Integrate your new- and old-media groups

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, March 1, 1998 by Barbara Love

The first new-media mistake IDG made was to create a separate new-media group, said Kelly Conlin, president of IDG Communications, at an American Business Press gathering. "We thought, `This is new media. We need some experts. We have to get these young Turks and tell them, You invent the future for us.' That was a significant mistake and set us back some time." The problem, he said, was that as soon as one group was defined as the new-media group, the rest of the company -- which makes all the revenue and profits -- began describing itself as the old-media group.

Tension inevitably developed. "It took us a while to realize that it really is important to organize your Web efforts around the customer -- the reader," Conlin said. "If you disconnect how you're serving readers in print and online by segmenting these teams, you not only have an immediate human-resources problem, but ultimately a problem with readership. The discrepancy seeps into what you do." Conlin stressed that integration has been the focus of IDG's efforts over the last year. A reporter who writes a story is not responsible just for the 600 or 900 words for that week's issue, but for a package to make the reader smart about that topic. "You are limited in space in the magazine, but not on the Web," Conlin said. "The reporter is responsible for coming up with the most intelligent links, the most intelligent resources, the most intelligent package of information on that particular topic for that week."