Book, discussed what we can learn from how her company adapted.
World Book, a ninety-five-year-old company, survived by embracing what is perhaps the greatest technological revolution of our time—the Internet. Since its first website launched in 1997, World Book has had to think in new ways about how to anticipate and address the needs of its audience.
What started in 1917 on Prairie Avenue and gave us the first alphabetical (rather than thematic), A to Z print encyclopedia (only eight volumes at the time), World Book has a long history of innovative change.
The company has been owned by both Marshall Field's and Berkshire Hathaway, but entered the “dawn of darkness” in 1993. That was the year Microsoft released the first edition of Encarta, compressing the space and heft of a print encyclopedia into one thin, lightweight (and far less expensive) compact disc.
At the time, Encarta stole half of World Book’s workforce, and the company was faced with its greatest challenge. Rather than being painted into a corner as a holdout among those willing to evolve, World Book innovated itself into a second life: offering both print and Web subscription services. Since its first website in 1997, World Book’s online subscription quickly gained a following, and surpassed its print sales far sooner than anticipated.
While Encarta may have been the first encyclopedia on a disc, World Book reached a different finish line in first place: it was the first traditional encyclopedia website. What this innovation signaled was just how crucial it is to change with the demands of your consumers, and to always seek out different markets for which you can make products.
The Web introduced a new component to presenting knowledge: not just text, and not just images, but video. World Book saw a huge demand for more video content, and quickly got to work. What began with an expert Q & A with Disney eventually spread to offering segments featuring the world’s finest—including former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
Not only is it important to follow the needs of your consumers and to anticipate and fulfill new demands, but Parello also spoke of how important it is to repurpose what you’ve already got. The videos became so popular that they have since become their own product, rather than being purely supplemental materials for something else that is purchased.
When it came time for the evening’s own Q & A, everyone wanted to know how to get into video themselves—on a dime. What if you don’t have the financial resources to invest in shooting and editing good video?
As it turns out, anyone can make their own video, and if you do it yourself your costs are minimal. These days, small, handheld consumer video cameras are so inexpensive, but yet offer fairly good quality video, that the same camera you use to shoot family reunions can be used for your business needs. With the quality of smart phones these days, you can even get decent video on your iPhone or Android.
That may cover visual, but what about audio? If you’re filming in an inside environment, the mic inside your camera may be sufficient. But if you’re outside or in an indoor environment with a lot of background noise (including the low droning of fans and air conditioners), it would be smart to buy, rent, or borrow (possibly from your local public library’s digital media lab) a clip-on lavaliere mic.
The last remaining concern is, once you get your video, how do you edit it? Parello uses an expensive, professional editing software called Final Cut Pro, but there are many others out there that are much cheaper, and give you only what you really need—none of the bells and whistles that only professional filmmakers would use. If you have a MAC, then all you’d need is iMovie to get the job done. While Parello didn’t know offhand what the PC equivalent of iMovie was, she emphasized that there must be something out there similar for any operating system.
The last tip of the evening dealt with how to use whatever changes come your way to your own benefit. Someone in the audience asked about her strategy for wooing customers, and while World Book is able to rely on a long legacy of brand recognition, most of us don’t have the benefit of that.
This is a lesson in making lemonade out of lemons. If the digital revolution is frightening and putting old ways out of business, it is also enabling the savvy business person to learn which marketing strategies are most effective and, therefore, worth the cost. Digital marketing is cheap, and has the important benefit of being trackable—rather than wondering what attracts customers and what gets no response, now you can know.
If you missed this discussion, you don’t have to miss any others. Check the CWIP website for details about upcoming events.