Digital Discourse / Information Industry Summit

IIS Breakthrough Recap: Content Dethroned By Technology

February 5, 2013 By

Deborah Richman, Consultant, Zions Bank

Written by Deborah Richman, Consultant, Zions Bank

At the Information Industry Summit’s crossfire session, experts agreed on one thing: content is no longer king. Gone are the days when business information was controlled by a few, stable, necessary sources delivering to ever-loyal customers. Here’s how the experts view technology’s destabilizing force:

  • “Technology is extremely critical, and content is what you have to have,” said Andy Prozes, senior advisor at Warburg Pincus.
  • John Hartig, CEO of Sports Information Group believes the industry’s in “hand-to-hand combat” between offering relevant data and leveraging technology.
  • Our business is now about “peaks and troughs and rapid cycles of developments,” explained Stephen Ryden-Lloyd, SVP at Innodata.
  • Denzil Rankine, executive chairman at AMR International, declared “you have to have a CEO who gets it and understands technology.”
  • “Is technology endlessly complicating the business model?” asked Dan McCarthy, a DeSilva+Phillips partner. Yes, indeed.

 

The “new normal” challenges

Depending on your marketplace and customers, there are different ways to integrated content, commerce and technology. Still, these “new normal” challenges need to be addressed.

Technical DNA here: Perhaps the largest challenge relates to having or injecting technical DNA in the company. If your company began life as pure-content business, then new executives will need to help evolve the business and culture. Companies must be willing to invest in technology, functionality and people.

Continuous product cycles: It’s not possible to roll out a product and sit back for a year or two anymore. You must understand road maps and agile releases, to be responsive to the market. You also must stay abreast of technology platforms, with the right partners. And whether you “make or buy,” remember to budget for R&D and development.

To workflow or not workflow: Information will get distributed through multiple workflow systems used by your customers. You could work closely with customers to integrate into their workflows or develop more standard applications familiar to them. If appropriate, you might be able to focus on outcomes rather than workflows.

The information industry will thrive

The information industry is still growing and attracting new entrants and sources. It is still undergoing a massive transition, due to game-changing digital technologies accessible to publishers and customers.

“This will remain an attractive market,” explained AMR’s Denzil Rankine. “A trend is that it is a tougher to be alone, as a sole supplier to the market. More entrants, providers will have a downward pressure on margin.”

Innodata’s Stephen Ryden-Llloyd observed the competitive pressures:  “Authority can come from multiple places today.  Also from social networks or wisdom of the crowds. There’s a huge degree of cleverness, opportunity” in the marketplace.

“But if you build new tech, the growth rates are there,” declared Warburg’s Andy Prozes.

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Debby Richman spent her formative years at D&B, leading the reference business from print to online and web offerings. She has since held digital leadership roles at Overstock, About.com, Looksmart, Starz, Collarity and Zions Bank.

 

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IIS Breakthrough Recap: Now That Is Big Data

February 5, 2013 By

Written by Deborah Richman, Consultant, Zions Bank

Deborah Richman, Consultant, Zions Bank

“We just had our 10 petabyte party,” declared Brewster Kahle, to Information Industry Summit attendees this week. Universal access to all knowledge may sound like a pipe dream, yet Kahle and his Internet Archive team have been doggedly pursuing this goal and using up petabytes to collect, digitize and share content.

The Internet Archive is best known for creating the de-facto web historical repository. Since 1996, Kahle’s team has visited “every page on every web site, every two weeks.” There are more than 240 billion URLs in the archive today. For better or worse, anyone may access them at the WayBack Machine.

Fortunately web tools and sources have improved, and Kahle also relies on others to help. At this point, there are some 1,700 curated collections from 200 places included in the archives. “Personal digital archives are next,” says Kahle. “But our stuff is all over the place. And things are gone.”

It’s more than websites

The archive.org team, comprised of 150 staffers, has been making books, audio, video and TV news available at a dizzying rate. Kahle reported on archival progress for SIIA members:

  • Books: 3mm e-books, 500k for blind and 300k modern e-books.
  • Audio: 1mm items in 100 collections, including 100k concerts from 5k bands.
  • Video: 2 – 3k movies, plus industrial, educational, other specialty films.
  • TV news: 20 channels collected since 2000, and TV news for three years.

The Internet Archive sidesteps copyright issues by behaving like a library consortium. Libraries and individuals are free to make their multimedia collections available online. Then patrons, aka site visitors, are able to view unrestricted materials or check out others from the holdings.

No modern-day industry titans, like Andrew Carnegie, have come forth and made this digital access dream come true. Instead, a non-profit organization filled with dreamers and technologists have been knocking down access barriers to digitized content for two decades. It’s pretty sweet.

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Debby Richman spent her formative years at D&B, leading the reference business from print to online and web offerings. She has since held digital leadership roles at Overstock, About.com, Looksmart, Starz, Collarity and Zions Bank.

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IIS Breakthrough Talk Recap: Incubating Innovation

February 5, 2013 By

Written by Ric Camacho, Chief Strategy Officer, MyCollegePrice

Ric Camacho, Chief Strategy Officer, MyCollegePrice

How do large, established institutions foster innovation and significantly encourage the growth of the start-up community in their area?

Well one way is to take Cornell University’s high profile approach of pouring millions of dollars into a new technology campus in NYC. The other is NYU-Poly’s incubator approach. “It’s more art than science”, according to Steve Kuyan, executive director of the NYU-Poly Incubator Initiatives. Kuyan gave a brief talk on NYU-Poly’s initiative to kickstart innovation at the 2013 Information Industry Summit in New York last week. At the heart of New York’s burgeoning start-up environment, NYU-Ploy’s formula offers a combination of mentorship, educational resources, access to capital and industry leaders, community and physical “ecosystem” along with a healthy dose of “celebration and inspiration.”

The NYU-Poly Incubator Initiatives is one of the large number of university-based organizations around the country that seek to encourage and capitalize on the growth of technology. According to the National Business Incubation Association, fully one-third of the business incubators around the United States are associated with universities. The incubator initiative at NYU-Poly has been successful in helping over 20 companies in the past three years raise significant venture funding. According to to Kuyan, with as little as $3 million in investment, the incubators initiative has had over $200 million of economic impact and this is expected to grow to just under $1 billion by 2015. That’s no mean feat for a relatively new endeavor within a start-up environment — New York City — that, although going from strength to strength, has numerous initiatives clamoring for investment and capital.

NYU-Poly’s approach promotes the idea of “innovation anywhere” emphasizing the importance of the right physical environment and access to tools while also imposing some discipline around process and procedures and meeting metrics and milestone expectations–all in an effort to channel creativity and innovation.

In the end, Kuyan believes that their approach is key to lending validation and credibility to entrepreneurial start-ups. In the end, they are critical to accelerating and harnessing innovation. “All entrepreneurs today face similar problems”, according to Kuyan, and NYU-Poly’s success can be attributed in part to meeting their very basic needs.

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Ric Camacho

Ric has held senior product and management positions at a number of start-ups as well as at Reuters Media and Dow Jones. Most recently he was GM at Vitals, a NYC area-based Health 2.0 start-up, and headed up its B2B segment that delivered tools, technology and digital marketing services to the health provider market. Currently Ric is working on strategy and business development work for MyCollegePrice, an education innovator providing analysis and forecasting tools for the college advisory market.

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IIS Breakthrough recap: CEOsThe Key Catalysts for Innovation

February 5, 2013 By

Written by Ric Camacho, Chief Strategy Officer, MyCollegePrice

Chief Strategy Officer, MyCollegePrice

Closing out the 2013 SIIA Information Industry Summit was a rather interesting roundtable on the importance of the CEO to change and innovation in enterprise. David Reimer, CEO at Merryck & Co. moderated with the participation of Nina Link, former CEO at both the Children’s Television Workshop and the Magazine Publishers Association as well as Merrill Brown, Director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University.

Although billed as a discussion around the critical role of the CEO, much of the discussion centered around the challenges of large “legacy” companies acquiring and integrating innovative smaller companies. Both participants emphasized the challenge of corporate culture and how big legacy companies repeatedly stifle the sought after innovation – one of the principle reasons for an acquisition – as they often subsume the acquired company within a company where innovation is alien and change isn’t necessarily the overarching mode of operations. Link emphasized that importance of running parallel operational tracks – in essence leaving the acquired company alone – so that innovative practices can be absorbed by the larger entity – admittedly a tall order.

Brown indicated that significant and systemic changes often need to and should be adopted by the legacy company and in particular, these companies often need to adopt the perspectives and working culture of the smaller entity around things such as product strategy and development and the myriad of marketing and other activities that surround that endeavor.

Both Link and Brown thought the CEO had to be at the heart of these changes and foster an atmosphere of change within the organization while also pushing the agenda at the board level. Interestingly, Link thought it was hugely important to co-opt outside industry leadership in support of an CEO – led innovation initiative at the board level to give those efforts gravitas and integrity and to help navigate around potential resistance.

One of the trickier issues was raised by Brown. He indicated that one of the significant challenges in legacy organizations is the empowerment of change agents, particularly in companies where generational shifts in expertise and digital competence were at the core of the necessary change. Oftentimes, he said, a company’s first reaction to revenue pressures is to downsize and let go new, young talent with little seniority – talent which generally holds the keys to overall change, new thinking and innovation. Companies need to rethink their efforts in this regard and CEOs need to spearhead the management of this change.

One important shift in corporate governance that Merrill brown has seen in recent years is a greater willingness of corporate boards to provide better executive incentives to support innovation and move away from the quarter-by-quarter goals that often militate against risk-taking and innovation. Only time will tell whether this shift truly takes hold and provides a significant boost and support to C-suite behavior in that direction.

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Ric has held senior product and management positions at a number of start-ups as well as at Reuters Media and Dow Jones. Most recently he was GM at Vitals, a NYC area-based Health 2.0 start-up, and headed up its B2B segment that delivered tools, technology and digital marketing services to the health provider market. Currently Ric is working on strategy and business development work for MyCollegePrice, an education innovator providing analysis and forecasting tools for the college advisory market.

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SIIA Presents Peter E. Jackson Innovation Award to Cambridge Information Group Vice Chairman James P. McGinty

February 5, 2013 By

SIIA recently presented the 2013 Peter E. Jackson Innovation Award to James P. McGinty, Vice Chairman of the Cambridge Information Group. The Peter E. Jackson Innovation Award honors the late Thomson Reuters vice president and chief scientist, and his profound impact on the B2B publishing industry. Dr. Jackson was an active board member of the SIIA Content Division.

Jim McGinty is Vice Chairman of Bethesda, MD-based, Cambridge Information Group (CIG). Jim was named Vice Chairman of CIG in November 2005, after serving as President of CIG since 2000. As Vice Chairman, Jim is responsible for strategic planning input, China market oversight, and mentoring senior executives. Jim’s leadership role at CIG has included participating in the acquisition, integration and general management of RR Bowker, RefWorks, and ProQuest. Prior to CIG, Jim served as President of CSA from 1992 to 2000. During that time, the company experienced a threefold increase in revenue and grew its customer base to over 1,800 institutions worldwide. Prior to joining CSA, Jim spent 20 years with Dun & Bradstreet (D&B).

The Peter E. Jackson Innovation Award was given to McGinty during the SIIA’s annual CODiE Awards dinner, held in conjunction with the Information Industry Summit on January 31. In addition to the award, a donation of $1,000 will be made in McGinty’s name to the Peter Jackson Fund for Keyboard and Guitar at the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis. The Peter Jackson Fund for Keyboard and Guitar recognizes the profound impact of music on Dr. Jackson’s life by providing music lessons for disadvantaged children. The first Peter E. Jackson Award honoree was Brewster Kahle, Director & Co-Founder, Internet Archive.

Kathy Greenler Sexton is Vice President and General Manager of the SIIA Content Division. Contact Kathy at kgsexton@siia.net.

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IIS Breakthrough Recap: Viewpoints of the 4th Estate

February 4, 2013 By

 

by Marie Giangrande, Public Notions

A distinguished panel gave SIIA members a roundup of the top issues facing information companies. The need for Big Data in investigative reporting, integrating with a Reader’s workflow, the recognition that self-publishing is going mainstream, and the desire to monetize mobile apps were top of mind for these executives. Pictured from left to right are Gordon Crovitz, Journalism Online; Steve Lohr, The New York Times; Stephen Engelberg, ProPublica; Laura Hazard Owen, GigaOm; Bob Felsenthal, BtoBOnline; and Barbara Brynko, Information Today.

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Breakthrough Talk Recap: Using Big Data to Build Prognostication Capabilities

February 4, 2013 By

Marie Giangrande, Public Notions

In a back stage interview, Factual Inc. CEO Gil Elbaz and Cortera Inc. CEO Jim Swift discuss the drivers and requirements to build a Big Data capability plan.

By Marie Giangrande, Public Notions

Tracking Behaviors Fuel Big Data
“It’s all about tracking events and behaviors in order to improve the accuracy of your decision making” asserts Cortera CEO Jim Swift. Cortera produces credit worthiness rankings from tracking the purchases and payments that a Company conducts. “When evaluating companies it’s good to hear what they are saying, but most important is to see their actual behaviors; tracking actual payments and purchases, for example will give a more accurate prediction of a company’s credit worthiness” continues Swift. Factual’s CEO, Gil Elbaz, agrees: “People expect and need the context to correctly interpret data… stitching together the facts and illustrating the backdrop is what Big Data is all about.” Factual offers a path for companies to source external data, enrich their own data and incorporate a variety of new data sets.

Prognostication Capabilities – The Next Competitive Battle
Behavioral targeting has been used extensively by online companies to target advertisements. Now, this concept is gaining broader appeal as a long term competitive advantage enabling Information Companies to match their content to their client’s workflow and distribution preferences. Companies can use behavior tracking to build predictions about client preferences, to identify partnerships and to develop value added services.

The pursuit of prognostication capabilities has a tremendous consequence: It redefines the importance of data in an organization. It puts an emphasis on data management capabilities. Can I handle streaming data from Twitter feeds or social media outlets? Is a ‘just in time approach’ to data collection needed? Can I enrich my data in order to monetize it? Is the data accurate and extensible?

The Strategic Information Spine

“A lot of companies are living with inefficient collection and maintenance of data. They ignore missing data and inaccurate data because they do not associate the underlying data to their ability to compete” comments Factual’s CEO, Gil Elbaz.

However, as soon as executives link their ability to compete with the value and accuracy of their data, the ROI presents itself. “It’s like an Information Spine” reflects Cortera’s CEO, Swift.”For information companies, the core stream of data is the spine and off this, hangs all their products and services.” The implication is that a company’s ability to compete will come back to the design, sourcing, accuracy and strategic health ‘of the spine’.

An Asset or Liability?

As firms embrace the use of big data for a competitive advantage, it changes all the questions and answers. It leads companies to develop a more strategic view: they identify data assets and data liabilities around maintenance and accuracy.

“Many companies have not yet thought through which data sets provide a competitive advantage and which ones won’t.” comments Factual’s Elbaz. “If you can buy the data, it is most likely not an asset” continues Elbaz. Data that is missing, inaccurate and difficult to maintain may not only be an opportunity cost, but it could actually be a liability, especially if not kept fresh.

For non-proprietary data, companies are developing Data Acquisition plans to give them new agility along with a managed cost structure. “Just as IT Managers embraced Open Source code, now Business Managers are embracing Open Sourced Data” Factual CEO Elbaz concludes. Elbaz points to dozens of internal databases that should be deleted and licensed from readily available, external, sources. He asks, “Why allocate internal resources to manage data you don’t have to?”

Finding the Skills
But finding the skills to manage the internal build, the external licensing and the data architecture is hard to find. “The biggest problem is the lack of people and talent needed for companies to bootstrap their efforts” claims Cortera’s Swift. Data architects and data developers are very different from software developers and IT managers. And both CEO’s agree this is not -necessarily- the role of a CTO or CIO.

Who, inside your company, could nurture and expand your newly found Data assets? The first step, it seems, is for us to prognosticate on that.

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