Q&A - AM&P Network (2)

‘Diversified Revenue Streams and Critical Mass’; Ferrell Aims High for Endeavor Business Media

by BIMSMedia

The industry-leading Business Information & Media Summit (BIMS) will take place in Orlando, Feb. 23-24, the first in-person BIMS since 2019. Accordingly, the team at the AM&P Network see an opportunity to help drive the media conversation and feature the voices of leading thought leaders speaking at the event.

In the weeks to come, we’ll continue to publish one or two brief Q&As every week, each of them zeroing in on a specific topic related to sessions at the event—and in the process highlight our rich and timely agenda.

In our fifth installment, Tony Silber talks to Chris Ferrell, CEO of the Nashville-based, acquisition-focused Endeavor Business Media. Chris will be one of the esteemed executives speaking at the BIMS General Session: Outlook 2023: A CEO Panel.

As businesses face new challenges in an ever-evolving market, improving operational efficiency remains a top priority for leaders like Chris Ferrell. In his conversation at the BIMS General Session, he’ll likely touch on how Endeavor Business Media has successfully navigated the complexities of acquisitions while staying focused on improving business efficiency.

The key lies in understanding how different elements of the business intersect—whether it’s optimizing workflows, leveraging technology, or streamlining communication between teams. For businesses looking to stay competitive in 2023 and beyond, incorporating strategic Business Consulting can be an invaluable tool. Experienced consultants help identify bottlenecks, improve decision-making processes, and implement scalable solutions that support growth, all while ensuring that resources are used effectively.

As leaders like Chris Ferrell share their insights at BIMS, the focus on business efficiency will undoubtedly resonate with attendees, encouraging them to adopt strategies that drive sustainable success.

Tony Silber: What’s your topline take on the state of B2B media for 2023?
Chris Ferrell: How 2023 shakes out for B2B will largely be determined by the underlying industry being served. I expect a ragged recession that impacts certain sectors significantly and others hardly at all. I do think that events will continue to rebound from the Covid downturn and that if events aren’t at or exceeding 2019 levels in 2023 then there is something wrong with the event rather than a hangover from Covid. Overall, I think the B2B industry is healthy. There are lots of companies doing interesting things and providing great content for their audiences.

You’re the fastest-growing, most dynamic company in the business right now. What’s driving your growth?
Chris: We have been able to continue our acquisition strategy of acquiring smaller B2B media companies in an environment where there is little competition for them. At the same time, we have assembled a very experienced team and have the resources to invest in the innovative ideas they come up with for organic growth. As a result, we are launching new events and new products on a regular basis. In terms of organic growth, our suite of marketing solutions products is where we are seeing the largest revenue growth.

What’s your ultimate goal for the business model across your existing businesses and this year’s many acquisitions? A diversified approach including advertising, events, data, subscriptions, etc.? A gradual shift to one of those or something else?
Chris: Our business model is predicated on having both diversified revenue streams and critical mass in the industries we serve. Our acquisitions have reflected that approach as we acquired both expanded capabilities this year in research and podcasting as well as expanded the size of our audience and the number of brands we offer in several of the verticals that we serve. It is our goal to be our clients’ most important marketing partner. We want to have the largest, most engaged audience in each sector we cover and then be able to provide a full range of services to our clients who are trying to reach those audiences.

What’s the most resilient model in B2B media?
Chris: We built EBM with the idea that it would be resilient. If sentiment moves away from certain products, we have many others that can take up the slack. If certain industries are struggling, then we have others that are having a good year and can make up for softness elsewhere. That is the whole idea behind diversification. It worked during Covid, and I expect it to allow us to navigate whatever 2023 throws our way as well.

Thanks so much, Chris. See you in Orlando at BIMS 2023!

 

 

 

Media Library (1)

First Amendment Ironies of the JCPA

by PolicyTech&

The following can be attributed to Christopher Mohr, President, Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) regarding Antitrust and the JCPA.

History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes.  SIIA represents more than 600 large and small companies, including business-to-business publishers, social media platforms and analytics firms. They represent the business of information, and our mission is to protect the three stages of the information lifecycle that make that business possible: creation, dissemination, and productive use.  SIIA believes that the First Amendment lies at the core of the information lifecycle’s health.

Suppose a town had only a couple of newspapers and the town dictated that newspapers had to carry opposing op-eds on request. Suppose further, this was motivated by a concern over rapidly changing technology and a decrease in access to ideas.  Then the state passes a law requiring newspapers to carry opposing views.  It wouldn’t be a surprise if the newspapers ended up suing and had that statute invalidated.

Turns out that actually happened–in 1974. In a case called Miami Herald v Tornillo, the state of Florida passed a statute requiring that newspapers be required to run editorial positions opposing those taken by the newspaper itself.  The reasons given by the state in support of the statute included many of the same issues animating this legislation, including a “monopoly of the means of communication,”[1] its fears of a “communication revolution,” “advocacy journalism,” and the influence of a “press that has become noncompetitive and enormously powerful and influential in its capacity to manipulate popular opinion and the course of events.”[2]

Fast forward.  Congress is now considering forcing platforms to do something quite similar.  The Journalism Competition Protection Act prohibits a “covered platform” from discriminating against “any eligible digital journalism provider” based, among other things, on the views expressed by that entity and prohibits “retaliation” against entities that engage in “joint negotiations.” A separate and concerning novelty in the bill is that for the first time, platforms in the future would be required to pay for reporting the fact of a website’s online location (namely, linking).  Other parts of the bill, when read with the above “nondiscrimination” provisions effectively prohibit online platforms from considering the cost to their business of carrying ideas that destroy their desired communities.

Even more to the point, it would be a dangerous thing for the government to determine which ideas have gotten “too much sway.”  By prohibiting online platforms from applying basic content moderation policies, the JCPA would destroy the ability of private businesses to make their own First Amendment-protected decisions about what information they wish to carry and how.

That’s a road Congress we have suggested that Congress avoid.

 

[1] See Senator Ted Cruz, Remarks at the Senate Judiciary Committee Executive Business Meeting, Markup of the JCPA (Sept. 22, 2022).

[2] Miami Herald Pub. Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241, 249-250.

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‘Recognition Should Emit Emotion’; Cristaux’s Samantha Hausen Talks Trophy Trends

by CODiE AwardsDEIMedia

There are few events where smiles are unanimous—ice skating and charades perhaps. Another one is an awards showcase, the kind that SIIA held last month at the legendary Tabard Inn in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the presentation of our inaugural IMPACT Awards. A big reason for the smiles is the beautiful trophies you see here. In this Q&A, we ask the trophy maker’s marketing manager about industry trends.

“Something that we pride ourselves in is that recognition should emit emotion, and it should be something unique and modernized. And we’re trying to shed the weight of how the world used to be where it was like a wood plaque or an acrylic square, or you name it. And so we truly find unique ways of matching materials together for maximizing on whatever it is that somebody would like to see be put into the hands of the recipients.”

That quote comes from Samantha Hausen, marketing operations manager for Cristaux Awards, a trophy/awards company that has worked with SIIA for years—especially for the CODiES—and creator of the trophies for our inaugural IMPACT Awards this year (shown here with the winners).

The IMPACT Awards provide an extension of SIIA’s continuing commitment to support members in achieving better outcomes in diversity, equity and inclusion and to spotlight and develop outstanding young professionals across the publishing industry. And a big reason for those smiles is the trophy that each person proudly holds.

“Awards are very singular,” Hausen said. “We try to stay very—I don’t even know the word I’m looking for here is—but it’s on a grand scale. Recognition touches so many different parts of that space.”

Ronn: Can you talk about your process a bit?
Samantha: We’ll walk through people’s processes and suggest the best way to work with them in their program. And what’s unique is that we have a team that is able to share their knowledge on many aspects of a design to complete a vision. So we really take pride in teaching and informing in that sense to offer tons of different solutions… And within our creative designing phase, we have what we call our industry experts. They’re engineers in their space, where they understand material weight, space. How it can it be digitally printed, etc.

What are a couple trends you’ve seen over the last year or so?
Samantha: Materials have become [more] unique, and a lot of people are stepping into the 3D printing space. You can practically create any singular type of design that you want, any object. And so we’ve come up with some four-foot tall pieces to something that’s really abstract. People are expanding their minds to, “I want to do something with eco-friendly materials,” or “I want to do something that really showcases my brand with some bright colors instead of a wood plaque.” So that’s becoming more of the center focus—the brand storytelling. Also, the PMS color matching is huge. A lot of clients come to us and say, “I want to infuse this type of orange,” but it has to be the specific numbering for that. So you dream it, and we do it somehow.

Brand storytelling seems to be everywhere now.
Samantha: Yes, that has become a big, big trend. People want to embed their logos but in a way where they can create something unique. Like the actual piece becomes a logo itself. Functional awards are becoming big, too—things that can be used long term. So we’ve seen things where maybe it’s an employee recognition program, and you have certain magnets that are given for service. Whether it’s five years, 10 years, and then people collect those, and they could put it on, some sort of piece that’s been designed for the brand. There’s a few of them that build puzzle pieces over the years that you can collect. So these functional awards don’t just sit on your desk and look nice. They’re things that you can interact with.

What if people want additional awards?
Samantha: We run something called microsites, where recipients can go back and order extra awards—for the rest of their team or for additional partners or anybody who is involved in. We also offer inventory management, which is huge… We try to help make sure a program is running, and that they’re in the hands of your recipients when you want them… We actually had something in place before COVID called Drop Shipping, where we can send directly to somebody’s doorstep, and it’s a process that we’ve evolved over the years.

Was the DEI angle one reason you got involved with the IMPACT Awards?
Samantha: Absolutely. We’re definitely seeing more of those, and we’re actually a part of a DOBE [Disability-owned Business Enterprise] network [as well as the Disability Inclusion Network]. So we’re certified as a disability business. We’re seeing the diversity index [rise], and even just supplier diversity becoming a huge thing. Anything that’s a women-run business [is huge now]. It’s cool to see that things are ever evolving in that sense where we’re not just praising the companies for the money they make. There are so many different companies out there that are running some diverse recognition programs. And we’re thrilled to be a big part of those.

Thank you, Samantha.

 

‘Our Leadership Sets the Tone’; American Chemical Society’s Inclusivity Guide Shows Winning Ways

by DEIMediaUncategorized

In the first of a series on our 10 IMPACT Award winners, Sabrina Ashwell from American Chemical Society talks about their ground-breaking guide.

From December 2021 through August 2022, the ACS [American Chemical Society] Inclusivity Style Guide had 4,174 unique visitors and a total of 5,583 visits (excluding ACS employees)—illustrating the demand for these types of efforts.

“Working on this guide and leading the team was a great opportunity for me to meet people beyond my group of Chemical & Engineering News and beyond my division,” said Sabrina Ashwell, senior copyeditor for American Chemical Society, speaking of their ACS Inclusivity Style Guide—an Equity Team Award winner in our Inaugural 2022 IMPACT Awards.

“I really enjoyed making connections to other parts of the organization. There is a group of staff called the Council for DEIR, and that’s made up of different people throughout the organizations, and we met with them to talk about the guidelines. So I think it has brought people together and encouraged more collaboration and encouraging people to get feedback from others about how they’re communicating.”

Talk about your win-win-win initiatives. The ACS Inclusivity Style Guide offers researched advice on inclusive communication, including language and images and the accessibility of content. It aims to help people ensure their messages treat everyone with respect and avoid alienating or excluding people. There are examples of recommendations in practice, many coming from science publications.

Most importantly, the guide is freely accessible, inside or outside of ACS. And this is a living guide, meaning it may be frequently updated so that it remains relevant and accurate. I spoke with Ashwell more about the guide.

Ronn: ACS is known for taking the lead in so many innovative ways. Can you describe the culture that makes this possible?
Sabrina (pictured at our awards ceremony): I think our leadership sets the tone and does so intentionally. For example, one of our core values is diversity, equity, inclusion, and respect. And one of our strategic goals is to embrace and advance inclusion in chemistry. So that sets the tone that this is something that is expected. I led a great team of people to create the guide, and I was supported by multiple leaders, not only of the division and [the DEIR] office, but the head of C&EN and my direct supervisor. They also gave me all the time that I needed.

How did you decide what is correct? Was it by majority or by going to people of that community? How did that work?
Sabrina: It was really important to do research and listen to the people who were going to be described by the guidelines. So we [consulted] the Asian American Journalists Association, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic journalists, and the Native American Journalists Association. We went to groups that had existing guides and also groups beyond journalism—but groups that had media guides like the GLAAD media reference guide as one. And there were several others. So looking, doing research to see how people are asking us to refer to them. Sometimes it’s a judgment call, even if you do all this reading, and you try to get a sense of what people prefer. It’s important to recognize that not everyone in a group is going to agree on the language to use it. An example is whether to capitalize White. (They do.)

Does the Guide take in these types of discussions?
Sabrina: When there are differing opinions, we try to present both sides, and that’s why we have a background section. We’ll give our reasoning for why we made a certain recommendation. But the background is also there in case people want to have a different need, or to understand why we made a decision. We do make our history of changes transparent, and that is to allow people to see that this is a living guide, and that language is evolving, and that the guidelines will change over time in terms of specific guidelines that have changed.

Did you ever get together in person?
Sabrina: It was all remote. We coordinated via virtual meetings and through collaborative documents like Google Docs to write our drafts and provide comments and using Slack as a way to communicate as well. So the remote collaboration worked very well for us,

Can you describe the process you went through?
Sabrina: We first met as a team in late May [2021] and had a first draft by Sept. 30. We started sharing it with the staff and volunteer leaders in December. So it was a pretty fast timeline, and we did a major update earlier this year, where we added a new section and several entries, and we have been making more minor updates throughout the year, and then we’ll have another major one by the end of this year,

Last question. Is there a forum for people to say, “Hey, I’m hearing something different now; we may need to change this”?
Sabrina: We set a timeline for when we’re going to do reviews—and then do a formal review at least three times a year. And those [key] the big major changes that we’ll make throughout the year. We also get feedback through the email address, or just by any other means of email or Slack. And so we have the opportunity to make updates at other points. But the three times a year are when we can continue the process of writing new sections and getting it reviewed by our Council.

Again, here’s the link.