Mike Marchesano Named Managing Director of SIIA’s American Business Media Division

September 30, 2013 By

SIIA today announced that media industry executive Mike Marchesano will join  as Managing Director of the American Business Media (ABM) Division of SIIA. ABM merged with SIIA on June 30.

Marchesano most recently was President and CEO of Aequor Media, a consulting firm dedicated to providing strategic, customized technology solutions for B2B and consumer magazines, newspapers, and Fortune 1000 companies.  Marchesano was also Managing Director at the Jordan Edmiston Group, an investment banking firm, where he led the sale of Congressional Quarterly to the Economist Group. Before that, he was Executive Vice President & Chief Transformation Officer at The Nielsen Company; President and CEO at VNU Business Media;  President and CEO at Bill Communications (an operating company of VNU), and President at BPA International (now BPA Worldwide).  Marchesano was an ABM board member from 2001-07, serving as chairman in 2006-07, and a SIIA Content Division board member from 2007-11.

SIIA President Ken Wasch said:

“With changing business models, new delivery platforms and new competition, the business media industry will benefit enormously from someone with Mike’s perspective and experience. With Mike at the helm, the ABM division will develop new programs and services that help to advance the business media industry.”

Marchesano said:

“With the merging of ABM and SIIA, the opportunity to showcase the unique and powerful role business media and information provides its audiences and marketers is very exciting. I am thrilled to take on this responsibilty for our industry and privileged to lead the organization.”

Neal Vitale, Chairman of ABM and President & CEO of 1105 Media, Inc. said:

“We are immensely fortunate to have been able to recruit an executive of Mike’s expertise and stature. I am looking forward to working with him as we grow ABM.”

Laura Greenback is Communications Director at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Content, Education, Policy, SIPA, Software Tagged With: ,

Women In Tech Profile Series: Liz Pearce, LiquidPlanner

September 27, 2013 By

Women In Tech Profile Series

Tech has historically been a male-driven industry. While statistics show women are still underrepresented in tech, emerging trends are paving the path for women to, not only be successful, but even dominate the future of technology. SIIA is proud to have many successful women leaders in our community. In our all new series, “Featured Women in Technology,” we will introduce you to these industry leaders and the lessons they have learned throughout their successful careers.

This week’s SIIA’s Featured Woman in Technology is Liz Pearce, CEO of Liquid Planner. Liquid Planner provides online project management software combining social collaboration with distributed planning. Read my interview with Liz Pearce below.

Name: Liz Pearce
Title: CEO
Company: LiquidPlanner
Home town: Indianapolis, Indiana
First job: Graphic designer

Bio:

Since 2007, Liz has helped more than 1500 project teams overcome scheduling and collaboration challenges through the use of best practices and better tools. Before joining LiquidPlanner, Liz ran her own successful marketing consultancy where she worked with a diverse set of clients. She also held management positions at Amazon.com, Google, and Sony Computer Entertainment America. Liz holds a B.A. in Political Communications and an M.A. in Telecommunications from The George Washington University, where she was awarded the Presidential Administrative Fellowship. Liz is an active member of the startup and technology community and is always looking for opportunities to learn, participate, and give back.

What are you currently reading?

Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise. Silver is the now famous statistician who accurately predicted the last two Presidential (and most of the Congressional) races by analyzing the meta trends aggregated across numerous national surveys. Ostensibly it’s about applied statistics but really it’s more about how many of the decisions we make on a daily basis are often based on faulty information and cognitive bias. It’s given me good food for thought when thinking about the decisions we make in our business and how we rationalize them – does it simply sound like a good idea or do we have the right data to support one investment over another? Highly recommended!

What is your next (dream) career?

I honestly can’t think of anything I would rather be doing than what I am right now. However, if I had to choose, I could envision starting a technology school specifically for young women. Women are sorely under-represented in the software industry, which is a shame on a number of fronts. I’m particularly inspired by the work being done by Hadi Partovi who co-founded Code.org with the goal of providing every student with the opportunity to learn computer science. Despite the great work that Hadi and others are doing, there’s so much more to be done in terms of making computer science and technology in general more appealing to young women.

Hobbies:

Who has time for hobbies? Beyond running a growing software company, I have two small children and a major home remodeling project in the works. It’s a good week when I can get to the gym! If I have a few spare cycles, I invite some friends over and cook up a big pot of soup. Chopping vegetables is cathartic.

What do you think is the hot button issue for the software & services industry in 2013?

Enterprise organizations are starting to seriously question their investment in expensive and unwieldy enterprise software. Of course, this is hardly a new trend but I do believe we’re at an  inflection point of sorts in which a new generation of lightweight, cloud-based applications can provide a realistic alternative to bloated legacy-ware. Not only is the price structure more appealing (especially from a Opex perspective) but employees are simply growing tired of having to use bad software to do their jobs.

What drove you to pursue a career in tech?

I worked as a project manager in the marketing department at Google in its early days – I think the company was at around 500 people at the time. I had the opportunity to learn about all of the different products Google was offering, and I definitely got bit by the tech bug. The tremendous growth we were experiencing and the buzz we were getting was infectious. The trend continued in my next role at Amazon, and that sealed the deal for me: I knew tech was where I wanted to be.

Do you feel you faced any particular hurdles being a woman in tech? What were they and how did you overcome them?

I’ve been lucky in my career to have worked for great female leaders at great tech companies all along the way. That said, I have sat in countless meetings and boardrooms where I was the only woman in the room. I wouldn’t say I’ve been blatantly discriminated against, but the phrase “boy’s club” exists for a reason. I’ve made my way this far with old-fashioned hard work, a direct communication style, and a thick skin. Now I work hard to pull more women up along with me through mentoring and coaching.

What advice would you give to young women who want a successful career in tech?

Never stop advocating for yourself! While women are climbing the ranks across industries, technology very much remains a male dominated industry. Whereas men are taught to be aggressive in asking for raises and promotions, too many women remain mired in entrenched societal norms in which they don’t vocalize their self-worth or promote their individual contributions. I always tell the young women that I mentor that no one will be a better or more persuasive advocate for their careers than themselves.

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA. Follow the Software team on Twitter at @SIIASoftware.

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Filed Under: Software Tagged With: ,

SIPAlert Daily – FTC workshop to focus on native advertising

September 26, 2013 By

“It’s beginning to look a lot like…content.”

The “It’s” in this case is advertising—more specifically, native advertising or sponsored content. We’re seeing it more and more these days, ads that companies are running—sometimes even designing and writing for clients—that mirror the content around them. It’s proving very effective to the point that the Federal Trade Commission has decided to look into it. And SIPA and SIIA can play a part in this.

The FTC will host a workshop on Dec. 4 here in Washington, D.C., to examine the practice of blending advertisements with news, entertainment and other content in digital media. The workshop will unite publishing and ad industry representatives, consumer advocates, academics, and government regulators to explore changes in how paid messages are presented to consumers and consumers’ recognition and understanding of these messages.

According to the FTC, this fits snugly into their role of helping consumers identify advertisements as advertising wherever they appear. They have made recent updates to the Search Engine Advertising guidance, the Dot Com Disclosures guidance, and the Endorsements and Testimonials Guides, “as well as decades of law enforcement actions against infomercial producers and operators of fake news websites marketing products.”

As I said, SIIA wants to take a role in this, based on input from our members. If you have feelings or opinions about this, please let us know—for or against. (Here’s my email.) Here are some of the topics that the workshop may cover:

- “What is the origin and purpose of the wall between regular content and advertising, and what challenges do publishers face in maintaining that wall in digital media, including in the mobile environment?”

- “In what ways are paid messages integrated into, or presented as, regular content and in what contexts does this integration occur?” How has mobile affected this?”

- “What business models support and facilitate the monetization and display of native or integrated advertisements?” Who controls this?

- “How can ads effectively be differentiated from regular content, such as through the use of labels and visual cues?” Does social media blur these lines?

- “What does research show about how consumers notice and understand paid messages that are integrated into, or presented as, news, entertainment or regular content?”

A MediaBrix survey found that “the majority of online adults who have seen advertising that appears as content in the past 12 months find the ads misleading”—as high as 86%” (for sponsored video ads). Close to 50% of those polled find promoted tweets, one of Twitter’s revenue-producing methods, misleading.

FTC blogger Lesley Fair called this “the trendy topic du jour,” so it is probably a good time to take a look. The popular site BuzzFeed pretty much blurs the lines completely. And it seems to be working. (An article a few months ago said it was their sole revenue source.) They have “Featured Partners” on certain stories that look just like the rest of the stories. So “The 10 Greatest Comebacks in Entertainment History” is sponsored by The Michael J. Fox Show. It has 33 comments, none mentioning its ad status. And “12 Lengths That Robin Williams Has Gone to Make Us Laugh” is sponsored by his new show, The Crazy Ones. That one has 12 comments, all complimentary.

Those stories actually change each time you click on it. For the Michael J. Fox Show we get “10 Ways All Families Are Basically the Same” and “12 Things We Love About Michael J. Fox.” It’s an interesting strategy—multiple content pieces based on one sponsor. And here’s something funny. I found a Washington Post article about a Church of Scientology advertorial that appeared on the Atlantic Magazine website and went “a bit too far.” The article is broken up by what looks like a subhead to the story—“Get Your Business Online” is the one I saw—but it’s actually an ad. Now I’m confused.

And thus the workshop. Again please contact myself or David LeDuc, SIIA’s senior director of public policy, if you have something to add on this topic. Thanks so much.

To subscribe to the SIPAlert Daily, create or update your SIIA User profile and select “SIPA interest.”

Ronn LevineRonn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 as managing editor. Follow Ronn on Twitter at @SIPAOnline

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Filed Under: Content, SIPA, SIPAlert Daily Tagged With: , ,

SIIA Announces 2013 DataContent Models of Excellence

September 26, 2013 By

Six data companies designated as Models of Excellence by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) and InfoCommerce Group will present their products and services at the upcoming DataContent conference in Philadelphia, October 15-17. All of the firms selected are innovative data companies pioneering new business models and practices. DataContent is the only conference devoted solely to producers of commercial data products.

DataContent will spotlight the Models of Excellence throughout the conference. CEOs of the companies will provide candid insights on what has made the products successful, and will host a private dinner for high-level networking.

This year’s Models of Excellence presenting companies are:

Enigma
Enigma has created consolidated access to over 100,000 public domain databases to provide unparalleled access to data that is often valuable, nominally free, but difficult to source and use effectively. Think of Enigma as a search engine for public data, and the enigma here is why no one has done this before.
MOE Profile | Website

Equilar – Atlas
Equilar takes public domain data and normalizes and enhances it so that it can become premium-value content. Equilar Atlas takes this data and flips it into a variety of new applications and markets, something not many publishers do successfully.
MOE Profile | Website

FindTheCompany
FindTheCompany represents an impressive step-up in the arms race to use a mosaic-style strategy to build out deep company dossiers by aggregating data from a wide variety of sources. By aggressively mixing harvested, public and licensed data, it is an excellent showcase both for what’s possible and where things are heading.
MOE Profile | Website

Relationship Science
Relationship Science is all about networking for business development and fund-raising, using an innovative relationship mapping approach and backed by a huge research team to build and maintain deep, structured profiles on over 2.5 million influential individuals. While its concept is  “sort of like” what other data companies are already doing, it’s approach is distinctive, and it’s huge commitment to editorial research puts the company’s emphasis right where it should be: quality data.
MOE Profile | Website

Segmint
Segmint is real life example of Big Data at work, with real-time analytics and predictive models. It is executing on the fundamental goal of every marketer: to make customer data actionable by creating and delivering targeted, relevant messages customers want to see, remember and act upon.
MOE Profile | Website

Stella Service
STELLAService  provides customer service ratings to companies based on its independent analysis of over 200 customer service metrics and random customer service calls to companies by its analysts. It provides a clean, intuitive and powerful tool to retailers focused on an area – customer service – that increasingly drives online success and failure, and its neutral market positioning gives its trustmark program added weight and value.
MOE Profile | Website

Infocommerce Group continually scans the data landscape to identify products that are pioneering or perfecting business models, exhibit best practices or offer technological innovation. Those that are re-setting the standards for the industry are named each year as Models of Excellence, based on content, utility, functionality, revenue, viability, ambition, and market readiness. It will discuss what distinguishes each of this year’s winners in a webcast at noon on Oct. 2.

Kathy Greenler Sexton is Vice President and General Manager for the SIIA Content Division. Follow the Content Division team on Twitter at @SIIAContent

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Filed Under: Content, Content Events, Data Content, DataContent

Catch up on the highlights of SIIA Digital Content & Media Summit

September 26, 2013 By

Find out what went on at the SIIA Digital Content & Media Summit in London this week, where digitally-minded publishers discussed mobile, platforms, data, communities, subscriptions, sales, video, global expansion and becoming a tech firm…

Here’s the storify of what delegates and speakers said on the day so you can catch up on what you missed.. [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Content Events, Digital Content & Media Summit, SIIA UK, Uncategorized Tagged With:

SIPAlert Daily – The importance of branding for today’s journalists

September 25, 2013 By

I recall walking into The Washington Post sports department as an intern many years ago and seeing Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser going at it on some sports item of the day. Kornheiser was already a columnist and Wilbon an up-and-coming reporter. Later on, Wilbon became a columnist, then an ESPN talking head and ABC Sports host. Kornheiser built another audience through a Style section column and then a national radio show.

Now they host Pardon the Interruption on ESPN, going at it on sports items of the day—but being paid A LOT more. They’re both very well-branded with podcasts, video, radio, Twitter feeds and who knows what else. That’s a bit of a high-profile example, but you can see the value that branding has for journalists these days. The more that the editorial people – and thought leaders – where you work can build their brand, the bigger the audience can be for them and the company.

I encourage anyone at your company who writes or leads to register for tomorrow’s webinar titled Personal Branding for Journalists. This is a great example of the value of your new SIIA/SIPA/ABM membership. ABM is delivering this webinar, featuring Robin J. Phillips, digital director of the Reynolds Center for Business, free for members. The cost is $125 for non-members. It will take place from 2-3 p.m Eastern. The presentation was originally created for the Kiplinger Program at Ohio State University in April 2012. (More on your membership value: On Oct. 31, ABM will present a webinar on Developing a Video Content Strategy.)

Said Phillips: “People have an image of who you are … whether you like it or not. First things first, it’s important to know who you are, what you offer and then take control of your image so others get the picture.”

“Branding has been part of journalism going back to Nellie Bly, Hunter S. Thompson … these were people known for their brand of journalism,” Sree Sreenivasan, dean of student affairs and digital media professor at Columbia Journalism School, told Poynter in March. What has changed, he said, is the speed at which journalists today can develop such a brand.

What has also changed is the encouragement by publishers to their journalists to get out there as much as possible. I remember back in those early times I mentioned, I had to get permission to do a radio interview about an event that I covered. Today, reporters who appear on radio or TV and have a strong social media presence are coveted. It means more publicity and gravitas for the publishing entity.

In a quote that tells you why personal branding of journalists is good for the company, Brittney Gilbert, social media editor for NBC Bay Area, told Poynter: “People would much rather interact with NBC Bay Area’s meteorologist or sports reporter than a faceless entity such as NBC.”

That’s true with blogging as well; it brings the blogger—and company—closer to your audience. At the Las Vegas Marketing Conference, Dec. 11-13, we will have a session on team blogging. This can help an entire team build its brand. SIPA members Astek and AHC Media do a great job with this. I recall reading a post on Astek by Johnny Moran, who I had never talked with or met. We exchanged emails and it felt like I had a new source to use. With excellent posts like a recent one on Google Analytics, Moran establishes his voice and contributes to the company’s loose and very knowledgeable persona.

Your reporters can be writing, blogging, tweeting, conducting podcasts and anything else that would help establish them as thought leaders. (Hopefully, sleeping falls in there somewhere.) In this day and age and with a few rules built in, it should all reflect well on the company. Tune into tomorrow’s webinar for more.

 

To subscribe to the SIPAlert Daily, create or update your SIIA User profile and select “SIPA interest.”

Ronn LevineRonn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 as managing editor. Follow Ronn on Twitter at @SIPAOnline

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Filed Under: Content, SIPA, SIPAlert Daily Tagged With: ,

Postal Service Files Exigent Rate Case

September 25, 2013 By

Following a meeting of the Postal Board of Governors today, the postal service announced it plans to file an exigent rate increase with the PRC (Postal Regulatory Commission) for approval.  We have been told the amount of the proposed exigent rate increase is 4.3% and will apply to all classes of mail. If approved by the PRC it would take effect January 26, 2014.  This increase would be in addition to the annual CPI increase of 1.6%, which will also take effect on January 26th. If the exigent filing is approved the total increase in January will be 5.9%.

SIIA/ABM is strongly opposed to the exigent rate increase and will be directly involved in efforts to defeat the exigent rate filing on behalf of our members. We will update you as more information is made available.  Below is more detail about how the exigent filing process works.

An exigent rate filing is a special rate increase request beyond the annual CPI increase.  It is allowed by law if the Postal Service has been affected by “extraordinary or exceptional circumstances.”  After the Postal Board of Governors approve the exigent filing as they did today, it is submitted to the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) for a 90-day review after which they approve or disapprove the filing.  During the 90 day review period the PRC will also question the Postal Service’s filing information to aid in their decision process.  This is an open rulemaking process and as a result the mailing industry and other are permitted to file comments with the PRC during the 90 day process. As a member of the Affordable Mail Alliance (AMA), we will file comments.

AMA was instrumental in defeating the 2010 exigent filing, of which ABM was a participant. ABM/SIIA and two members recently met with the PRC to better acquaint them with the concerns of our membership and the importance of predictable increases as provided by the current CPI increase structure. In addition, we informed the PRC of the results of the member survey we conducted earlier this year and how detrimental additional rate increases would be to the B-to-B periodical industry.

While we know this is not the outcome that we had hoped for, please know that SIIA / ABM will be working hard on behalf of all of our members against this rate increase.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG. Sign up for the Public Sector Innovation Roundup email newsletter for weekly updates.

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Filed Under: Policy
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