Speaking before an audience is not as much fun as it used to be. That’s my conclusion based on observing and delivering presentations before a virtual crowd. The big difference today is mastering the experience of working with a online audience watching from their home offices. There are lots of lessons to learn along the…
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“Are you planning to cover three-hole punch stationery?” I was asked earnestly by an ad sales guy on my retail mag. I couldn’t believe it, but I wasn’t too surprised. After all, almost every article we ran was expected to connect somehow with an advertiser’s product line. In fact, ad-hook orient mentality is persistent. But…
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In past columns discussing the B2B editorial career path for journalism grads, I never hesitated to look on the bright side. However, the immediate picture is unclear due to tightened hiring practices. As a result, in many cases lower entry-level rungs are less available than in the past. The hiring issue is a key concern…
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Are you making maximum use of quantitative management possibilities? What should you include in your next study of graphics strengths and weaknesses? How often per issue should feature articles include numbers? Why should story jump lines be active heads as opposed to one-word slugs? When does being too good become troublesome? These are just a…
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“Get Serious About Numbers!” is the title of the presentation I made this week at the annual virtual conference of The Alliance of Area Business Publishers (AABP). As I noted to my audience, now is a particularly good time to apply quantitative analysis to your editorial operations and performance. Of special concern should be how…
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Over the past three months, as most editorial staffs settled into temporary work-from-home assignments, it became apparent that many such jobs could become permanent. Several of my tweets in May reflected concern that full-time work-from-home reality would affect management policies. Another subject of my tweets in the past month was how competitive editorial analysis efforts…
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Spirited debates about the possible transformation of work-from-home jobs from temporary to permanent have dominated discussion forums for the past month. To some extent, views I’ve offered on the subject, while well received, have duplicated solid thinking other authors have expressed. Now, perhaps, editorial managers should instead be devoting their attention to improving practices that…
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Enterprise reporting deficiency was the leading shortfall observed by 50 B2B sites analyzed in the eighth annual e-news delivery study from Editorial Solutions, Inc. Most articles reviewed lost 35 to 40 points when the study’s new Enterprise Reporting Prominence (ERP) calculation was applied. But several other basic types of errors prevented the final overall scores…
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The impact of limited field trips and major event cancellations are among key concerns arising from the current pandemic that editors must address. Staffing issues and timely content requirements present additional complications. This picture was painted during “Covid-19 and B2B Publishing,” an online panel discussion presented on April 22 by the American Society of Business…
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Of 50 websites analyzed for my 8th annual B2B e-news study, many allow common goofs to get through. None of the sites I reviewed attained the target score of 80 (out of 100). And only five managed to surpass a score of 60. The performance of these sites could have been much improved by avoiding…
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