BIMS20223ceoPANEL

AI, Remote First, Office Turned ‘Studio’ and Talent Take Center Stage in BIMS CEO Panel

by Media

“Audiences are now engaging with us 365 days a year, listening to a podcast, reading a newsletter, watching a webinar or something on demand. We’re embracing those opportunities.” GovExec CEO Tim Hartman and four other major media company CEOs laid out a 2023 blueprint, kicking off the first in-person BIMS since 2019, and definitely one for the—new—ages.

While the disruption caused by Covid and other societal forces led off Thursday’s Business Information & Media Summit opening CEO panel—“That’s a nice, easy question,” Endeavor Business Media CEO Chris Ferrell (seated far right) joked when asked about the future that lies ahead—it did not take long for the next big disruption to assume center stage.

But what’s most interesting is how panelists tied artificial intelligence to talent and growth.

“Peter [Goldstone, chairman of GovExec] and I and our board are hyper-planners; we think critically about the businesses we’re buying,” Hartman (second from right), GovExec CEO, said just a few minutes in. “Of the acquisitions we’ve made recently, 9 out of 10 operators have stayed with us. That person is usually very additive to our business in terms of talent. Our integration is off and running on day 1. We have a champion in that founder.

“The talent equation has been transformative for us. ChatGPT is the most disruptive [element] in my lifetime. Worrying about this, I thought who can I talk to that would really have a good strategy? [Most of] those founders are tech people; that’s where talent can really move the dial.” And that’s where Hartman turned.

“Just by communicating with those leadership teams,” he was able to get a good read on this new media order. “Move towards chat-based communication interfaces,” he advised. “Users will drive it faster than you think.”

To simply say that BIMS is back serves as an understatement to the 150-plus attendees in Orlando last week. BIMS set a new agenda.

Tim Andrews (center), CEO of Advertising Specialty Institute, wanted to know who else in his company was “playing with” AI. “’Let’s talk,’” he said in an internal email. “I got 20 emails back from people playing with it on their own time, 2/3 tech people. I was amazed by how much feedback I got… It’s scary how much better it generated leads than our internally written material.”

That led into a discussion of talent. Elizabeth Green (far left), CEO of Brief Media, a publisher in the veterinary space, spoke how being able to work remotely has given them a great opportunity to hire people beyond their Tulsa environs.

The unified commitment to remote work from the panelists opened up the question about the function of offices moving forward.

“We keep rethinking, ‘how do we use our physical space? What moments do we need to be together?’” Gemma Postlethwaite, CEO of Arizent, said. “So we replaced ‘office’ with ‘studio’ as a destination for clients to make meaningful connections. What are those meaningful connections? We’re challenging team leaders on how we are going to develop our talent”—especially when it comes to strategic planning and responding to ChatGPT.

“Let’s get everyone on to talk about it. Hybrid doesn’t work in my opinion; it goes back to that [idea of] second-class citizen,” where there might be advantages for those in the office. ”What are the meaningful ways to bring people together, to create innovation.”

While she’s “amazed by how much culture can be built around Zoom,” Postlethwaite does worry about the learning curves for her younger staff people. “How can they learn about the people they’re working with?”

“We’re in the office one day a week,” Andrews said. “I’m more interested right now in how we can better leverage Zoom with our customers? Incorporating it with a customer-service perspective.”

“We went fully remote during Covid, and we’re not going back,” Hartman said. “Gemma’s ‘studio’ is a great idea.”

“We have [staff] in 40 states,” Ferrell said. “We were a third remote before the pandemic, and now we’re 75%. We’re subleasing space and downsizing as leases come up. It’s changed the way I work.” He has two chairs—one gives him access to remote meetings. That’s now the one he sits in most of the day. Being remote “lets me participate in a lot more meetings; we have a Weekly Coffee With Chris for 10 or 12 employees who I usually don’t get to talk to and hear their concerns, what’s going well. We’re not going back.”

Green agreed that there is no going back, in many ways. “I don’t think the disruption is over,” she said. “We’ve seen new technologies. AI is not just changing what’s happening in the media, but in markets. We’re seeing veterinary disruptions in our market.”

“We’ll never have that stability again,” Andrews added.

“Everybody in this room is positioned well,” said Hartman. “Thinking back to 10 years ago, [the situation] was much more harrowing,” with data and digital transformation looming. “Look at the growth now, and you’re seeing a much healthier industry. Covid accelerated that and the thinking about what the new business would be. There will be a lot of risks and opportunities for everyone in this room. Follow where the customer is going.”

“It’s hard to be a small company in this space,” said Ferrell, who along with Hartman has overseen the most acquisitions over the last couple years. “Companies in this room have scale for multiple revenue streams. Our clients want us to do more than be a media company—lead gen, data, marketing. It’s more effective to pull small companies together into a whole. We are ruthless about migrating [our acquisitions] to our platforms—and onboarding them. We even built a platform to manage internal training and do some external work too. It’s important to have the systems in place to do that.”

More on a much-welcomed BIMS 2023 over the next few weeks.

 

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SIIA Statement on U.S. Innovation, Data, and Commerce Subcommittee Hearing

by PolicyPress Release

This statement can be attributed to Paul Lekas, Senior Vice President for Global Public Policy and Government Affairs of the Software & Information Industry Association:

“SIIA is pleased that the Innovation, Data, and Commerce Subcommittee held a hearing today on the need for a national data privacy law. SIIA continues to advocate for federal privacy legislation that balances legitimate concerns about individual privacy and the need for laws that support innovation and commerce. A federal privacy law that achieves this balance will ensure that consumers and companies alike do not have to navigate a patchwork of individual state privacy laws with different rights and obligations. A uniform privacy law would level the playing field for companies, no matter their size, and support small and medium sized enterprises, who are the backbone of the U.S. economy.

“SIIA urges lawmakers to ensure that enhancing children’s privacy to protect their data is addressed and that any federal privacy bill preserves the ability of American companies and consumers to make productive use of publicly-available information.”

 

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TECH& with Carlton Vreen, SIIA member and Make it Home Safe Founder

by Tech&

Traffic stops are one of the most dangerous functions in police work and can affect the motorist and officer. Make it Home Safe mobile application can decrease the potential for a negative or tragic outcome by using real-time remote identity to increase safety and transparency.

Carlton Vreen, SIIA member and Make it Home Safe Founder, chats with Danny Bounds, SIIA Education Technology Policy Manager, about the mobile app to help create a safer environment for police officers and motorists.

Download the app now. With the help of Make it Home Safe, we can get more people home safe.

Learn More about Make it Home Safe

Watch the full conversation here

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SIIA’s Letter to Secretary Cardona Regarding the Dear Colleague Letter

by Policy

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) has sent the following letter to Secretary Cardona in response to the Dear Colleague Letter issued by the Department of Education (the Department) on February 15, 2023, “Requirements and Responsibilities for Third-Party Servicers (TPS) and Institutions.”

Key takeaways:

  • Due to the widespread consensus of lack of clarity around the scope and significant impact this guidance could have on the education community, we strongly recommend the Department rescind the “effective immediately” nature of the letter, and extend the May 1 reporting deadline and comment period by a minimum of 30 days.
  • The guidance creates a litany of issues and will be extremely burdensome on the education community.
  • Based on our early analysis of the new guidance, the Department’s definition of TPS goes far beyond the commonly understood scope of the term

Read the full letter here

BRAND word in scattered wood letters on the table with glowing light bulb

‘Think Ambitious Experiments and Trust Each Other’; Building a Culture of Innovation Comfort

by Media

Last year I started a column about experimentation by talking about The Museum of Failure where they “aim to stimulate productive discussion about failure and inspire us to take meaningful risks.” This year, I’ve come across something that takes experimentation and failure a step further—the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb, Croatia. What will they think of next?

“‘In the beginning, we were worried we’d just get items from summer flings, but the stories soon went deep,’ [co-founder Olinka] Vistica said,” in a New York Times article about that Museum of Broken Relationships—on Valentines Day, of course. “‘We’ve got items from the Second World War, about terrorism. Some of it’s heavy,’ she added. ‘But life’s heavy.’

“‘Yet it was the museum’s silliest items that seemed to resonate most with visitors,’ [co-founder and Vistica ex] Drazen Grubisic said, including a book called I Can Make You Thin. An Englishwoman sent that in, along with a note that began: ‘This was a present from my ex-fiancé. Need I really continue?’”

In his article for INMA last year—Consider These 6 Factors When Building a Culture of Experimentation in Media Companies—Alexandre Pedroso Cordeiro, product and digital strategy manager for Editora Globo in São Paulo, wrote about aspects that might keep relationships together—business ones that is. Here are a few:

“Most initiatives will fail. Teams should know this and expect it so they don’t get frustrated… The information industry is changing so rapidly and there are so many unknowns. Even the most thoroughly researched product may not gain market traction. The key to developing a humming new product development engine is to be comfortable with risk and to set measurable (and transparent) benchmarks for product success.”

Allow and stimulate a risk-taking environment. “Communicate effectively and regularly with teams so they understand the importance of the experimentation agenda,” writes Pedros Cordeiro. “Create a culture to build trust and collaboration, and breaking down silos…” Tim Hartman, CEO of GovExec and another BIMS 2023 speaker, once told us. “Think ambitious experiments and trust each other. If you look around and don’t see that, you have a problem.” As the director of big-money film projects, Sam Mendes has good reason not to be as tolerant of failure. But in his “safe room,” it’s more about coaxing out great performances. “I will find out what the actors need,” he said. “My language to each of them has to suit their brain.”

Democratize data. “Make sure data in its various formats is accessible at a company-wide level.” At Industry Dive, the audience and marketing team creates actionable dashboards for the editorial team. “This not only helps us measure more of the things that matter to our audience, but it makes it really easy for our editorial team to get actionable insights that they can make decisions on and can really inform what they’re doing,” said Davide Savenije, their editor in chief. Adds BIMS 2023 speaker John McGovern of Grimes, McGovern & Associates: “The value is in the data that these businesses have about their audience and their exhibitors and sponsors and the more that they see themselves as data businesses, the better off they will be.”

Give teams problems to solve, not preconceived assumptions. “What often happens is that leaders provide teams with preconceived assumptions and biased opinions so the team can validate them… If [young people] find a culture that allows them to think about how to solve problems and take risks with autonomy, the results might be worthwhile when it comes to revenue-related and employee satisfaction goals.”

Make it part of the team’s routine. “Tests and experiments must be part of our routines so they turn into a natural habit.” “I tell everybody that works for me that I’d rather have them try and fail than not try,” said Rajeev Kapur, CEO of 1105 Media. “And that I want them to make a decision. We can fix a bad decision; we can’t fix a no-decision. No one will ever get fired for trying something new or for failing at something they tried to do. I reward people who try, people who think outside the box. I am doing everything I can to empower my team all the way down the chain to say, ‘Look, this is what we need to do for the customer.'”

Celebrate small accomplishments. “One of the best ways to empower teams is to recognize progress and results, whether sales increase by 50% or a process is automated with marginal gains.” Morning Brew makes this a habit. “The purpose of the emails [Morning Brew sends] is to acknowledge the reader’s accomplishment, show them how to redeem their reward (if necessary), and to motivate them to hit the next milestone,” said Tyler Denk, formerly of Morning Brew and Google and now CEO and co-founder of beehiiv. Morning Brew calls it “the referral pipeline,” and they want people to climb up it.