Content Matters

The past few days at the Buying and Selling eContent conference were a mix of good and bad. 

BSEC, known for good networking and an inconsistent program, lived up to its reputation.  The turnout was strong and the climate encouraged networking.  The program itself was mixed, with a few strong speakers and panels combined with some that just didn’t make much sense or big-name speakers like Esther Dyson, who either didn't know the market or simply was disinterested.

The audience, too, was mixed.  Like the speakers, there were a handful of attendees who seemed closely attuned to the convergence of technology and content, and were actually putting to use some of the new tools and approaches.  On the other end of the spectrum, there were some speakers and attendees who seemed to have ignored all the advances of the past three to four years.  The majority of the attendees were somewhere in the middle.  The good news is that, unlike past years, the absolute fear of Google seemed to be diminishing.  Instead of “will Google take away my business”, they were asking “how do I play well with Google” and “what happens if Google doesn’t play nicely with me”?

For most, Tim O’Reilly’s keynote was the high point of the program.  Unlike analysts and pundits, O’Reilly is one of the few visionaries in this industry who has put his concepts into practice.  Other speakers from the vendor community, such as Ross Mayfield at SocialText and R.J. Pittman of Groxis, clearly were showing Web 2.0 capabilities, but their showcase clients were mostly in the consumer not b2b community.

The second day keynoter, Y.S. Chi, Vice Chair at Elsevier, showed there is hope for this industry.  While the model of publisher that he described, serving as market maker (“to know and honor customer needs”) might not sound earth shattering, it’s a message that you’d never have heard from a company like Elsevier in the past.  It’s clear that Y.S.’s vision for Elsevier is for a company attuned to its customer needs and one that comprehends that it needs to add value to its content, rather than simply hide it behind an exclusive wall. 

The final panel of the conference was a wrap-up, with a mix of panelists including Rafat Ali, Michele Manafy, David Seuss, Marydee Ojala and others.  Rafat seemed disappointed by what he’d heard during the two-day conference.  As compared to the media markets he normally follows, this segment remains risk-averse and unaware.  David Seuss attempted to provoke controversy, suggesting that all the attention on Google made no sense, and that intertwining premium content with free Google results would simply devalue the premium content.  While David was being intentionally provocative, his statements could have begun an interesting debate had there been more than 60-70 attendees left at that time.  In my opinion, premium content providers must have a Google strategy, but that strategy should be more than simply good SEO and SEM.  We all need to work well with Google (Yahoo and MSN as well), to gain exposure beyond those core users who know us.  At the same time, premium content providers need to add greater value through metadata, tools, information presentation and analysis.

In closing, BSEC is a good conference, but it could be a great one.  The venue draws a strong group of attendees, so it’s a very good business development and networking opportunity.  There are some terrific speakers and panelists, but the inconsistency of the program is frustrating.  I think that there are three things that could be done to improve next year’s conference:
1. Set a few themes up front, then make sure that those themes run through all the panels
2. Vet the speakers more closely to make sure that their experiences are relevant to those themes.  The bigger names don’t always make for the best panelists.
3. Provide some introductory material to level-set the audience.  Some of the questions that came up (“what’s the long tail”?) could have been addressed early on, so that everyone was on the same page.

Were you at BSEC?  What do you think?  Please click Comments to add your thoughts or
For further thoughts on BSEC, check the following blogs:

John Blossom’s live blogging
David Scott’s WebInkNow
Steve Goldstein’s AlacraBlog
Shannon Holman’s If You See Something, Say Something
PaidContent
Larry Schwartz at Newstex
Ross Mayfield’s weblog
Dale Wolf’s Context Rules Marketing

BSEC Panel: The Quest to Know Your Customers

Depending upon how you look at it, Hal Espo had either the easiest or most difficult moderator role of the conference.
The last panel before lunch included three speakers, each with a strong combination of personality and insights.  John Blossom began the levity with the comment that "It's good to be in the position that I can't ask any questions".

John Blossom led off with a summary of a custom study that Shore had recently performed for Hoovers, looking at purchasing patterns of premium business information.   The study showed that, even for large companies, a significant amount of content is being purchased at the department and workgroup level.  In fact, 49% of purchases at large organizations were made via credit card. 
The study asked which types of content were most frequently used; web, news and other free content came out on top.  When the question was flipped to ask which were the most important sources of business information, market research and subscription databases were at the top.
John’s takeaways from the study are that there remains a strong demand for premium business information, that ease of use and access is key, and that publishers must sell to individuals, departments and institutions.

Lou Celi, of the Economist Intelligence Unit, walked us through a quick history of electronic content at the EIU.  He broke it into three phases:
During the 1980’s, it was selling “old wine in new bottles”, repackaging existing Economist content for delivery through LexisNexis, Dialog, MAID and others.
In the mid-90’s, that changed to “new wine in new bottles”, where content was developed specifically for the e-user.
More recently, Lou indicates that the business had moved “outside the bottle”, where they are a full e-business, integrating content directly within customer portals and applications, doing custom research and putting on conferences.  It has changed their entire business model.  While they still sell subscriptions and pay-per-view documents, they also offer flexible enterprise licensing as well as sponsorship for “thought leadership” events.