Roundtable sessions are always unique, and can deliver unexpected value
In yesterday’s Mequoda Daily, I wrote about the successful approach to facilitating roundtables that I’ve come to use over the years.
At the Online Editor’s Roundtable at this September’s Mequoda Summit East 2011, we will set off to answer the most pressing questions our editorial staffs face.
In addition to the attendees who participate, we’ve invited Bryan Welch – one of the most articulate and forward-thinking editors I know. Bryan is the Publisher and Editorial Director of Ogden Publications, Inc. He will also be keynoting our Managing Digital Transformation presentation.
To address changes in technology, Patrick Hughes, Mequoda’s New Media Specialist, will also be in attendance for this roundtable.
To prepare for the Online Editor’s Roundtable, here’s a look at some common questions that have have been asked in the past.
Three questions asked during past editorial roundtables
How many times and how many ways can I reuse my content?
Is there an order in which content should be released – similar to the way movie studios run their releases?
Is there a set of formulas for how content gets used over time?
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We often address questions related specifically to product sales. For instance, in the past we’ve discussed how long guidebooks should be.
To provide a sufficient answer, the Mequoda clients in the room would likely share the length of their guidebooks and discuss the successes they’ve had using these product lengths. From this conversation we could arrive at an average desired length over a broad subject matter.
If a publisher then wanted to stray from this length, they would need a good reason.
For someone asking about ways to provide content, there are always new resources emerging. Not all of these will be viable sources of revenue, but since the Mequoda Research Team and other Mequoda clients take the time to investigate possibilities, we typically have options to share.
For instance, Kindle on Demand is just one popular and commonly used product format for publishing digital editions.
Discover timeliness and relevance at the Online Editor’s Roundtable
I am involved in roundtables at least every six months, and I facilitate for other organizations sporadically. One additional commonality of roundtables is that the answers are changing for online publishers. Questions and answers I heard five years ago aren’t the ones I hear today, which isn’t really surprising as this is the nature of our industry.
If you haven’t signed up for the Mequoda Summit East 2011 already, do so now. If you have signed up, start thinking about which roundtable, the Online Editor’s Roundtable or the Audience Development Roundtable, you want to attend since they will take place at the same time. In the past, companies have decided to bring multiple people so both roundtables could be attended. Afterwards, they compared notes to stay as closely aligned with the content as possible.
