What Publishers Talk About When They Talk About Content Part II: Reflections from TOC2008

The themes at O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference 2008 (TOC)  were similar to those at PSP, which I blogged about a week ago in "What Publishers Talk about When They Talk about Content." TOC did have some new spins on these themes, and there were a few memorable sessions and quotes that are worth relating here.

1. “The biggest threat to publishers is obscurity, not piracy.” —Bill Burger, Copyright Clearance Center. Kirk Biglione of Medialoper continued the theme in his session titled “DRM, Digital Content, and the Consumer Experience: Lessons Learned from the Music Industry.” I was so taken by this presentation on digital rights management, that I’m going to devote another entire blog entry to it. Stay tuned, but check out the powerpoint.

2. “Content is not King. Context is not King. Contact is King.” —Douglas Rushkoff. Social networking was also very big at this conference, especially the idea that readers use content to connect with other people. University presses have always understood that our content started, finished, or continued a conversation. How can capitalize on the opportunities of the digital age to provide even more such opportunities for scholars?

3. Passionate users tend to be experts, and it’s the feedback loop on their content makes them care. —Kathy Sierra, author of Creating Passionate Users. Although Sierra’s presentation was a little thin, it did get me thinking. Scholars are the ultimate in experts, so how can we provide them with the feedback loop and make them passionate users of our content?

4. Changing organizational structures for the digital age is difficult and painful. —Kenneth Brooks, Cengage Learning. Okay, he didn’t say it that way, but the underlying pains quickly became clear during his talk. In an informal conversation after the session, a fellow university press colleague expressed puzzlement that most of university press “digital publishing” has ended up in marketing. There was good reason for this early on, but the time has come that it needs to begin to infiltrate other departments. Among university presses, our production departments will need to acquire new skills, and we need to move many of the tasks that somehow fell on the shoulders of our marketing staff into our production departments. I’m certainly not proposing that we follow in the footsteps of a corporate publishing giant, but is there anything we can learn from the scorched-earth methods of Cengage so that our staff can be happy about these transitions? Or is change always difficult?

5. Pre-publishing and community-based pricing models. —Bob Pritchett, Logos Bible Software. Unlike a traditional book or journal product, new digital products require a significant investment. The models that Logos employs to make sure that there is a market for its products could be a helpful way for university presses to venture into this new territory with less risk.

6. Find ways to monetize around content—and that doesn’t mean advertising. —Tim O'Reilly. In his keynote, O'Reilly brainstormed revenue models built around content (even free content). Later in the day,  Scott Gray (O’Reillys School of Technology) argued  for publishers to create essential, niche products that can be priced high to maximize revenue. One of their methods has been to add an educational component around their content. For me, this was a lightbulb. A group of us here at UC Press have been talking about the University as Publisher; here is O’Reilly taking the view of Publisher as University. I think we can learn much from what the School of Technology  is doing. Note that O’Reilly has considered opening up their learning platform for others to use.

Laura Cerruti is Director of Digital Content Development at UC Press.

Comments

[kpli]

What a great insight there...Another great post written by a great blogger..Keep up the good work ;)

[Spencer]

These must have been great sessions! What Bill Burger and Tim O'Reilly were talking are things that have been on my mind of late. While industries panic about DRM (i.e. RIAA), the market passes them by and those that work with the market end up owning it (i.e. Apple iTunes). Just read a great article in Wired about the economy of "Free." Interesting stuff:
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free

[Spencer]

These must have been great sessions! What Bill Burger and Tim O'Reilly were talking are things that have been on my mind of late. While industries panic about DRM (i.e. RIAA), the market passes them by and those that work with the market end up owning it (i.e. Apple iTunes). Just read a great article in Wired about the economy of "Free." Interesting stuff:
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free