Even the Longest Journey Begins with One Step

By Charlene F. Gaynor
CEO, The Association of Educational Publishers

We’re embarking on a journey into your future. Where it starts and ends will be different for each of you. Our itinerary is uncertain, but we can promise you this. There’ll be at least one stop outside your comfort zone.

Let’s start with the familiar. Imagine a book. Inside this book are eight different chapters and within those eight chapters, 600 paragraphs. Within each of those paragraphs are hundreds of ideas or “divisions of thought” (a term you’ll hear more of later). In fact, this one book contains, maybe, thousands of divisions of thought. Whoever buys the book pays for 10,000 divisions of thought, even if he only wants 10 of them. What happens, though, if he could buy those ideas one or two at a time? What does this mean for you as a publisher? Do you own an inventory of books or ideas? Are you a publisher or a broker of thoughts?

Welcome to the digital future.

Consider these findings from the laboratory of life. I have two well-educated, adult children. Neither of them subscribes to a newspaper or a magazine. Neither of them has ever bought an LP record album, and they have not bought an actual music CD or movie DVD since they purchased an iPod. Basic tasks like making restaurant reservations are completed online; they download the menus and e-mail the order in advance. Their lives are built around information on-demand.

I’ve watched their transformation from online-equals-free scavengers to savvy online buyers. They totally get the concept of intellectual property and they’re actually eager to do the right thing. That’s right–they’re willing to pay for content provided they get what they want, how they want it, find it fast and own it yesterday. Is there a lesson for our journey in this empirical evidence? Perhaps it is that transformation is simply that–a collection of baby steps taken over time.

A few months back, as my tenth year at AEP drew to a close, our Board of Directors revisited the organization’s Strategic Plan. Our goal was to define the best ways we as an organization can serve our membership over the next five years. The AEP Board represents a wide cross-section of people, publishers and points of view. Some are very small, traditional print publishers; others are large high-tech companies. So in some ways, it was surprising to hear almost everyone point to the same issue–the transition from print to digital.

Many questions emerged from our discussion.

- How do we know the market is really ready?
- Do we have to change the way we do everything?
- Do we have to redo what we’ve already done?
- What kind of talent do we need to do this?
- How much will it cost?
- How will we make money?

Recognizing that we, as a staff, do not have all the answers, we decided to turn to our membership to help us get started–at the very least to help us define the problem. We brainstormed a list of thought leaders in the industry, whether they were from large corporations or boutique houses, and asked them to write on an assigned topic (or one of their choosing). By no means do we purport that the list is complete. We’ve simply tried to identify some key pieces of the transformation puzzle and show how they fit together. Over the next year, the puzzle will be laid out for you in a series of articles called “Publishing for the Digital Future.”

As the series will indicate, this initiative goes beyond just the articles. What will make these pieces more valuable is the discussion that we hope will follow. To this end, AEP has started a blog specifically for this series where everyone from educators to executives will have a forum to debate, discuss, and hopefully define the future of our industry.

However, the metamorphosis at AEP extends beyond the series of articles to an overhaul of our communication. In the next year, look for a redesigned Web site and another blog documenting AEP’s own struggles with our transition to digital publishing. Our experience I hope can serve as a conduit to the greater experience we all will be undertaking shortly.

Finally, for this project to be effective, it is essential we make the ground rules clear. This is not a one-way street. This is not one person talking. The purpose of this is to get all of you talking. I invite you all to react to this series and respond on our blogs. We are actively seeking your suggestions, support, and opinions. Hold up your hand if you want to be a part of the solution.

As for AEP, our hand is up. Now let’s begin the journey.

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Charlene F. Gaynor is CEO of the Association of Educational Publishers. AEP safeguards the professional and business interests of the country’s leading print and digital supplemental publishers. Supported by over 500 members of all media and sizes, AEP provides the information, training, and outreach necessary to the development of quality K-12 publications, software and instructional materials. Charlene is a graduate of Marquette University. She came to AEP from Learning, a national magazine for elementary teachers, where she was publisher. Charlene has over 20 years experience in startups and turnarounds.

If you are interested in joining the task force on AEP’s transition to the digital future, please contact AEP’s IT Director, Mike Dodson.

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Charlene F. Gaynor is CEO of the Association of Educational Publishers. AEP safeguards the professional and business interests of the country’s leading print and digital supplemental publishers. Supported by over 500 members of all media and sizes, AEP provides the information, training, and outreach necessary to the development of quality K-12 publications, software and instructional materials. It facilitates communication between key interest groups such as educators, policy makers, foundations, associations, business and the media. AEP also seeks to increase public awareness of the importance of a wide range of learning resources to successful teaching and learning

Charlene is a graduate of Marquette University. She came to AEP from Learning, a national magazine for elementary teachers, where she was publisher. Charlene has over 20 years experience in startups and turnarounds. She is an alumna of the Stanford Professional Publishing Course and the Center for Creative Leadership. She has served on the advisory boards of the Bicentennial Commission of the United States, the Learning Center of Philadelphia, and the Rowan University School of Communications.