Last night I helped to launch the London Young Directors' Forum, an affiliate interest group of the UK's prestigious Institute of Directors. I'm pleased (if not a little relieved) to say that the evening was a great success. For those who attended, many thanks for your support. I had many interesting conversations during the course of the event, but what stood out was unexpected. I had several discussions with business people interested to learn more about how they can use the Web to promote their business and, specifically, wanting to know where to begin with blogging.
Blogging hadn’t been our theme for the evening (more on what the theme actually was later), but it’s a subject that’s clearly occupying minds at present. It’s certainly something that we actively pursue at Austin Lawrence Group. Indeed, we believe that understanding online publishing in all its forms is vital to the future of our business and that agencies which fail to get to grips with the new order will ultimately fail themselves. It unlikely to be the first time you’ve heard it said, but mark our words: print is dead.
To be sure, that death will be long, slow and probably very painful for some. And there will likely be vestiges that remain. But to all practical intents and purposes, and especially as far as marketers are concerned, Guttenburg has finally been bettered.
Why do we think this? Why should it matter to those of us in business? And what should we be doing about it? Consider the following:
- How we now consume our media and the content choices we make. These days I rarely buy a printed newspaper, but I do read news online. The publishers I choose are sometimes newspaper publishers, but oftentimes not. I flit between sites, such as www.bbc.co.uk/news, www.nytimes.com, favoured blogs or www.wikipedia.org, as I seek to keep up to date with the world.
- The quality of printed news is declining. In London, the majority of commuters read one of the four free newspapers, count ‘em, that are now available at every station or stop. They’re OK for passing the minutes on the Tube, but unable to carry in-depth or investigative content. For that stuff, I go online.
- Editors themselves have realised this. And are changing what they do to fit in with new consumer preferences. The UK’s biggest selling ‘quality’ newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, now produces an edition at 4pm specifically designed to be downloaded for the commute home. You can find it at www.telegraph.co.uk/pm. The former editor of US tech magazine, Maximum PC, writes a telling account (found via www.digg.com, a sort of community-driven electronic newsstand) of how much better he finds publishing on the Web than in his erstwhile printed journal. This is interesting for us all, but is a must-read if you're in tech: http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI3OCwxLCxoY29uc3VtZXI.
- It’s what our clients are doing. We work with a major publisher that’s making a bold strategic move to move its print business online. It knows that this is vital if it is to remain top of its sector and its approach is far more innovative that simply making its content available on the Website.
- It’s what our prospects are doing. We’ve gained several meetings of late directly as a result of our blog posts. I think it’s unlikely that we would have received the same attention if we’d tried to reach them using traditional methods. People appreciate being able to see your thinking before they have to meet with you.
- Other companies are having the same great experiences. A previous post about Unicorn Darts reported how managing director, Edward Lowy, successfully used interaction with the blogosphere to converse with customers about a thorny change in his business. It’s UniBlog (available at www.unicorngroup.com) shows great maturity by bringing together comments from customers and competitors.
- An alternative to printed paper is on the horizon. While online media offers great variety, it’s not ideal when on the move. Reading from a printed page is more comfortable and if I leave it on the Tube I’ve only lost an investment of a few £/$, max. Not so with a sophisticated PDA, Blackberry, laptop PC, etc. However, cheap, flexible electronic paper is close to being brought to market in a big way. It may take a few years yet, but we predict that eventually this medium will take over from paper - newspapers, magazines and many books - for most daily reading. Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_paper.
The importance we place on blogging, and digital communication in general, is evident in our latest service. We've not quite decided how to encapsulate it yet - currently we call it W.E.B., short for Web, HTML Email and Blog. These three formats of digital communication combine to deliver a powerful channel to connect with prospects, customers and other stakeholders. Our approach is to deliver these as a straightforward, packaged service. We'll let you know more when we've developed some collateral.
A few words on the YDF launch that caused me to put these thoughts to keypad. The aim of the initiative is to provide purposeful support to those of us newer in business through an ongoing series of practical, hands-on events. That said, for the launch we kept things straightforward by sticking to the tried and trusted method of a great speaker (two, in fact) and giving some time for networking.
The theme of the evening was ‘building a business and a brand’ and we were very lucky to have the Antonio Carluccio, founder, and Simon Kossoff, managing director, of Carluccio’s (www.carluccios.com). For those outside of London and the South East of England, the company is a unique Italian café-restaurant and delicatessen concept that is extremely popular. Antonio is a renowned autority on Italian food and its culture, a fact recognised by a Royal Warrant from the household of the Prince of Wales and the recent accolade of an OBE. Following Antonio and Simon’s fascinating talk, over 100 delegates chatted and made connections in the grand surroundings of the IoD's Pall Mall headquarters.
Feedback during the evening was very positive and, assured by the great response to the Forum, I’m looking forward to our next event. If this sounds of interest and you’d like to know more, please email me – james[at]austinlawrence.com.
