 |
   |
Visit min's sister site:  |
|
|
|
|
BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS
b2b Editors Are Digitally Deprived Four out of five respondents to a survey by the American Society of Business Publications Editors (ASBPE) and the Medill School at Northwestern University said they had only one day or less of company training on digital technologies or techniques in 2009. The median amount of digital instruction was less than half a day, and 36% of editors said they had been given no training. Worse still, the training that b2b editors did receive last year was the least satisfactory of any corporate initiative as ranked by the editors. While b2b editors are working without much, if any, training for the digital world, their workload increasingly involves online publishing. The survey found that 38% of editors spend at least half of their time now working on digital content, and even more (62%) feel that spending more time on digital would benefit their publications. The editors themselves rated as “very necessary” to an editor’s job success skills like writing and editing for the Web, managing workflow across print and Web, and creating e-letters. Many editors have never engaged even in the most basic of digital media; 82% have never been involved in virtual trade shows, 55% have never engaged in webinars, and about a third have never blogged. “Doing more with less” was the motto of all businesses in 2009. But the transformation of print media to a cross-platform content creation industry cannot be accomplished without a clear declaration of corporate support and the skill sets needed to accomplish the tasks at hand. But the survey results from the ASBPE may also paint a deceptively bleak picture. In speaking with many publishers over the past year, it is clear to us that some companies access these new skill sets mainly by hiring the expertise rather than retraining existing staff. If you have breaking news to share please contact Steve Smith at ssmith@accessintel.com COMMENTS
|
App Central min's App Central (for min subscribers only): Stay on top of mobile app developments with exclusive app reviews, analysis and data. 
Please enter the following information to have a link to The Skinny emailed to your iPhone:
White Papers
min Contests
EventsBest of the Web, April 3, 2012 Check out the photos from min's Most Intriguing event min Press
 Events Calendar
min's Best of the Web Awards |
.jpg)
Internet Sales Guidebook| Copyright © 2012 Access Intelligence, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Access Intelligence, LLC is prohibited. For more details please see Terms and Conditions. |
We started our digital revolution in summer/fall of 2008 with a sink or swim motivation, and we launched our first digital version of the magazine in December of 08. I have been striving as hard as I can to push our 125-year-old company into the forefront of Association-based digital media ever since, based largely on the breaking news via the Skinny newsletters to help guide me to the trends which seem to be sticking and working for companies like ours. I will be the first one to say that we have a long way to go to fully maximize the effectiveness of everything we are doing online, but we are making the most of what little resources we have.
Since 2008, I am publishing CAM Magazine on a monthly basis at www.cammagazineonline.com, via zmags.com and also offering our archive content on scribd.com. We have created a large Twitter following, and a Facebook page and just recently a YouTube page to distribute our magazine and association content.
As far as your article goes relating to staff training in the digital realm, I am the sole vanguard at our company who has taken it upon himself to jump into the digital deep end and run with this endeavor. In the lean economic times we have here in Michigan, spending lots of money and time on training doesn't seem to be an option for us. Not that we do not want training, but we lack the resources & time to set aside for formal class-room learning.
Just last week I, along with our editor, had the rare opportunity to attended a 3 hour seminar on social marketing and we walked away with a lot of great ideas. We have since created a long-term outline of key goals and strategies for online social marketing, and we are really looking forward to expanding our online presence and credibility in the online community. To accomplish this efficiently our goal is for me to conduct training for our staff and get everybody up to speed and on the same page.
To learn the most, our tactic has been to dig deep on the internet, keep our ears and eyes open for tips and tricks and learn as we go.
For example, one of our goals is to start up a company Blog, but not one single person at our company has any experience. To remedy this, I have taken the initiative to create my own blog site, develop content, and build a following. My next step is to take what I've learned and apply it to our company in a way that cannot fail. Because if I wait till everybody at our office fully understands and grasps the needs and benefits of social marketing we will be left in the online dust.
I figure if my 2 1/2 year-old can turn on my iPhone, play her favorite apps and watch train videos on YouTube, I should be able to pull this company into the 21st century.
As far as measurable metrics for determining if all this effort is worth it, all I had to do is Google my own magazine name. 1 year ago, one could only find the home page of the parent organization (CAM) for which you would have to dig deep just to find the magazine content. Now 7 of the top 18 links go to some form of my publication. A recent poll of our readership numbers also indicates that our monthly readership has also DOUBLED compared to one-year ago. Thank you Mr. Internet!