FOLIO: Section Blogs by B2B

Another Threat for B-to-B Publishers: Newspaper Beat Reporters

Joanna Pettas — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:57:13 -0400

I've been writing for a long time about the new competitors that traditional b-to-b publishers are finding on the Web.

Whether we're talking about Web-only publishers, editors who strike out on their own, sources who become publishers, or marketers who become journalists, the days in which the only competition that a typical, monthly b-to-b magazine faced was another monthly magazine are long gone.

And now we can add one more to the list of Web-based competitors—newspaper beat reporters.

Take a look at Pharmalot, a Newark Star-Ledger reporter's blog about the U.S. pharmaceutical industry. Or even better, take a look at this article about Pharmalot on the Beat Blogging site, where you'll find that Pharmalot is successful "when measured by any metric—Web traffic, content and financially," according to the blogger's boss.

The reporter behind Pharmalot is Ed Silverman, who has covered pharmaceuticals for 12 years for the local newspaper (northern New Jersey is filled with pharmaceutical firms). The basic concept behind Pharmalot is that in the course of working his beat, Ed was already accumulating enough news to compete with any national publication in the space. So by moving to a blog platform, he was able to expand both his coverage and reach nationally.

Now Pharmalot isn't a business threat to existing b-to-b publishers. At least not yet. A quick look through the site indicates that the ad staff at the newspaper hasn't learned to sell high-cost ads targeting readers from the pharmaceutical industry. Rather the ads are the same low-cost run-of-site nonsense that you'll find anywhere else on a newspaper site. But it probably won't be long before someone there finds out that targeted b-to-b ads are worth more than branding buttons from Ford and WaMu.

More importantly, it won't be long before other newspapers realize there's potential (and some easy money) in duplicating the Pharmalot model. There are thousands of business reporters covering hundreds of beats at newspapers across the country. And odds are there's at least one who would pose a competitive threat to any b-to-b publication you could name.

So if you're an editor or executive at a traditional, print-based publishing company, it's time to ask yourself three questions:

1. Who are the best newspaper reporters covering the beat that my magazine/Web site covers? (If you have the budget, it may be time to hire away anyone who poses a serious threat.)

2. Are any of those newspaper reporters capable of launching a Web-based, national version of what they already do locally? (Ignore the print-based legacy reporters. But keep your eye on anyone who appears Web-savvy.)

3. How is it possible for a daily newspaper reporter to create an all-new product based on what he learns from working his beat when the staff at my monthly magazine says they're too busy to write daily stories for the Web? (It's probably well past the time to dump some staffers and move to a Web-first workflow.)

For more b-to-b publishing insights, check out Paul Conley's blog here ...

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And Now for Something Completely Different: TechTarget's 'Open Leave' Policy

Matt Kinsman — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:58:48 -0400

How does unlimited vacation time sound to you? For readers of FOLIO:, who have become accustomed to the almost weekly tally of layoffs and cutbacks in the publishing industry and for whom the phrase "work-life balance" has become as silly as "feng shui," it sounds too good to be true.

All except for employees at TechTarget, which is one of the reasons the Framingham, Massachusetts-based tech publisher earns a perennial spot on Boston Business Journal's "Best Places to Work" list. The publisher does not restrict full-time employees to any particular number of sick, personal or vacation days. "TechTarget maintains an ‘open leave' policy respecting employees as professionals," says CEO Greg Strakosch. "This policy gives the employee flexibility and control over their schedules, providing excellent work-life balance."

Of course, with revenue up 18 percent in 2007 and up 30 percent in the first quarter of 2008, TechTarget can afford to be a little magnanimous. Still, it's a nice change from layoffs and cutbacks—or from the publishing CEO who I overheard sniff that editors who expected to get compensated for doing print and online should be thankful they aren't in coal mining.

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Publisher to Employee: Stop Blogging!

Jason Fell — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:27:59 -0400

Little more than a month after FOLIO: first reported about Reed Elsevier's plans to divest Reed Business Information, we received a comment from someone who had started a related blog called DivestmentWatch.

The blog—run by a Web operations manager for Reed Elsevier's Totaljobs Group in London—monitored, discussed and linked to news stories about the divestment process. The site, the blogger wrote, had generated more than 5,000 unique visitors and averaged nearly 200 daily visits.

In a May 2 post, the blogger shared this interesting detail: "Rumour has it that RE and RBI board members have visited DivestmentWatch, and it has even come up during chats with the bankers (UBS) and the consultants (PWC) so it's nice to know that there are some people interested and hopefully listening."

This is interesting, now, because the site has been shut down. According to the blogger, management from Reed Elsevier and RBI "quietly asked" that he take down the site—and it appears he complied.

While I'm not clear on the circumstances surrounding Reed's request (an RBI spokesperson said she wasn't familiar with the site's shuttering and I haven't been able to track down the blogger) I find it strange (and a bit disappointing) that this blogger would buckle under the pressure. Doesn't he have the right to his opinion?

But, employment is a precious thing these days. Seeing as the now-former blogger is a current Reed employee I can understand shutting down DivestmentWatch if he was afraid of losing his job.
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Where are the Best Places to Work in Publishing?

Joanna Pettas — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:44:16 -0400

Trolling the newswires and sifting through my inbox this week, I came across a few press releases from media companies—IDG, TechTarget, Time Out Chicago—touting their status as one of the “best places to work” in their given cities or states.
Ordinarily this type of “news” wouldn’t be on our radar but, given comments about low morale, I thought it might be time to draw attention to people who at least seem to be happy working in media.
IDG made Boston Business Journal’s list of Best Places to Work in Massachusetts for the fourth straight year; TechTarget made it—among companies in the greater Boston area—for the third. Four-year-old Time Out Chicago made the National Association for Business Resources list of “101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work for in Chicago” for the first time this year.
So the rest of you happy media worker-bees, speak up. Why are you still in this industry? What is making it worth it for you? Post your responses here, and those of you at the helm take note—as one FOLIOmag.com commenter warns: “Morale at [many] companies is in the basement, which does make for a less productive employee because all they do is worry about their next paycheck. As a result the downward spiral continues.”
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When Announcing Layoffs, How Can the Future Be 'Bright'?

Dylan Stableford — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:49:17 -0400

In National Lampoon's European Vacation, there's a scene where Eric Idle, playing an English bicyclist, is hit by the Griswald family vacation rental car (Chevy Chase can't quite get used to those tricky U.K. driving patterns). He's bloodied and bruised, but still insists on giving the tourists directions. When blood starts shooting out of his wrist, Idle downplays it as "just a flesh wound."

I wonder if there's a magazine industry counterpart in the memos that sometimes get sent accompanying layoffs.

Take Penton Media CEO John French's memo last week announcing the layoffs of 42 staffers. It outlined the challenges of transitioning to a multi-stream revenue model, shoring up print, dealing with a poor economy and operating in many markets, some of which are performing well for Penton and some of which are not.

But it also stated that "Penton remains a very strong company and the long-term outlook for our organization is bright."

It's a tough job running a media company these days, especially in b-to-b.

And it's terrible to lay people off (although worse for the people getting laid off). And French's memo was gracious and empathetic.

But let's face it, when you're any media and you're laying people off; when you're asking your managers to reforecast because you're missing your numbers; when your print magazines are shriveling; when you haven't raised rates for print ads in years; when online-only competitors are cropping up all around; when employees are leaving to start competitors; when you're so busy protecting declining print businesses that you're always a step behind in e-media; then maybe the future isn't so bright, and maybe you should say that.

I'm not singling out Penton. What French says is true of Reed, Nielsen, Cygnus, PennWell, Ascend—all of the big multi-market players.

Then again, perhaps it is merely a flesh wound. Perhaps.

Bonus video clip of the "flesh wound" scene below:
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Penton CEO: 'Long-Term Outlook for Our Organization is Bright'

Dylan Stableford — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:19:52 -0400

Penton CEO John French's memo to staffers on the company's 42 layoffs:

To All Penton Employees:

Several weeks ago, I shared with everyone some of the successes that we have enjoyed in certain areas of the company including Penton’s Exhibitions Group and the success of the Expo West event. Also, Registered Rep, in the Financial Services Group, had a record first quarter, and many of our information data products are off to a strong start to the year as well. However, as I also pointed out in my note, certain areas of the company are facing challenges. As a result of these challenges, I asked our product managers to conduct a detailed business analysis. These challenges we currently face are not unique to Penton, and many of our peers and competitors are working, as we are, to adjust business models and strategy to better serve our customers.

I have spent a good deal of time with each of our product managers and members of the finance team, and together, we looked at industry trends, specific challenges and opportunities in each marketplace, and our planned responses. We now have a clearer picture and understanding of our anticipated performance for the remainder of the year.

We expect certain product groups will continue to have success. In fact, this year we have launched three new tradeshows in response to market demands for these events. Additionally, our online business continues to grow and is gaining much industry recognition for its use of online video, especially the Entertainment Technology group. We are also seeing improvement in the aviation and parts of the agricultural sectors of our business.

While we are making strides in growing our online, data products, and events components of our franchises, certain product groups continue to feel the effects of the economic downturn that has impacted much of the business-to-business media industry. As a result, parts of the business will continue to be challenged in the second half of 2008. We continue to address the need to change the revenue mix as we work to shift the business to reflect a brand-centric model with a greater digital focus. This will allow us to continue to offer our customers a full suite of products best suited for their needs, while maintaining our industry-leading positions and putting the company in a position for growth.

Nevertheless, these changes in our business require us to take new steps to control expenses, in addition to extending the salary and hiring freezes already in place. As a result, over the last two days, we have eliminated 42 positions from various areas across the company. These staff reductions are distributed across businesses, locations, and job levels. I do not take these decisions lightly, and we have made every effort to find other ways to reduce costs in order to keep staffing reductions to a minimum. Each employee whose position is being eliminated has been offered a severance package. The employees who will be leaving us have worked very hard for Penton, and we thank them for their contributions.

Penton remains a very strong company and the long-term outlook for our organization is bright. We will continue to monitor our business closely in the weeks and months ahead and will report regularly on our progress.

Thank you,

John
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Buy Dr. Paul's Magic Elixir!

Joanna Pettas — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:30:45 -0400

The latest numbers from the Business Information Network show that things ain't looking good for print publications in b-to-b. Ad revenue and ad pages are down. And no doubt there's not a soul anywhere in the industry who is surprised by this latest bit of bad news.

As I said a little more than a month ago, much of the b-to-b publishing world, weighed down by heavy debt loads and soaring print costs, "has sunk into a death spiral." Heck, things are getting so bad on the print side that I'm even nervous about publishers that don't have debt. Certainly I'm not the only person to be worried. Two of my new favorite sites—Business Media Blog and Private Frazer's Doomed Magazines—are dedicated primarily to documenting the troubles in our industry (both sites, however, focus on U.K.-based publishing.)

I love this industry, and I hate to see it suffer. So I do what I can to make things better. But lately I've begun to worry that I haven't done enough.

No Sale

A man should know his weaknesses. I certainly know mine—and over the years my business has been hurt by one weaknesses in particular: I'm not much of a salesman.

I've been lucky that this hasn't kept me from working for myself. Every single client that Paul Conley Consulting has ever had has come to me through referrals, personal relationships or this blog. I haven't had to make cold calls, etc.

But I've decided to change that. I've decided to learn to sell. Because a man should try to conquer his weaknesses. And because I want do more to help this industry and because I'm just arrogant enough to believe that I can solve much of what ails us if I can get people to buy into my ideas.

So I've begun trying to pick up some sales skills. I've been chatting with buddies who make their living in sales. I've been reading books and checking out blogs that focus on making sales to businesses.

No Problem

In order to sell something to a business, you have to be solving a problem.

In one fashion or another, that seems to be what all the experts suggest about selling to a business. Understand a business' problems, and then sell your product or service as a solution. In the world of business sales, it would seem that if you don't offer solutions, you won't make the sale. (That, I suppose, is why so many salespeople have the annoying habit of calling whatever they sell a "solution." Hence a person who sells software to trucking companies isn't a software salesman, he's a logistics software solutions provider.)

So as I first read all this sales material, I was encouraged. It seemed that I was in the perfect position to "sell" my consulting services.

It seemed clear to me that nearly everyone in b-to-b publishing had some combination of the same three problems. And I offered services—either directly or through other clients—that could help solve any of them.
So I wrote out some notes for sales calls and listed the problems and solutions.

1. Poor editorial: Publishers are expecting more and better work online from their editorial teams. But in b-to-b, much of our online content is still awful. It's produced by people who don't understand Web journalism and resist change. Solution: In-house training and/or outsourcing some products.

2. Soaring costs: At the rate that costs are rising, print publishing may soon be limited to the higher ends of the B2C market. But even if things never get quite that bad, there's no doubt that publishers are choking on the costs of print. Solution: Move to Web-first publishing and prepare to go Web-only and/or outsource print-only jobs in design and layout.

3. Demands for revenue growth: Online revenue has soared in recent years. But publishers continue to struggle to find online revenue sources that are robust enough to replace declining print revenue. Complicating matters is that much of our existing online revenue will certainly disappear as our customers grow more sophisticated. We've been selling a lot of crap in b-to-b for a long time—filling our coffers with money from ineffective buttons, widely ignored banners, opt-out newsletters and page view numbers that aren't filtered for 'bots. Solution: In-house training of ad sales staff and/or move to a lead-generation model.

No Thank You

So last week I tried to use my new understanding of how to make sales. I started talking to people about the problems I see in b-to-b publishing. I wasn't actually making sales calls. Rather I was practicing my pitch with people in the industry.
What I found—much to my surprise—is that a lot of people in b-to-b don't believe in the problems. Rather, they seem to think that things are going badly for them solely because of factors that are out of their control.

I've spoken to editors of sites that are simply awful by any measure. But those people think their content is just nifty, and that the sales team just sucks.

I've spoken to print-centric sales folks who are now selling for the Web, but don't understand the difference between opt-out and opt-in. These folks think what they are selling is valuable, and that the editorial team just sucks.

I've spoken to folks who are being crushed by print costs—pouring the vast majority of their budgets into a product that is produced only once a month. But those people think that print (and print-only workers) must be saved, and that the Web/the boss/this point in history just sucks.

Every once in awhile I spoke with someone who agreed that there was actually a problem in his/her own department. But those people inevitably portrayed those problems as inevitable—there weren't enough resources, there wasn't enough time and it wasn't worth asking the boss for help.

The Next Step

If there are any expert salespeople reading this post, then they aren't surprised by what I found. Such experts would note that I've been testing my sales approach on people who aren't "decision makers." Rather I've been talking to the people I usually talk to—the reporters, editors, sales staffers, designers and the rest of the people who do the work of b-to-b.
And any sales expert would say that I'm going to have to move up the food chain if I'm going to find people who can both see the problems and buy the solutions.
So in about two weeks or so, after I return from a business trip, I'm going to start calling some of the CEOs in b-to-b publishing and make some sales.
It's my hope that even if the powers-that-be in b-to-b disagree with me about how to solve our problems, they will at least be able to see our problems.
Otherwise, we're all doomed.
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RBI’s Weird Layoff Document

Dylan Stableford — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:36:36 -0400

As we reported and confirmed yesterday, Reed Business Information eliminated 41 positions, months after Reed Elsevier, its parent company, announced that the unit was up for sale. The tip came from this document, sent to one of the "victims," which, curiously, lists the titles and ages of those who were laid off, as well as the titles and ages of those who remain.
That's something I've never seen a company do before.

RBI declined to comment on the document itself, although my initial thought was that it was intended to show that the company was not resorting to ageism in making its cuts. (At least one reader agrees with me).

Still, as another reader noted, it seemed "a bit cutthroat."

Perhaps because it is.
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Cygnus to Allow Employees to Wear Blue Jeans on Tuesday

Jason Fell — Fri, 23 May 2008 13:29:11 -0400

Here’s something fun to chew on over the long holiday weekend:
The human resources department at Cygnus might have stumbled upon the as-yet undiscovered key to increasing the bottom line: Wearing jeans … on Tuesdays.
According to an e-mail sent to staffers this week from HR vice president Judy Heidebrecht, employees will be permitted to wear “nice” jeans to work next Tuesday, May 27—as long as they are “even more productive.”
So, trade in your suit pants and skirts, folks. Jeans = productivity!
Here’s the e-mail:
From: "Judy Heidebrecht"
Date: May 22, 2008 7:08:47 PM EDT
Subject: Blue Jean Tuesday

At the request of a few people who said they would be even more productive if they could wear blue jeans more often . . . we’ve agreed to test that theory!

Next Tuesday, May 27, will be a casual day, so feel free to wear nice jeans, just like you would on Friday.

Now, here’s the deal. If the folks who were preaching productivity-in-denims are correct – we could have more casual-wear-days more often. Let your co-workers and supervisors know what you think!

Mike, Dave, Judy
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Cuts at Edgell?

Dylan Stableford — Wed, 21 May 2008 19:19:45 -0400

According to an anonymous comment to a post on Paul Conley's blog, Edgell Communications—the Randolph, New Jersey-based b-to-b publisher (Hospitality Technology, Consumer Goods Technology, etc.)—laid off six staffers last week. (A follow-up comment said that all six were women.)
Conley wrote that he'd "be looking for coverage in FOLIO:."

I left messages for Edgell's chairman and CEO Gabriele Edgell, COO Dan Ligorner and president Gerry Ryerson late last week seeking comment, as well as sent e-mails to a bunch of staffers listed on their contact page.

Here's one of my follow-up e-mails, followed by Ryerson's response:
From: Dylan Stableford
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 4:50 PM
To: Gerry Ryerson
Subject: folio: inquiry

Hi Gerry:

Just left you a message. We received a tip that there were some layoffs at Edgell last week. Is this true? Can you confirm? If so, how many, who were they and why were they let go?

Thanks,

Dylan
:::
dylan stableford
senior editor, digital
folio: | red7media
o 203.899.8481 [direct line]
c 203.727.1367
:::
From: Gerry Ryerson
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 5:11 PM
To: Dylan Stableford
Cc: Tony Silber; Dan Ligorner; Gabriele Edgell
Subject: RE: folio: inquiry

Dylan,
We don’t have any information we’d like to share about our company right now. If we had a comment Gabriele, Dan or I would have returned your calls. I’d also appreciate you not continuing to contact everyone on our mastheads as its just a distraction to our business.
Gerry

Gerald C. Ryerson
President
Edgell Communications
4 Middlebury Blvd.
Randolph, NJ 07869

P REDACTED
F REDACTED
C REDACTED

I won't. However, if anyone has additional information, feel free to contact me directly [dstableford AT red7media DOT com or 203.899.8481] or leave a comment in the comments section below.
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Do Not Reply to This Blog Post!

Dylan Stableford — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:28:00 -0400

Shrinking advertising revenue. Layoffs. Foldings. A recession. You'd think b-to-b publishers have enough to worry about without, say, an international SPAM conspiracy. You'd think.
Via American Business Media's chief technology officer:
From: Joshua Kuvin
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2008 1:18 PM
To: Dylan Stableford
Subject: Crucial ABM-CTO Message

Dear Dylan,

Warning!

If you receive a foreign e-mail from any country or anyone stating that you are in danger of losing your Company or Brand's Domain Name (in China .cn; or Germany .de; or Europe .eu; or even the United States .us)

Do not reply! ~ If you wish to have these domains, you can register these domain extensions yourself using GoDaddy.com, Register.com or any others.

By replying, you are actually alerting these foreign e-mail spammers (mostly from China and Hong Kong) that your Web site, Brand or Company is a valuable commodity. They will purchase the foreign domain name extension and try selling it back to you.

Just a heads-up from your Association's CTO (and you may want to forward this message to your employees).

Best Regards,

Joshua

Joshua Kuvin, Chief Technical Officer

P-[REDACTED]
F-[REDACTED]
Cell-[REDACTED]
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Another Big-Time Editor Goes Out on His Own

Dylan Stableford — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:53:23 -0400

Harry McCracken is leaving PC World to start his own technology Web site. That's big news for the world of b-to-b journalism for several reasons.

Harry may be the biggest name in b-to-b editorial circles. Anyone who follows this industry will remember Harry's clash with management last year. Harry's ethical stance in that dispute won him the most important award in B2B publishing—American Business Media's Timothy White Award for editorial integrity. And certainly Harry's departure is a tremendous blow to PC World and parent company IDG.
But what I find most interesting about this development is that Harry is now the best-known business-media journalist to enter the world of entrepreneurial journalism.
More than three years ago I began predicting a rise in the number of established b-to-b journalists who would abandon traditional publishing companies and strike out on their own. And history has shown me right time and time again. But in the past few weeks this trend seems to be accelerating.
First, there was the news that the majority of the staff of Cygnus' Aircraft Maintenance Technology magazine had resigned en masse, reportedly to start a competing product.
They join another group of Cygnus employees who quit a few months ago and launched RV Industry News, a competitor to Cygnus' RV Trade Digest. And in the past few weeks I've begun consulting with and/or offering advice and support to four different b-to-b editors who are building new products as they make plans to quit their day jobs before the end of the year.

But most interesting to me is that I'm in talks now with an entity that is interested in offering tools, a platform, ad-sales services and a revenue share to b-to-b editors who opt to take the standalone route. (When and if I reach a deal with that group, I'll publish the details here.)
In the meantime, congratulations to Harry and everyone else who has taken the plunge.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Read more analysis from Paul Conley on his blog ...]
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Is This the Future of Publishing?

Dylan Stableford — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:37:34 -0400

On Monday, the New York Times published a must-read profile of International Data Group, the large technology publisher that last year made a dramatic turn away from print to become a Web-focused company. (The big move came in April, when IDG shuttered the print edition of InfoWorld.)

IDG's online revenue has now surpassed its print revenue (52 percent online to 48 percent print) and its managers say they've adopted an online first business model.

Perhaps not surprisingly for the Times, more than once the article hinted that IDG "may offer a glimpse of the future of publishing."

IDG CEO Pat McGovern is quoted as saying "there is life after print in fact, a better life after print." The Times also tracked down Stewart Alsop, the editor of InfoWorld in the 90s, who said "what's happening at IDG is a fairly accurate map for every other publishing organization."

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

Bob Sacks:
There are still multi-billions of dollars in the print universe. Media that matters is in flux. Media that makes money is in flux. Our media universe is changing faster than we can possibly comprehend.

Paul Conley:
No publisher I know has done a better job of understanding the Web and making the transition away from print. I've had a pretty good view of the struggles the company has faced as it moved to a Web-first model. And just like everywhere else in journalism, most of those struggles involved stubborn and close-minded people. Truth be told, IDG has fewer stubborn and close-minded people than any publisher I know.

My take: I tend to agree with Aaron. Magazines with controlled circulation and no subscription revenue are probably better positioned to make the transition than other magazines, where print accounts for 80 or 90 percent of the overall revenue, in some cases. But, also remember, IDG is the biggest tech publisher in the world. Smaller publishers, or those with audiences that haven't made the wholesale migration to the Web (there are a few lost souls out there—think, for instance, the readers of Town & Country) are going to have a tough time making the leap, and will probably be clutching their luxury glossies on the way down.

I do think this "Web-first" as a business trend is great, even if it's about three years late.

What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below ...
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Nielsen’s New Corporate Values: ‘Integrated, Open, Simple’

Dylan Stableford — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:17:52 -0400

NOTE: FOLIO: editors are in California this week, filing reports from American Business Media’s annual Spring Meeting.

LA QUINTA, California—Incoming ABM chairman and Meister Media CEO Gary Fitzgerald opened the ABM general session by saying, “It’s time for leaders to lead.”

For Nielsen Co. chairman and CEO David Calhoun, that means establishing a new series of corporate values to direct the company in “The Google World.”
“We chose a set of leadership values that’s what changes the nature of a company. Sounds soft but it’s measurable. Didn’t pick value changes we thought we were good at.”

Those values include:

1. Integrated: “Advertisers want to put things together,” says Calhoun. “There’s a notion that integrated data will save the day. We gave our people a blank check and have them working on how to integrate processes. This isn’t about saving a buck but how to begin to put data together. This is measurable and our leaders know they are accountable.”

2. Open: “If your values preclude you from looking at the models of others, you will lose,” said Calhoun. “Proprietary systems were the world we used to aspire to but that’s the world we need to crush.”

3. Be Simple: “It’s getting harder every day in the Google World but if you can provide clarity in an open environment, you will win,” Calhoun added. “We aren’t going to budget our way to change. We all have to get a clear view and a lot of emotion behind it before it’s real.”
FOLIO:'s Spring Meeting Coverage:
The New Must-Have Skills for B-to-B Media: Project Management
Publishers on Redefining the Role of Print
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Help Ziff Davis Enterprise Pick a New Name

Dylan Stableford — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:40:11 -0400

Last week while researching a story on how confusingly similar b-to-b company names are (Ascend, Aspire, Summit Media, Summit Business Media et al) Steve Weitzner, the president of Ziff Davis Enterprise, told me that "about the third time I had to explain to a customer that we aren't that Ziff Davis, we're the other Ziff Davis, I realized we needed a name change."
Weitzner says the company is working on a name change but is in no rush. "We only want to change it once."
So, in the true spirit of b-to-b service journalism, I thought it'd be nice if we all help Ziff Davis Enterprise brainstorm new names. I'd do it myself, but I'm not sure Not That Ziff Davis (NTZD Inc.) is what they're going for.
Leave your idea for Ziff Davis Enterprise's new name in the comments section below, and we'll add ‘em to the shortlist.
And while you're at it, let's come up with a new name for Summit Media too.
Who knows? Maybe they'll actually use ‘em ...
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