Another challenge is a range of new, disruptive services that deliver content as part of a service, each providing data that can be used in many different ways. Each creates value across multiple touch points across an institution. Some examples include The Mobile Learner's Library from Pearson

Kortext - beyond content, it's a collaboration and analytics tool

Article Galaxy Widget

How do we as a community engage with multiple open sources. Some interesting examples are Open Stack Space. Funded by a number of foundations. It provides student access to peer reviewed text books. This year alone they serviced 200,000 students and claim $25million savings. Lumen's mission is to provide open education resources to eliminate textbook costs. 4.9 million resources are downloaded each week from Tes. They recently hired a former ebay contact and have created a marketplace for teachers. It is a significant platform for open educational resources. When you combine with the challenge to the budget, this is a significant game-changer.

What does the collective licensing and streaming of content mean for collective licensing organizations. Netflix, Spotify, EPIC! are all subscription services that have potential to disrupt. They all have a growing catalogue of content which is presented at a granular level. Royalties are linked at this level with micro payment system. Every content industry engaging with these services has had to have a serious rethink about their business model.

Jan is the facilitator for the Digital Strategy Think Tank, an ALPSP workshop produced in collaboration with Librios to be held in London on Tuesday 2 December 2014. Book your place now.

Alastair Horne is Social Media and Communities Manager for ELT at Cambridge University Press. Here, in a guest post, he reflects on the changing skill set of the wider publishing sector, as Creative Skillset calls for final contributions to their industry panels. 

New roles have also grown up in the hinterland between publishers and developers. 

Many of the new roles are already in place at more forward-thinking publishers.

The most wide-ranging change will be amongst those employees whose job titles won’t change.

Chesser went on to observe that based on this criteria he would grade the least successful approach as straight B2C. Rental is next, but beware that students have reacted negatively to this. The print + electronic model (from 10 years ago?) is next, BUT as publishers didn’t charge extra they were effectively telling the market that the value of digital is zero.

Selling one chapter at a time is more successful– not reconfiguring products. However, in most textbooks, the chapter isn’t as much of a standalone product as you might hope. At the other, more successful end of the spectrum, hardware is pre-loaded with digital textbooks. There is a curriculum sale or tuition-inclusive with a school-wide programme. This is the most successful model at the moment.

When they surveyed students who had actually tried both, if price and availability are the same, 47% said they would take the e-textbook, 35% said they would take both, and 18% print only. The market is potentially sizeable, but publisher content is not always available or optimised to deliver in a contextualised or consumer friendly way. 

Charlie Rapple from TBI Communications - who wins the prize for best slide of the conference - provided a wake-up call for those who won't rethink their content strategy in light of new digital technologies. Content still tends to be long form, text based and not very dynamic. As an industry we've got into the mindset of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

Slide of the conference: denial-o-saurs

But are users happy? What they want is changing, but we’re not really recognising and responding to this. One reason is that we haven’t evolved our product or service to the extent to which they have evolved. The risk is that we will lose market share to disruptor players. Does that mean that as an industry we are denial-o-saurs?

We need to consider how long we can win the battle of mind share. We need to win our users back and get better at meeting user needs by reconnecting, re-engaging, and rebuilding relationships with readers and stakeholders. The transition to online wasn't a revolution, but mobile and social may well be. So let's go back to basic principles - the audience and their need - to direct strategy and rethink core value proposition. We need to make better use of mobile technology.

Howard Rheingold in his book Smart Mobs claimed that mobile technology is “not just a way to do old things while moving... a way to do things that couldn’t be done before.”

We should think about what we can gain from deconstructing the article in terms of information and workflow. There is potential to meet reader/customer needs in the right place, at the right time with interactive, relevant and friction-free content. Charlie has a simple equation to work to:


What she wants - and is starting - to see is user experience being less passive with a better sense of how it is contributing to their work and therefore the value. Mobile is really contributing to this. For publishers, the key is to get close enough to users to understand and get to know audiences. It doesn't have to be difficult or expensive: you can do desk research, analyse data - you don't need a huge budget. Having a crack in-house is better than not doing anything. An initial bit of work will help you really articulate the questions you need answers to.

You can combine general information from desk research with more focused research you do yourself. Take the general information (e.g. smart phone take-up) with own (user analysis of device type) and also ask really specific questions (e.g. problems that preclude smart phone use: security, confidentiality, connectivity?) Then compare the reality of what is happening with your site and your users to compare perception versus actual behaviour. Consider user observation and it is useful to probe and explore in more detail initial findings of your survey.

Citing an example from one of TBI's recent clients, one interesting finding from this approach was that as much use of professional information happens outside work while commuting or at home. This had implications for the structure and presentation of content with unexpected insights and inspiration. For example, expect the previously unexpected: medics can now use mobiles in the air in the US. This resulted in a medical app being used to save a life on a plane.

Nick Bilton in his latest book I Live in the Future & Here’s How it Works suggests we need to make time and space to make innovation happen. Another contemporary theorist, Steven Johnson talks about the “collision of slow hunches”. It's about focusing your efforts, setting and prioritising objectives, as well as embracing and planning for change. Move away from thinking about content to thinking about customers and it will have an impact on every department.

Rapple's vision comprises a roadmap:

1. audience research and segmentation
2. brainstorm problems and solutions
3. prioritise audiences and objectives
4. prepare staff and processes for change.

Despite having to follow the awesome denial-o-saurs, Tom Reding from BBC Worldwide charmed and informed the audience in equal measure with multi-media highlights from key BBC brands (Top Gear and Doctor Who anyone?) as well as some fabulous merchandise giveaways. His was a view from outside of the scholarly publishing industry, one that could provide fresh insight or some new ideas.

BBC Worldwide drives revenue to go back into creative sector and BBC.com has over 50 million users a month. Digital is important because it’s about the money. New revenue streams are driven through new digital channels, new production and cost savings. Digital also opens up new markets. It gives them a closer relationship with audience and engages fans across platforms. But one of the biggest reasons they focus on digital is to stay relevant.

Their teenage audience watch their content exclusively online so they need to unlock that content and seek new value. Areas to consider are:

• the business of free
• getting closer to your users
• new partnerships
• gamification and serious games (new trend)

In one of the more interesting comparisons of the day Redin observed that the cross-platform chunked up and down content for Top Gear isn't too disimilar to what you can do with an article. He advised us to step away from our content. We’re in the business of insight NOT journals. Remember that mobile users are more willing to pay for services than desktop users as they value convenience and immediacy.

A move to digital means more than re-versioning. Sweat your assets, distribute as far as you can, but get to the core of your offer which is insight. Explore new media platforms. Think about the business of free: with marginal cost of production and market factors pushing to ‘free’ can you adopt the free + premium = freemium model? If you scrutinise your sales, you’ll likely find you make your money from 10-20% of your audience. For BBC Worldwide, the rest get it free. It's a classic Pareto Principle model. So consider if freemium will work for you.

He suggested that with a large adddressable audience (250k knowledge workers) and a free version with clear value (the abstract), a premium offer with added value using user analytics (build or partner) and an optimised conversion funnel (build or partner) can demonstrate your confidence in your product.

If 13% of paying users are providing 51% of revenue, create products that cater to this audience and allows them to spend their money. Closing insights included:

• dig deep beneath the Google analytics as they are a free and powerful way to inform your marketing budget
• measure results and iterate
• try things out e.g. work with companies such as Semantico, Mendeley etc
• content still remains king - make the best content and you will get the best users
• look at gamification: take a gaming approach and apply it to none-game situations e.g. FoldIt - Solve Puzzles for Science.