May 01, 2013

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LinkedIn as publisher I'm drawn to LinkedIn now more than ever before. The rate of connection requests I've been receiving there has also been accelerating over the past few months. Maybe it's due to all the uncertainty of the publishing industry but I think there's more to it than anxious job seekers. There are all sorts of terrific publishing groups on LinkedIn where opinions are shared and discussed. A good example is our TOC LinkedIn group; check out the stats here. We're rapidly approaching 20K members. If you're not a member you're missing a great deal of terrific industry banter. You may have heard of LinkedIn's recent acquisition of Pulse. Although Pulse isn't my favorite news platform it's probably in my top five. It's the combination of LinkedIn and Pulse that intrigues me though. LinkedIn has always been a great place to network with others in your industry. Adding a dedicated content service like Pulse is smart and I believe it's just the first step in LinkedIn's goal of becoming a publisher. Well, I'm not sure they'd consider "publisher" as one of their future roles but that's basically where they're heading. Lifelong learning is important today and it's only going to be more important tomorrow. We've all had to adapt and grow professionally more than our parents had to. Our children will be asked to grow and adapt more than we've had to. As LinkedIn becomes the Google of job and career search you can bet they want users to spend as much time on the site as possible. What better way to do so than to offer a variety of self-improvement and professional development content for all those lifelong learners? Looking for an entry-level accounting job? Here's content explaining the 10 most under-appreciated features of Excel. Want to become a better salesperson? Here's a piece on how to close the deal. You get the idea. Just as Google recently bought Frommer's to feed travel content into their search engine I fully expect LinkedIn to sign more deals to acquire rights to job training, career development, professional certification, etc., content. Some of the material will be written exclusively for LinkedIn but a lot could be redeployed from books. So although they won't publish books, just like Google isn't publishing Frommer's books, look for LinkedIn to add more and more content to their service. And if you're a publisher (or author) with a rich set of career and professional development content you should consider reaching out to LinkedIn to see if your content might be a good fit on their platform.
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WANTED: New full-time job or consulting work An announcement was made last week saying TOC is no more and that I'm out of a job. The former was disappointing news for the publishing community while the latter was a particularly troubling development for my personal community, also known as my family. I'm sad to be leaving a lot of terrific colleagues, including the amazingly talented and brilliant Kat Meyer, but I'm also looking forward to what's next. I'm not sure what the future holds so I'm currently exploring both full-time and consulting work. With all the consolidation, downsizing and loss of institutional knowledge publishers are currently facing, I believe these next few years will offer plenty of opportunities for industry consultants. I also believe my publishing and technology background, which features a mix of editorial, business development and sales experience, shows I have plenty to offer. There's one other aspect of my background that I feel is also a critical element every publisher needs to master: the art of community development. Kat and I (as well as the rest of the TOC team) worked hard to build year-round community engagement and an industry franchise by starting with something that was originally limited to a series of semi-annual in-person events. Most publishers haven't focused much on community-building and engagement. I believe we were creating a community template publishers could have applied to their own businesses. The TOC plug was pulled prematurely, IMHO, but the community engagement lives on here and elsewhere, of course. Btw, the goal of community-building isn't just to create a direct channel. That's one valuable outcome but it's clear some publishers simply aren't interested in direct channels just yet. Community-building is about giving your real customers, the people who read your products, a reason to engage with you and your content. It's about establishing a dialog as well as giving them a place to meet and share their experience. One of my former colleagues liked to say that "community is the new marketing." Some publishers think that means they just need to have a corporate Twitter handle and offer a Facebook page for everyone to like them. Then they wonder why there's no return on that minimal investment. This is one of the areas where I can help. There are plenty of other areas I can work with you as well, including: business plans, business development, product development, digital-first models, acquisitions, etc. Am I right for your organization's needs, either in a full-time or consultant position? You'll be in a bettter position to answer to that question by reading through my archives here as well as visiting my LinkedIn profile. Better yet, send me an email and let's schedule a phone call to talk about your specific needs.

Joe Wikert

I'm Chief Operating Officer at OSV (www.osv.com)

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