Print Media is Running Out of Time

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Lyn Bunch

No More Time!

The transition from our legacy analog world of ink and paper is accelerating. Major changes in newspapers over the last several years with revenues significantly down to levels not seen in 10 years. Growth ceased, and status quo is hard to digest to those in the industry that used to grow by showing up. Population growth meant circulation growth. Those trends no longer exist, and print media outlets are starting to drop like flies. First it was newspapers, now the trend has extended to magazines and direct marketing publications.

In a recent Daily Beast article by Daniel Gross “Why Time Warner Felt It Had to Spin Off Magazine Unit Time Inc we see why this is happening. Its all about stock prices. This trend is now making its way felt through the entire communications field from newspapers, magazines and direct marketing publications.

Newspapers were the first to feel the pinch of declining revenue. The grind of producing, printing and delivering daily papers IS not easy, and its expensive to do it every day, especially on those days when the paper is not full of ads. Recent changes in newspaper ownership around the county brought some promise of hope when heavy hitters like Warren Buffett bought in and gave some hope to other owners that were still viable. But Warren likes to buy and hold, and he likes to buy things he knows a lot about – and HE still reads his paper daily. Not everyone agrees with Warren, nor do they all have his deeps pockets.

Even with his very deep pockets Rupert Murdoch owns bunches of papers in the US and in Australia and England, but Rupert also owns lots of digital media in those markets as well. He also sees the enduring value in the print, but he was one of the first to see that revenues were lagging in print, and those lagging revenues reflected poorly on the ability for the overall stock value of these publicly traded companies to grow. He has lead the move to split his holdings into discrete segments – digital on one side and print media on the other. Future dollars for investment and growth are attached to the digital side, and print you’re now on your own now.

Recently Time Warner felt the urge to ‘unmerge’ its holding and to spin off its magazine unit, including Time, Fortune, Money and Sports Illustrated and make them a new stand alone organization and take them public as their own group. The magazines are still profitable, but they cannot keep with the market and are thus a drag on corporate earnings.

Harte-Hanks, Inc. originally started off as group of small Texas newspapers, but chose a different way to grow outside of newspapers and moved into direct marketing, and over 20 years sold off all other holdings, including all of their newspapers and became a powerhouse in shoppers publications covering millions of households in California and Florida. A still thriving industry for small communities covering a market just below that of the newspaper they provided cost effective targeted advertising and in the process stole market share from larger local newspapers. Those golden days are now over. Having written down all of their goodwill equity in the declining value of The Pennysaver, they were able to unload them quickly.

In December the Florida operations were sold back to their founder Dick Mandt, a former boss of mine, and his team of highly effective industry managers. Were they losing money -no, but they had to go. Sources tell me that the same thing is likely in California where the original Pennysaver circulates. Staff cuts are being made, offices are closing, and they appear to be on the same trajectory as Florida. Can they still make money – yes. But they can’t grow in the manner that a public company needs them to.

Like Time, Inc., Harte-Hanks, is a publicly traded company and must show growth. The huge revenue base of the Pennysaver could not keep up the growth curve for Harte-Hanks and stock prices lagged. Decision time came, and decisions were made. Heads rolled, and the new management staff has a mandate for growth, and a tight timeline. This is the new story for print and direct marketing, especially for those mailed publications. If you are on the big march and you fail to keep up – we’ll leave you a canteen of water, and a couple of biscuits, but your on your own. Tough love, I think we call it! Time is not always on our side.

Lessons from 2012 for Business & Politics

Posted on December 20, 2012 by Lyn Bunch

The 2012 election drives home some basic new realities about how we communicate and conduct our business and our daily lives. The advent of the digital and social world has changed us forever. In politics as in business we see those who are on the leading edge, and the stragglers. Many of my clients, and certainly my future clients, have come to this understanding late.

Here are a few thoughts on how this worked out for the latest election cycle. Everything we saw as business and communications work nearly exactly the same in business as politics. One side triumphed over the other, and the reasons were more for business practices in the conduct of the marketing for the election, than in purely political leanings. Just a few thoughts…

Nate Silver and the Pundits The biggest winner of the 2012 election cycle was 538 - by Nate Silver. The success of Nate with his ‘system’ that followed individual polls, weighted the results, and then posits results by election area, became a new standard for tracking forecasts. The single poll as a key talking point will recede as conglomerated results become the new norm. This will also impact the role of the pundit who is basing their forecasts on feelings and not empirical data. Pundits were especially routed in this election cycle when their results did not match the data on the ground, and the final results. They are now relegated to mere ‘talking heads’ and all of their wishing on hoping are just that. Show me the data is what we now expect.

The Role of Social Media The biggest change in this campaign from 2008 to 2012 was the role of social media. 2008 was the digital campaign yea . 2012 became the social campaign, all of the benefits of the digital conduit for communications, along with tailored messaging, and listening, with their targeted audiences. Obama’s team built a large social-digital staff that literally drove the campaign. Nothing did more for the Obama campaign, and this will set the standard for all future campaigns. Little time here for the details, and I will go into more detail in future posts, but for now, we must see that a return to more traditional messaging will not work in future campaigns. The die is cast.

The Power of Print Media Print media still lives, and will still have a key role in future campaigns, just as they do for day to day business, but it will play a lesser role in the future. The power of the press, and especially of the official endorsements no longer drives the electorate. Day by day, their hold on the public is loosened. The results of who endorsed each of the candidates had a low correlation to the final outcome. We now want newspapers to tell us what is going on, but not who to vote for…we’ll get that from our friends on social media or general social contacts, if we need those at all to make up our minds.

The major dollars spent at the end of the campaign by the Romney campaign in print and television did very little to move the needle. By the time they ran, minds had already been made up. Words and print images are simply not as powerful and recent and visual images on the web or on television.

The Party Vs. The Campaign In this election cycle we were treated again to the real power of incumbency. Though many thought Obama carried a lot of negative baggage, and that incumbency in a poor economic climate would act as a drag, it did not turn out that way. As the incumbent, he was able to rebuild his election team from 2008, and take advantage of all of their previous experiences to come up with an even stronger campaign organization.

Romney was perceived to have been a great organizer, but it didn’t work out that way in this campaign. With a long primary, his team was late coming up to speed, and messaging and marketing continually ran behind. They also gave up the advantage when the Obama campaign was able to define them before they could build their own image.

Campaign Timing In past campaigns both sides usually started at roughly the same time, the incumbent having an advantage. In the current election cycle, the challengers were exceptionally late due to a long and contentious primary campaign. The party used to play a larger role in the overall campaign, but in recent campaigns it is the candidate who basically runs the entire show. Funding still comes from the party, but direct campaign funds and the direction of the campaign really are driven by the candidate.

I first saw this with Richard Nixon, who had the California campaign staff taking the lead and driving the campaign. This worked for most campaigns from Carter, the Bushes and Bill Clinton, but in this last cycle we saw the Chicago group take out the Boston group who struggled to mount the right campaign. They went to battle ill prepared for what was ahead, and the experienced crew out managed them. Future campaigns should take heed from this. Next time there will be no incumbent, but the team with the best plan, crew, message, and funding sources will likely win – all other politics aside. The same goes in business. Thinking you have the best ‘product’ will not trump the best marketing campaign, especially in a short ‘campaign’ with a finite deadline on election day.

Digital Donations The Romney strategy was based on large donations and the use of PACs to drive their message, and they did exceptionally well in this area, both in the primary and election campaigns. The money was flowing, but the results did not match the massive amounts spent, much of it too late to change minds already set by the other side.

The very large PAC infusion of money, much of it from just a small group of very wealthy donors did not accomplish the goal of total domination. In the end, the other guys had some strong PACs as well, but even more they discovered the power of small digital donations via text or emails. The power of small donations by the many, repeated several times by strong messaging did the trick. The key fact is that the masses that donated also took the time to vote in large numbers. The ‘engaged’ donor became the very engaged voter. For me that was the big win that I did not see coming, especially the size of total donations via this methodology.

Audiences and Precise Targeting In the world of direct mail the Republicans set the standard, and their lists were gold to the party. Election cycle after election cycle they yielded fantastic results. I’m sure they performed well this cycle as well, however, the Obama team who switched the ball game to heavy digital marketing outperformed them. Appeals went out on a nearly daily cycle; immediacy trumped the heavy mail package.

What we found out later is, that in this new 2012 cycle, the digital team advanced the art and science well beyond their initial efforts in the past cycle. Offers were tested, run, revamped – all within the span of a few hours, something impossible in direct mail. The single most interesting fact that I found out later were that nearly all of the appeals tested worked…they all worked. Message may be the key, but in this case it was more likely that methodology triumphed. For business, resisting digital and social marketing is at your peril. They must be a part of your mix in the future if you want to win the business in your daily marketing cycles.

Generations & Ethnicity…and Single Women Perhaps nothing explains the results of the 2012 election than the results shown by generations and ethnicity. They certainly skewed in both directions. But the bigger question is what this means to our electoral and business future. Targeted messaging is critical to identifying and supplying messaging to each audience. The days of mass marketing producing and mass result in the general marketplace are fast fading.

In future any marketer must target and message for their audiences, each with their own concerns and issues. Not only is the messaging variable, so is the media. Fewer of us subscribe to a daily paper. Confession here, as an old direct marketer and newspaper advertising executive, I used to subscribe to all the local papers on a daily basis. Now I have just one paper on Sunday, and the other for 4 days a week. All the rest of my news comes from the Internet via computer, iPad and iPhone. I also consume at least 3 times more total information as a result. For me, less is truly better.

For many, the iPhone, and other fully featured phones are now their prime communication vehicle and news source. Any business, or candidate, who does not take this into account, will not survive the next election cycle if they need that audience to win. As we saw the older audience does not use these tools as much now, but that audience is literally dying out. Not good ways to run a campaign in the future, if you want to have a future.

Single women also went heavily for Obama, married women more Romney. Messaging alone wouldn’t change the results here. It becomes a platform issue of what each party stands for. Is a party platform a key component of the message and do they need to be in synch. Much was made of the distinction in this case and through the Republicans courted single women, their overall message that was ‘heard’ was negative. Now we need to heed and message to gender, age, marital status, ethnicity and generational location as key factor in future campaigns. This is a very tough challenge for any marketer in business or politics and will determine the results of most future elections here.

Unforeseen Events Unforeseen events, like ‘Sandy’ will not be unforeseen in the future. What? I expect that future elections will forecast for every possible event and preparations will be at hand. Kind of like packing for a trip to Hawaii, but bring your snow skis anyway. With the outcome resting on any unforeseen event, they simply have to be built into our future radar. There is not time to regroup and react – bring the kitchen sink with you, we may need it will be the new motto.

Closing thoughts… Future elections, and future business will never be the same. Our digital and social tools have changed everything. I also expect this trend to continue as newer processes replace the old. Keepup, use the tools, or lose it all. No looking back now.

Big Data vs. Big Money…and the Winner Is?

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Lyn Bunch

Sometimes things don’t turn out the way everybody thought!

The election is over, and the team clothed in Blue won, and the margin was large. After such a contentious election cycle I’m sure all would agree -no more. The question that I raised in my last post on the eve of the election was “Will Nate Silver be a god or a goat?” Well we now know that he was spot on in his predictions for the outcome of the election with Obama winning nearly all of the contested states.

How did Nate Silver call the outcome? He did it by an algorithmic review of all polls (he does not conduct any polls of his own) weights the averages, and then forecasts the likelihood of winning the electoral votes in a given state. No punditry, shear match, some science, and enough sense to lower the values of what were the outlier polls like Gallup and Rasmussen that did not fit the general results of the other polls. Viola, we have a whole new way to pick the winner.

So, what happened to the Republicans, who were still forecasting victory right up to the last minute which gave us some memorable moments when Karl Rove had a meltdown on Fox, and Mitt Romney had to write a last minute speech that no one thought he would need since it was obvious to them that he was going to win…ouchers.

So this election came down to a couple of very big things – Big Money and Big Data. On the Big Data side the Democrats used all of the data tricks learned in the ‘08 election, and then brought in a number of new wrinkles. They built a large team in Chicago to manage the data, armies of staff and volunteers to use the data to blanket the targets with multiples of messages. No stone was unturned in reaching and motivating their target audiences. They had a mission and it was about turnout, and they did it, surpassing their efforts of 2008. I expect now that major elections in the future would be based on these efforts.

On the losing side, the focus had been on Big Money, mainly big donors who gave directly to the party, and to the Super Pacs. The Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson were the big whales contributing an estimated 250 million between the two. These efforts were supposed to be all that was needed to blanket the airwaves with TV buys that would sway the election in their direction. In the past this has done it, and more money was spent – over a billion dollars in this heroic effort to carry the day.

The funny thing is that the Obama team also raised huge dollars – they also hit the billion-dollar mark, much by large donations, but a huge portion came from donations, mostly over the Internet. Their strategy was to go after small sums from a large pool, and then to hit them again and again. They test all kinds of messaging, and guess what, nearly all of the messaging worked – and the donations flowed. The public was really in the dark on the effectiveness of this effort until well after the election – certainly the Republicans were in the dark based on their surprised look at the end of the contest.

I’m not here today to talk politics – my interest lies in the technology and the application of the technology. I have friends, who are political consultants, and “I forgive them for that, they know not what they do.” My interest is in understanding how we best influence decisions, mainly commercial or business decisions through communications. Would the brute force application of traditional print and broadcast media work in todays world – certainly one side thought that it would. They were experts in direct mail fundraising with golden lists that delivered the manna in each election cycle. On the other side, with a new digital toolbox that worked last time, could it keep up with the promise of a sea of paid media that would not end? Could they do it again since the other side knew how they were going to proceed?

They did it again…and in my next post I will go into more detail on just how they did it and what this all means to us in our business practices. Big Data and the Digital World are real and anyone who does not utilize these tools in whole or in part will probably not make it until the next election cycle. More on Monday!

The End of Newspapers…or a New Beginning?

Posted on June 16, 2012 by Lyn Bunch

The Orange County Register

With all of the discussions regarding the future of newspapers, and I am a big participant in those discussions, I found perhaps one of the best pieces by Matthew Ingram, yesterday in GigaOm – “The Hard Truth: Newspaper monopolies are gone forever.” This is one of the better pieces on what is getting to be a big discussion. This is almost as big a discussion as the state of the U.S. and world economy. There are lots of opinions, but not a lot of energy on what to do about it. Both seem to be heading on their own course, like a mighty river in a flood. Get out of the way and wait until it subsides. Truth is the newspaper business is subsiding, and now we are seeing the results.

…And the results aren’t pretty! Revenues, advertising revenues really, are in decline. Subscriptions are in decline. Page counts are down, and the news hole – real news, is down. Content is up, but we really don’t buy newspapers for content do we? The truth is, and Matt Ingram catches it well – newspapers succeeded because they were ‘the only game in town – monopolies who could charge whatever the market would stand.

Over the course of the next several days I will try to make sense of what I think all this means to the larger constituencies – readers, advertisers, and the general community. Can newspapers survive? Do we care? Are we worried about the loss, and how can it be replaced. Is it the loss of the daily paper, the habit we all grew up with, or is it the loss of real journalism – news we care about, and news that enlightened us that we fear losing?

I’ve been wrestling with this for a long time…and I need to get it out – for myself, and for my clients, many of whom come from the same generation and don’t like the changes they see coming.

Next post- from the home turf – The end of Freedom Communications and the OC Register, the Libertarian paper in a Libertarian/Republican county.

What Does Warren Know That We Don’t Know?

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Lyn Bunch

Warren Buffett - Now Loose with Open Check Book

Warren Buffett – The New ‘King of All Media

Warren is on the loose…again, and he brought his check book. What does the Oracle of Omaha know that the result of us don’t. For one thing he knows a great investment, and that means something he can own for a long time. That habit is not in vogue in todays fast trading world. Warren is looking to own assets that will appreciate over time, while bringing in some great cash flow, year in and year out. I remember those days, but then my idea of long range planning is “what are we going to do after lunch?” Warren is worried about the next decade, not what’s for lunch!

Warren, really Berkshire Hathaway, bought most of the print units of Media General, sans the Tampa Tribune, which will stand on its own for Media General, or until they find a way to sell it off as well. Media General got some great cash and a chance to stay alive for awhile, something many major media companies are trying to do. Warren got all of these holdings at a good price along with the real estate. The price is significantly lower than the multiples paid in the past decade when all of these media companies sold or recapitalized, and then the bust hit. Media companies can still make money, if they are not mired in debt – that is what Warren knows.

With our transition to a digital media world, in progress as we speak, there is still room for print media in local markets. I should qualify that and say ‘print’ is not really the operative word going forward, but news media leader in a local market with a print product is more to the point. As the ‘voice’ of the community – their earned mantle – they can be important and profitable businesses. Kind of like having gone through a takeover by a venture capital company. Make it leaner, and meaner and you can still make a buck. Lots of jobs will be shed, but then that is better than oblivion.

With this deal Mr. Buffett and Berkshire have seats at the table with Media General, as well as with The Washington Post Company, as well as a stake in The Buffalo News. He is quickly gaining influence throughout the industry by his unabashed belief in the continuing role of the newspaper in the community. He provides both financial and moral support to an industry in need of both, and at a very critical time. The biggest players like the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall St. Journal exist on a different plane. They are national papers of record that large audiences look to, their issues are different. Local and regional papers have different needs and Warren understands. With his purchases, not only does he have a seat at the table, but now he sits at the head of the table, and all eyes are on him.

Facebook is launching today what could be one of the truly huge IPOs with a value over $100B. FB is one of the contributing factors to the demise of newspaper readership. No they are not the main culprit, but more of a symptom of the decline of newspaper subscriptions. The newspaper was the watercolor content provider for social currency up through the last 10 years. If you wanted to be able to join the conversation at work, you read the newspaper. TV was also a source of conversation with your friends and co-workers. Now you keep in touch by digital means, texting and emailing…and the Facebook. Newspapers, in this new age, have lost a lot of their relevance of social currency. By the way it opened at $38 and has moved across $40 where it is as of this post. Oh for the days when newspaper sales attracted half of the attention of the FB IPO.

Warren understands that the local market is the last great place to have a real chance to still have an open forum in the community. There is still a chance in our ever growing social world that the local paper can have a real chance to drive that social discussion. As in the past, this is not about altruism, it is about having a good earning business. Newspapers will never command the high multiples when they are sold, because they will never be the monopolies of the past. With low debt and reduced operating costs newspapers can deliver a return that a ‘buy and hold’ kind of guy like Warren can appreciate. This strategy can be the one that can save local papers, and I don’t see much else that will.

Good luck Warren! We are all pulling for you and your strategy for the sake of our industry, and our communities. We’ll be waiting for more good news in the future. By the way how about some love for Orange County – The Register is available, and I hear the price is too good to pass up.

Lomography – Analogs Having Fun in a Digital World

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Lyn Bunch

“Lomography, an Analog Company Surviving in a Digital World” is a blog article by Jenna Wortham in the April 26 New York Times in the Technology section. I was struck by the title of a subject area I live in – Analog people coping and growing the Digital World, but I was totally unfamiliar with Lomography. As a consultant, I work with organizations to help integrate their people “Analogs” with their new digital surroundings and processes. I also work on guiding companies to bridge to our old Analog world and their adoption of digital strategies. Sometimes I feel like a luddite, but then I’m really a geeky nerd of the lower-high level order. I like digital things, but I like people more. Making them play well in both worlds is how I earn my living as a consultant now.

I am a child of two worlds, both the analog, now code for human side of things, and the digital, which is where the world is rapidly moving. Often the two worlds don’t mix well together, especially for boomers like many of my friends and associates. Having purchased one of the first iPhones (day 2) I am a card carrying geek, and that is how many of my friends, and family saw me. The gadget king is at it again. Now everyone in the family has iPhones, iPads and we Skype on the weekends with our family in Texas. We’re bought in!

Though I have all the digital tools I earn my living by helping others integrate them into their lives, their businesses, and help them survive a dark side of digital implementation…distraction, and a sense of loss of real human interaction. The question of personal productivity and multi-tasking is also now open for discussion. Not every gadget or digital process really makes us more productive research is recently finding.

That is why I loved this article by Jenna Wortham. It captures the true sense of ‘surviving in a digital world by humans/analogs. In 2008 my 20 year consulting practice branched in this arena and I became the Analog Sherpa. My tagline was, and still is…”An Analog Sherpa for a Digital World.” Now you can see why this article impacted me so much.

With the bankruptcy of Kodak recently the challenge of surviving a digital onslaught is high, just ask daily newspapers – or the USPS whose volumes are about to send them down, at least for a re-tooling.

Where did Lomography come from? Lomography started 20 years ago in Austria, by a group of photographers and artists who stumbled across a cheap Russian camera called the Lomo that used 35-millimeter film. The Lomo camera produced unique and charming photographs that often contained artsy blurry streaks and were oversaturated with color due to the camera’s body design and construction.

Matthias Fiegl, one of the artists who went on to found the company started smuggling Lomo cameras back from Russia to Western Europe in the early 1990s and sell them among his friends and then host exhibitions to celebrate the art photographs.

In the age of skype, cheap digital video cameras Mr. Fiegl found something different – sharing actual prints with all of their unique flaws from the film and cheap cameras. Retro was back, and suddenly it was different and cool. People got hooked. Now a large Facebook community is organizing Lomographer meet-ups around the world. Instant is out, and unusal is in. Waiting is a part of the attraction for the Lomographers.

They still use digital cameras and the iPhone – instant is not verboten, but the fun of seeing something later, and not perfect is even more cool. The digital world and the analog world can co-exist side by side…and be cool at the same time. There is hope for the Analog Sherpa in this digital world…and I’m still cool to boot. Cool!

AT&T Exits From the Yellow Pages – check it out on Yelp

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Lyn Bunch

It was announced this week that AT&T has agreed to sell a majority stake in its Yellow Pages business to Cerberus Capital Management. The price was reported to be $950 million dollars, for a declining business that AT&T was happy to jettison and get on to more important areas of their business.

The deal was for primarily cash with AT&T receiving 750 million in cash, with a 200 million note on the backend. AT&T will maintain a 47% stake in the business, but Cerberus will handle all day-to-day operations. Cerberus has pulled a number of rabbits out of their hat in the past, but this one looks to be particularly difficult.

During its heyday through the 1990s the Yellow Pages franchise, which included AT&T and a number of other telephone companies, and even a number of independent publishing companies, had a wildly profitable business. Recently the business, as a print operation, has become a boat anchor. Revenue was down 30% in just the last two years. The goal for Cerebus is to help turn the business into a digital operation that will compete with a number of newer players including Google and Yelp.

It has been a number of years since my family has kept or used a printed Yellow Pages directory at home. Like so many our tendency today is to simply Google what we are looking for hit the return and we have our answers. If we are looking for additional information, we’ll take the time to go to yelp for additional feedback from users where have actually used the service were looking for. In Orange County, CA where I live, Yelp is helpful but certainly not the powerhouse that I found when I was working in the San Francisco Bay Area. There looking through Yelp was like reading a novel, and I discovered a number of incredible writers who took the time to elaborate on their personal experiences at the various restaurants and shops they wrote about.

AT&T will use the time and the money to help grow their electronic portion of the communications field. With their growing competition this would seem to have been a good move. Cerberus will attempt to do something I that seems impossible, but they have done the impossible before, and I’m confident they have a plan to do it again. As a private equity firm they don’t have to meet the needs of the market and shareholders and that is critical for them to have the time and hard efforts to pull this off.

Good luck to both AT&T and Cerebus, we won’t hold our breath, but we wish you well. I wonder if Cerberus would also like to buy a few good newspapers, I know of a number that can be had for well under $950 million. In fact they might be able to purchase several former large newspaper-publishing groups for the same figure. There is one that is headquartered in Orange County (Freedom) that I hear can be had for well less than a billion.

A Last Chance for Yahoo?

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Lyn Bunch

It’s hard to think that having come so far in just such a short period of time that Yahoo is in so much danger. Major cuts are being aimed their large products organization, as well as other arenas in which the company has lagged. Like many in similar situations they are also cutting: Public relations and marketing, research, marginal businesses and their weaker regional efforts.

Yahoo struggling for some time just hired PayPal President Scott Thompson as its new CEO. Scott was most recently in charge of the large eBay online payments unit.

He starts next week, but big changes are coming fast. Staff conference have already begun and an all-hands meeting on Yahoo’s main Silicon Valley campus is scheduled ASAP.

Thompson also hired Boston Consulting Group to help focus the company on “growth” initiatives and to find the best path for Yahoo going forward.

Scott appears to be looking for areas to quickly jumpstart Yahoo after a failed turnaround over the last round of turnaround leadership. Cuts are likely, but the focus will also be looking for new areas to move into. That what consultants can do for you, find the costs, and find the new directions. Let’s hope that BCG has a great compass to find that new direction.

Adding to Scott’s woes is the news that Prabhakar Raghavan,the head of its labs unit will be departing for Google. His research at Yahoo focused on search technologies, with particular interests in text, web mining, and algorithm design.

Sources said was spurred by the likelihood of major job cuts in his research unit.

Staff cuts will happen, and they could be significant. Staff at Yahoo have been through this before, or their predecessors have, but the effect is still chilling, and these could be larger than ever before. With 14,000 employees and a large contingent of software contractors not in that count, the ‘dead pool’ is significant, but costs must be slashed if Yahoo is to survive.

In a conference call to analysis Scott said “Our leadership is engaged in a process that will generate significant strategic change at Yahoo, but final decisions have not yet been made at this point. Beyond that, we will not comment.”

In other words, get ready for some big shoes to start dropping and very soon.

Whether we are talking about the USPS, newspapers or older digital media like Yahoo, the future will go the quick and nimble, and the adaptable. There is no longer any ‘legacy’ left in media…’what have you done for me lately’ is now all that matters.

Pinterest – Social Media for ‘Unsocial People’

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Lyn Bunch

I’m a consultant helping businesses adopt digital technologies for their businesses. My client base is heavily made up of senior executives, most who have little personal experience in social media. To say that they have little personal use for it would be an understatement. I understand, these are my people after all, but my other people -my family is heavily invested in social media, but personally and professionally. They have helped me to see the ‘light.’

I am on Facebook since 2008. I joined so I could understand the dynamics of the FB since I was recommending it to my clients as something they should be using in their integrated marketing mix. I might as well have been asking my clients, senior executives like myself, to strip naked and walk through the streets. Their kids might do it, but they certainly weren’t going to.

“Social Media for the Unsocial Person” – what a great tagline for understanding the intersection of senior execs and introverts – older ‘quiet’ people – ‘my people.’ I fashed one recent morning with that thought in my head and wrote it down. I thought that like myself, many don’t understand how they can use and have fun with social media. Not wanting to express themselves in words, or divulge ‘secrets’ about themselves, there was something that could work – and in fact was working for me.

Over the last several weeks I have discovered Pinterest. Like many of my ‘discoveries’ it came from my personal idea factory and digital brain trust – my family. I don’t know who was first to invite me to Pinterest, my eldest son or my wife. Both are huge on the net, and both have great writing and visual skill sets. I love visual things, and color. I dress with lots of color. Thank God, my wife checks me each day before I leave or I would have been arrested by the fashion police for some infraction of good taste.

What I did find is that I liked what I saw and I immediately got into looking at all of the visuals, first in the men’s clothing category. I started ‘repining’ and liking things…wow this is easy. Then I started finding that others commented on my ‘pins’ and ‘likes’…maybe I do have an eye for these things.

As a male, I feel a little funny about being excited about something that has been heavily adopted by women. About 82% of active users are female, but then women make up a majority of all social networking sites and spend 30% more time on sites than men according to Nielson. So why does it excite me – again I am a visual learner. I listen to audio books for pleasure, but always fiction, and mysteries and action are a majority of that. I have an extensive business library, but few business audio books – they just don’t sink in for me. This has been critical for my understanding of ‘me’ – give me images or go home.

Since Pinterest skews so heavily to a female audience as of now, what about a more manly version. There is a new sites that offers men their own versions – I’m waiting for the scratch and sniff version myself. These new sites is Manteresting and Gentlemint. Designed by men – we can now look at tool chests and bacon cheeseburgers among other interesting choices. I’m full right now, and one big tool chest is enough for me, so I don’t think I’ll be jumping on this macho bandwagon soon. This could be a real hard sell for men, so I think I’ll lurk for awhile and stick with Pinterest for now.

When you take a look at the female demographics – which are similar to other social media you might be scarred until you understand that women account for 85% of all consumer purchases – that includes everything from healthcare to autos. Wow, a nice tight audience for your goods and services, and it is proving successful for a number of businesses who have jumped in. Visuals sell products – my 30 years in the advertising field has been well spent – I finally learned something, and it has be reinforced.

What does all this mean – visuals excite, and visuals sell. It’s a great new niche for many businesses to help them in their marketing efforts. For those of us who really want to be ‘social’ it is painless and no need to bare our souls to others. Like something, pin it, and it to your boards and others can share. A great way to spend a few hours luring over goodies you would like to have, used to enjoy or didn’t know existed.

Pinterest is a great way for everyone, including those of us on the male side of the spectrum, to become ‘social’, now it’s time to check my Facebook page, though don’t expect any status updates – those I mainly keep to myself. Introversion runs deep and ‘quiet’, but I enjoy seeing and hearing of my friends exploits – check out my ‘pins’ and you’ll understand me better – that’s all you get from me. Social media for unsocial people – that certainly describes me, and my relationship to Pinterest. Check it out, especially all you shy people.

The Future of Newspapers Now in the Hands of The Washington Post?

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Lyn Bunch

Over the weekend Jeremy Peters wrote an article on The Washington Post for The New York Times. This was a great read, and documents just how difficult the transition is into the digital age of publishing is for newspapers. This is a must read for anyone following the challenging rebirth of newspapers in this new digital era.

The Leader of the Charge Marcus Brauchli,

The transition has not been easy, but the future looks relatively bright, at least for The Post, in the manner, the methods, and the resources they committed to in leading this critical process. It has not been without bumps, glitches, and lots of hurt feelings, bruised egos, and red ink.

The news business is changing and there is increasing pressure on the publishers, editors, writers, and even the advertising staff. Nearly every newspaper is facing a similar challenge. What is different at The Post is that they have had deep financial resources to help in the transition. Unfortunately, even at The Washington Post for well can run dry.

The cash cow that is helped to finance this transition is their Kaplan division. Long a financial success and a reader in the for-profit education field, they are now feeling the same financial pressures that the rest of the field has felt in the current economic downturn. The former cash cow is now just a sick puppy.

Mr. Brauchli has stated “that he refuses to be a prisoner of the past” that may sound a little arrogant to many in the newspaper field, but his actions show that he is living his feelings. In a recent social setting, Mr. Brauchli brought in many of the distinguished writers on the staff of The Post to review the transition and how they could use that to their benefit in the coverage of the 2012 elections. As the newspaper of record for Washington D.C., The Washington Post is expected to feed it’s pampered local audience of key national influentials the best coverage possible.

Washington Post staff has brought in a number of key tools and techniques to bridge the existing print world with the new digital audience. This includes locating the print reporters alongside the newer staff, which includes a large contingent of what we now call bloggers. This is not unlike what you will find at many other large metropolitan newspapers, however one unique factor is that many of these “bloggers” have had some significant success including Ezra Klein a young, California bred, blogger who has had significant success as a political wonk.

I’ve followed Ezra for the last couple of years that have taken great pride in the success since he is a hometown boy from here in Southern California. In fact he attended the same high school as both of my sons. I can’t imagine a better example of what we will be seeing in the next generation of reporters and writers at all of our newspapers.

My pride in the local boy making good aside, along with Ezra there legions of new writers who a publishing content all day long for the electronic versions of The Post. They are learning minute by minute how to provide just the right content for their audience. Metrics are viewed by Mr. Baruchli and key editors, and delivered in a continuous stream to their readers and viewers. This stream of data influences what is being covered and written about throughout the day. This is also happening at a number of other newspapers around the U.S. and the world.

What’s different at The Washington Post is that they are under incredible scrutiny since they are covering the most expensive election cycle in the world. They have resources not currently available to other chains, under even greater financial pressure. A lot is at stake here, this includes for The Post, for the American public, and for journalism. They have a chance to get it right for print journalism, digital journalism, and for the future of journalism. Lets hope that they get it right. Our future and the future of the news industry is at stake.

Analog Sherpa

Media, Marketing & Management For A Digital World

Category Archives: Digital