Neals

Neal Awards Finalists Show Heavy Mettle Taking on Vital and Topical Issues

by MediaNeal Awards

One aspect that you notice quickly when looking at the 2023 Neal Awards finalists is that they take on very topical—and often not easy—subjects. I recently learned firsthand a couple lessons about accommodating people with accessibility issues, so it was great to see that an issue of IEEE Spectrum titled Nothing About Us Without Us was chosen as a Neal Awards finalist in the Best DEI Coverage category.

Nothing About Us Without Us comes from one of the rallying cries of the disabled community. “Assistive technologies are often designed without involving the people these technologies are supposed to help. That needs to change,” writes Harry Goldstein, acting editor-in-chief, IEEE Spectrum, in a preview of the issue and the article titled The Bionic-Hand Arms Race by Britt Young (pictured here from the issue’s cover).

(Goldstein and executive editor Jean Kumagai will present at our in-person Editorial Council Meeting at the Marriott Marquis in New York on the morning of the Neal Awards, April 21. Register here.)

“Young, who is working on a book about the prosthetics industry, was in the first cohort of toddlers fitted with a myoelectric prosthetic hand, which users control by tensing and relaxing their muscles against sensors inside the device’s socket,” Goldstein writes.

“IEEE Spectrum has covered many of these developments over the decades, but generally speaking it has involved able-bodied journalists writing about assistive technology… We are fortunate now to have the chance to break that pattern, thanks to a grant from the IEEE Foundation and the Jon C. Taenzer Memorial Fund. With the grant, Spectrum is launching a multiyear fellowship program for disabled writers.”

Kudos to Goldstein, Kumagai and IEEE Spectrum for this initiative. Here are four other Neal Awards finalists covering age, underrepresented communities of color, health law and post-Roe maternal health, respectively. The Neal Awards ceremony is close to being a sellout, so please register now to attend.

No re-tire-ment here. “A few months shy of his 93rd birthday, Bob Dunlap has no plans to retire. He says he’d be happy to spend his final moments on this Earth behind his wooden desk, gnawing on a cigar, crunching numbers and serving as chairman and CEO of Dunlap & Kyle Co. Inc.” That’s the start of a Neal Awards finalist article for Best Profile from Endeavor Business Media’s Modern Tire Dealer by Joy Kopcha. In 2021, Dunlap & Kyle surpassed $1 billion in sales, so Dunlap knows where he treads. Diversity comes in many forms today; often in photos age might be the underrepresented group. This article shows Dunlap great respect. “’We have a lot of charities,’ says Bob Dunlap, who has been recognized for his generosity. ‘The more of them you help and the more money you pay employees, the more money you’re going to make. People miss out on that.’”

Tech talk—and action. Another Neal Awards finalist profile comes from Foundry’s CIO, written by Sarah K. White. It focuses on DevColor, a fledgling career accelerator for Black technologists, and its CEO Rhonda Allen (pictured). “’Before DevColor I attended infrequent tech meetup events, typically with few Black people present,’” White writes about Brian Mariner. “’After a meetup, nothing kept me coming back to continue the dialogue,’ he says. At DevColor, and in the A* program in particular, Mariner was finally able to be in a room ‘surrounded by software industry peers’ and have the experience of ‘not being the other’ in the room.” DevColor’s State of Tech report found that 50% of Black tech workers don’t feel comfortable speaking up about inequities at work because it is “too risky for their career,” White reports. She navigates a tough subject with grace and solid reporting.

A podcast with impact. 2022 SIIA IMPACT Award winner Matt Ausloos finds himself a 2023 Neal Awards finalist for American Health Law Association’s Speaking of Health Law podcasts. Ausloos transformed a podcast which produced only 17 episodes in FY 2019 into a “robust content offering that releases two episodes per week on a regular schedule, totaling over 100 episodes in FY 2022, and driving thousands of dollars in podcast sponsorship revenue.” As producer, he does all the technical details, working with colleagues and myriad speakers to curate, record and edit high-quality content for a significant following. The podcasts vary in length from 25-45 minutes, based on the conversation. “I almost never edit the podcast for time because, to be frank, I don’t want to butcher the audio and make it sound unscripted,” Ausloos told me. “If people are listening and they’re ready to tune out, they’ll tune out anyway. But I like to just let the conversation go to its natural conclusion.”

Taking on a tough subject. Another Neal Awards podcast finalist is Podnosis from Questex’s Fierce Healthcare. I like the way they present it—starting with a descriptive headline: “Podnosis celebrates International Women’s Day: Post-Roe maternal health, and spurring diversity in healthcare leadership.” Next is a caption for the episode: “As of Jan. 9, 2023, 12 states are enforcing a near-total ban on abortion with very limited exceptions, but the U.S. already faces a maternal health crisis, faring worse in preventing pregnancy-related deaths than most other developed nations.” That leads into an intro for the guest—“Fierce’s Heather Landi spoke with Laurie Zephyrin, M.D., an OB-GYN specialist and health equity leader with the Commonwealth Fund, about the ripple effect of abortion bans. Then come eight links to learn more about the subject. The episode is sponsored by Unite Us. It’s a robust content offering.

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Talent and Audience Data Driving Strategy, Survey of B2B Publishers Reveals

by Media

Asked where they see the most potential for growth in the next three years, B2B publishers placed lead generation first (28%), followed by events (22%), sponsorships (20%) and subscriptions (17%). The results come from UK’s Association of Online Publishers (AOP) in a report titled Digital Publishing: Outlook and Priorities for 2023.

Display advertising came in at just 9% of expected revenues in the AOP report while audio/podcasts/internet radio came in at just 2%. Wow. Monetizing podcasts is not going well in UK B2B. “The survey responses suggest progress in terms of preparing for the deprecation of the third-party cookies with publishers focused on their first-party data,” the report states.

More than ever, revenue diversification stands out as a primary goal for most media companies today. While the channels exist—events, podcasts, webinars, subscriptions, video, advertising, content studios, social media—finding the path forward takes effort and commitment.

“We built EBM with the idea that it would be resilient,” Chris Ferrell, CEO of Endeavor Business Media, told us late last year. “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.”

UK’s Future plc created a Future Wheel, made up of different monetization streams—print, advertising, video production, e-commerce. The wheel ensures that no one monetization model is dominant and has led to a stronger business model as market changes in one area have less of an impact on the whole.

Tara Lajumoke, managing director at FT Strategies, advised media leaders last year that long-term success required “multiple resilient revenue streams.” But she added that diversifying channels of revenue can be important as well—in other words, creating products or events for the different audiences that you have.

Here are four more findings from that AOP report:

Talent wins out. Publishers were asked, “Thinking about your strategic decisions, how important are the following organizational priorities to your business?” Interestingly, first was recruiting and retaining new talent. Next came ensuring a diverse and inclusive workplace followed by developing new revenue streams through product innovation. Close behind were sustainability, data privacy compliance and reviewing your tech stack.

LinkedIn still in front. Which off-platforms are you investing in to drive content discovery? Forty-four percent of B2B publishers said LinkedIn, followed by Twitter at 19% and Instagram at 15%. (I think Instagram is the platform to keep an eye on.) “Revenue growth is dependent on audience growth and so we wanted to understand where publishers were investing off-platform to drive content discovery.”

Data driving strategy. [Almost 80%] of the publisher respondents “claim to be fully aligned as an organization to ensuring that their audience data drives strategy across their business, or to be investing in tools to enable them to do this.” While 23% are focused on improving the engagement funnel, there‘s a range of strategies being pursued by publishers to leverage the value of first-party data and their knowledge of their audiences—including shifting to engagement and attention metrics, and seller-defined audiences.

Sustainability leading to (some) more action. Publishers were asked how they’re responding to global challenges such as climate and the environment. Almost half chose, “We are considering how we respond to calls for businesses to take action to achieve ESG [Environmental, Social, Governance] targets and expect to put them in place in the next few months.” A third said they have published a plan of intent and are taking action, while 20% said they are still formulating an organizational plan. Much of the motivation for emphasizing ESG comes from employees, while 58% agree that “advertisers and agencies expect them to be developing and implementing a policy to meet ESG goals.” Three-fourths of respondents said that they were focused on reducing the carbon footprint of their organization as a whole.

You can download the report here.

 

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SIIA Letter on Minnesota Age-Appropriate Design Code Act

by Policy

Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) writes today about the language in the Senate Commerce Finance omnibus bill establishing the Minnesota Age-Appropriate Design Code Act. We appreciate the intent of sponsors to enact policies that protect Minnesotans, especially children and teenagers but are concerned how the bill may impact Minnesota schools and, more broadly, the rights of minors in the state. We are hopeful that policymakers will continue to work to refine language, so all rights of Minnesota children are protected.

We acknowledge and support the broad agreement by state and federal lawmakers about the need to protect children’s privacy and safety. We agree that establishing legal guardrails for businesses is important work. We caution, however, that without a careful approach to balance all the rights afforded to Minnesotans some will be left behind.

Read Full Letter Here
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SIIA Comments on Department of Education’s Dear Colleague Letter

by Policy
On behalf of the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), I write to comment on the Department of Education’s Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) on the Requirements and Responsibilities for Third-Party Servicers and Institutions, written on February 16, 2023, and updated on February 28, 2023. SIIA understands the importance of ED’s Title IV oversight role and appreciates the opportunity to respond to the DCL. On behalf of the members of our association, we submit to the Department of Education (ED) to withdraw the current DCL guidance in GEN-23-03 for the following reasons:

1) The definition of Third-Party Servicers (TPS) is overbroad;

2) The limitation on institutions of higher education (IHEs) contracting with a foreign entity will hurt students and the education technology industry;

3) The guidance will unduly burden institutions of higher education and ed tech providers.

The US is a leader in technology innovation across the globe. With this guidance, ED had the opportunity to create an innovative process that truly protects the rights, privacy, and safety of learners while also embracing the diversity of the ed tech field, and creating a competitive advantage with responsible compliance with the requirements of Title IV. However, we believe this guidance not only failed to accomplish ED’s objectives, it will very likely undermine them. In summary, we recommend ED to do the following:

1) Withdraw the DCL and revert the definition of TPS to previous guidance;

2) Eliminate the ban and limitations on IHEs contracting with foreign entities.

Read Full Letter Here
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SIIA Policy Members Make Commitments Ahead of the Summit for Democracy

by Policy

The world of technology is constantly changing and evolving, and it’s essential that we have organizations committed to advancing responsible and ethical practices in this field. In the run-up to the Summit for Democracy, the U.S. government issued a Call to Advance Democracy.  The call focused on four areas aligned with the Presidential Initiative on Democratic Renewal:  advancing technology for democracy; fighting corruption; protecting civic space and human rights defenders; and advancing labor rights. Several of our members have made significant commitments:

  • Amazon, Refinitiv, and RELX will join the Global Initiative to Galvanize the Private Sector as Partners in Combating Corruption. This initiative aims to promote transparency and accountability and identify private sector practices to combat corruption. It is essential for major companies to take a stand against corruption and work towards creating a more ethical business environment.
  • Google committed $2 million and 100,000 security keys to support human rights defenders. The funds will go to support digital security and safety helplines. It is critical that companies like Google use their resources to support individuals and organizations working to advance human rights around the world.
  • Meta added a new feature to allow users to connect to WhatsApp’s IM and VOIP by proxy when the internet is disrupted or blocked. This feature ensures secure communications and protects the right to privacy of users. Meta’s commitment to expanding features that safeguard user privacy is commendable and essential in today’s digital landscape.

These developments highlight the importance of public-private partnerships in upholding democratic values and advancing responsible and ethical practices. The private sector has a critical role to play in creating a more just and equitable world, and it is assuring to see SIIA members take steps towards this goal.