(Cross-posted on RexBlog.com)

In Advertising Age, Simon Dumenco asks a very important question, Do Magazine Publishers Still Believe in Publishing? And no, he isn’t asking that question in the way “print-is-dead” zealots ask it. He’s asking that question because, like me, he’s looking around and wondering what’s up with the people are who are running media companies who can’t figure out how to make money with brands that millions of readers care about. And again, this is not a question about print — this is a question about print or online.

Quote:

“That big publishers can’t manage to sell enough print ads, in a post-print media economy shadowed by a larger economic meltdown, is not exactly shocking. What is shocking, though, is that they’re essentially saying to scrappier, upstart online competitors: Take our business, please! We’re throwing in the towel! If we can’t play by the old rules of publishing — the profit-soaked, imperial model with endless layers of coddled management ensconced in luxe trophy offices — then we don’t want to play at all!

Frankly, I should be rejoicing over the phenomena Dumenco is observing as I’m a member of Team Scrappy and not Team Coddled Management. But still, it stuns me to observe what Dumenco sees when he asks, “Looking around at some of America’s largest magazine publishers, I see…publishers who are anti-publishing.”

A few years ago, I was interviewed by Media Life Magazine on the topic, “Why Magazines Matter” and was asked the question, “Are there any industry-wide practices that you consider detrimental to the business of magazine publishing?

Here was my answer in 2005:

“I think people who don’t even read magazines, who certainly don’t think about magazines, make way too many decisions about the business and editorial aspects of the industry.”

Almost four years later, I’d augment that observation slightly to add that people who don’t read magazines or use the Internet or watch TV or go to movies seem to be running certain media companies.

Team Scrappy has the whole innovation playground to itself because people who love media actually run those companies.

Later: So what will happen when publishers who hate publishing pull the plug on publishing? Well, I would be less than transparent if I didn’t suggest my belief that companies like Hammock, who help the marketers formerly known as advertisers, create their own print, online and video media, will benefit from this trend. So I’ll go ahead and say it. Indeed, I’ll go ahead and invite marketers who want to speak directly with customers and not through publishing companies who seem to hate publishing to contact me at [email protected].

But another thing is happening, as well. As reported in the New York Times this morning, the Kaiser Family Foundation is starting a news service to produce in-depth coverage of the policy and politics of health care, both for an independent Web site and in collaborations with mainstream news organizations. In my book — and I have 20+ years in this book — such an endeavor used to be called “custom publishing” and was viewed as something tainted as “non-idependent.” I, of course, have been a champion of the notion that media created by or for associations, foundations and even corporate marketers, can provide great journalism, insight and be of the highest quality.

I just never thought I’d be assisted in my advocacy of that point-of-view by media companies run by people who hate media.

Last week, I attended the annual American Business Media Top Management Meeting in Chicago. Rather than its typical multi-topic conference approach, the meeting focused primarily on presenting the results from a major industry study and recommendations from the consulting firm Booz & Co.

I found the approach refreshing, more like a deep-dive seminar than the typical panel-led sessions of most conferences (did I just telegraph my opinion of most conferences?). The Booz & Co. study (as reported by Hamsa Ramesha for Northwestern University’s Medill News Service) focused on “pathways to profitability” for B2B media companies in a period when traditional media is shrinking and digital media is expanding.

As ABM member companies are fully involved in events, digital and print media, it was not a Print vs. Web thing — most companies are way past that. This study was more focused on the question: “Based on the reality we’re living in, what must your company become to be successful in five years?”

Perhaps one of the reasons I really enjoyed the study results may be the way in which the findings and recommendations so closely correspond to much of what we at Hammock have been focused on during the past couple of years.

While I plan to write much more about this in the coming weeks, let me preview it by saying that the Booz & Co. study finds that for business-to-business media companies to succeed, they must focus on one of two pathways: Being a company that serves end-users (subscribers, attendees, etc.) or being a company that serves marketers (custom media, marketing services, etc.). While companies can offer services that target both end-users and marketers, Booz & Co. have not yet found an example of how a company has become a leader in both strategies.

It makes sense to me why they have not, but the reasons why that is so are going to be a part of my follow-up posts on the topic. (How’s that for a tease?)

In the meantime, let me say, we at Hammock know exactly what our pathway is: We are going to continue to serve savvy marketers in their efforts to generate more profitable relationships with their customers or members.

Our services will grow to include even more ways to help marketers accomplish that goal via print and all forms of digital and online media. Our services will also grow in ways that will offer marketers the means to measure and manage such programs in ways that clearly provide tangible business benefits to our clients.

We look forward to the continuation of this journey. And I look forward to posting more about it over the coming weeks.

I’m using a new writer for one of the articles in the next issue of MyBusiness, and the article is due today. I’m always anxious the day the article is due—probably because part of me is worried that the article isn’t going to be very good. That doesn’t happen a lot, but trust me, it happens, and when it does you’ll tell yourself that you’ll never use a new writer again.
But it can’t work that way. If it did, you’d only be selling yourself—and your readers—short.

Ahh, the hyphen. The self-proclaimed grammar geeks here at Hammock have had many a debate about when to use it and when to avoid it. As with every rule regarding the English language, there are exceptions. But here are a few instances when using a hyphen is necessary and even makes sense:

Most of the time when I’m designing for our publications I don’t have a literal connection to the people and places profiled in the articles. Do I find them fascinating, interesting, inspiring? Absolutely. I love being a part of the storytelling process. But I’ve often thought that it would be nice to occasionally have more of a connection.

Our current issue of American Spirit, the magazine Hammock publishes for the Daughters of the American Revolution, features an article on using cemetery icons as a genealogy research tool. Tasked with designing the layout, I decided to couple a work-related scouting trip with a personal genealogy interest. One Sunday afternoon, I accompanied my photographer husband as he loaded up his camera gear and our reluctant 7-year-old son and drove south to Franklin, Tenn. Our destination was the old Franklin City Cemetery and Rest Haven, a slightly newer cemetery adjacent to it. The city of Franklin was founded in 1799 and is named after Benjamin Franklin. It’s also my birthplace.

As the final resting place of four Revolutionary War patriots, the Franklin City Cemetery has an obvious tie-in for our DAR readers. Plus, I had a hunch we would find the icons needed for the article—and I wasn’t disappointed. Angels, wheat, willow trees, doves and other icons were all represented, and they helped illustrate our story of how these markers can give us clues to the lives of our ancestors.

As far as the personal genealogy connection, my great-great-great grandfather, Joseph Coleman, is buried in Rest Haven Cemetery. He was an early inhabitant of the area. In our two-hour scout through the cemetery, I finally found his headstone. I had hoped we might be able to use his marker in the layout, but it’s plain and hard to read, so it visually wasn’t a good fit for the article.

Nevertheless, our walk through the cemetery made me curious to learn more about this ancestor on my Dad’s side. My Mom is the real genealogist of the family, and she was able to share some of his story with me. I love imagining that Joseph Coleman might have crossed paths with those four Revolutionary War patriots buried in the City Cemetery.

Image research is something I do every for every issue of American Spirit, but this assignment was much more hands-on and personal. It made me feel connected.

The Angerosa Research Foundation recently released its “Web 2.0: How Associations are Tapping Social Media” report, a follow-up to their “E-Publishing Trends and Metrics” study from 2007. The report focuses on how associations are increasingly using social media and Web 2.0 tools and technologies to meet their association goals. Here are 10 highlights from the report:

I’m going to brag for a few seconds and mention how good I am at finding sources for articles. Looking for a small business that practices open-book management? Give me 30 seconds. Looking for a female small business owner in Arizona that hires veterans? OK, I’ll need about 10 minutes for that one.

But my skill at finding sources is as obsolete as a typesetter’s now. And it’s all Peter Shankmann’s (and his Help a Reporter Out Web site). Let me rephrase: Thank you, Peter Shankmann

The Custom Publishing Council’s fifth annual Pearl Awards ceremony took place Nov. 13 in New York City, honoring the best in “design, digital, editorial and strategic initiatives for B2B and consumer custom publications”. Bronze, silver and gold awards were presented to 53 companies from more than 600 entries. Two of those awards — one gold and one bronze — went to Hammock Inc.
DIGITAL | Best Use of Alternative Media or Multimedia Technology
Gold: National Small Business Summit Website, Hammock Inc. (NFIB)
EDITORIAL | Best Overall | Less Than 50,000
Bronze: American Spirit, Hammock, Inc. (DAR)
For a close-up look at how we developed the winning website, read this recent post on Custom Media Craft.
See a full list of winners and learn more about the Custom Publishing Council.

As we prepare for the busy holiday season, many of you are probably compiling your annual greeting card list. Sending out handmade cards would be ideal, but the thought of actually making one might be intimidating. American Spirit‘s November/December issue makes the process a lot more manageable (and fun) with a how-to story from our own crafter-in-residence Summer Huggins. In the following step-by-step video, Summer offers quick and easy tips for making your own holiday cards to share with family and friends this year.

And in honor of Veterans Day, the issue expands the regular Today’s Daughters department to salute four special members of the Daughters of the American Revolution who contributed to the WWII cause: Doris Alberts, Evelyn Parker Clark, Florrideen Wakenight Lyle and Katharine Phillips Singer. Thanks to them and to all veterans who made sacrifices for our freedom.

When we began working with the Marine Corps League in 2006, we didn’t realize that we would begin a tradition here at Hammock Inc. — that of saluting the United States Marine Corps’ birthday every 10 November.

Of course, each November-December issue we produce of Semper Fi, the Magazine of the Marine Corps League, is designated as “The Birthday Issue” – in capital letters! This issue’s cover is a stirring shot of the Marine Corps Memorial whose bronze Leathernecks stand watch over the nearby Nation’s Capitol. Inside is a pictorial of Marine Corps League members celebrating the birthday last year.
USMC tradition holds that the Corps was born on 10 November 1775 at long-vanished Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, where a recruiter began carrying out instructions issued that day by the Continental Congress to create “a Corps of Marines.” Marine recruiters carry on that legend today (though not in taverns), looking for a few good men and women to comprise the next generation of Marines. Ordered to expand the Corps to 202,000 by fiscal 2001, Marine recruiters are—of course!—ahead of schedule, as we report in this issue.
Battlefield medicine has of course come a long way from the crude and often lethal care provided those early Marines. In our feature “Corpsman Up!” author Otto Kreisher examines how brave medics are working ever closer to the fight, and bringing more Marines home alive.
Each issue reports extensively on League programs. This issue marks the 50th anniversary of the League’s Young Marines Program, which helps high school students find discipline, order and purpose in their lives. We also report on the League’s Youth Physical Fitness Program, which encourages boys and girls from kindergarten through high school to get fit and stay fit. It’s offered free to any school. There is also a program that recognizes high school band students’ talent.