George Walkley reports from 2008 Tools of Change, New York
George Walkley attended the 2008 Tools of Change for Publishing conference in New York earlier this month and has posted his observations in four posts over at www.georgewalkley.com.
It sounds like it was a truly fascinating event, with some incredible speakers on the roster: Douglas Rushkoff, Tim O'Reilly, Seth Godin; and that was just the Monday Morning session.
I haven't had time to go through George's notes in detail just yet, but I can already tell that it was definitely an event I wish I could have attended. That's one of the few drawbacks to being self-employed sometimes: no corporate travel budget to tap into for these trans-Atlantic info-finding missions...
‘Reaching Readers Online’ seminar, January 31st, London
Spent last Thursday out and about as I headed down to the London Stock Exchange for a seminar entitled 'Reaching Readers Online', organised by publishing industry trade journal the Bookseller.
The audience was mostly made up of London-based publishing professionals - although a few people, like myself, had travelled in from the regions - and we were treated to a good afternoon's worth of relevant commentary on the subject on online promotion for publishers and authors, with some practical advice and case-study examples of successful campaigns included for good measure.
The speakers were all very good indeed; a great mix of heavy-hitting marketing professionals, all of whom were either directly involved in online publishing, print publishing, or providing relevant support services. They included:
- Matt Seaton, editor of The Guardian's Comment is Free mega-blog, introduced the session and spoke on the positive impact of taking a blog-based approach to online publishing.
- Barry Clark of The Future Foundation, who provided some illuminating key stats and trends information, including the fact that this year, social media websites have finally overtaken web-based email in terms of page-impression based traffic figures.
- Cameron Saunders, head of marketing, digital channels at Channel 4 spoke of the huge success of the online pre-launch campaign for the first series of Skins and how the channel is working to keep the momentum going into the second series.
- Peter Collingridge, managing director of Apt, told us of the key challenges facing the industry and suggested an immediate-term action plan for publishers to adopt.
- George Walkley of Orbit Books then provided some examples of practical methods that publishers could use to take advantage of online channels.
A series of quick-fire talks by publishing professionals from various sectors of the industry, all of whom had something positive and practical to add on the topic, then brought the session to a close. All in all, it was an extremely interesting, informative and relevant afternoon.
I was hoping to write up my notes from the session in more detail, but spare blogging time is a very precious commodity just at the moment (for reasons I hope to be able to announce shortly). However, Peter Collingridge has written up his notes on everyone else's segments over on the Apt blog, Times Emit, so if you missed the session or would simply like to catch up with the key points from the other keynote speakers, then that would be an excellent place to start.