By John Morse, President & Publisher, Merriam-Webster, Inc.
There are lots of ways to answer the question where do we go in the digital future – speculate on new technologies, new economic models, new user expectations — but I’d like to take a different track. I suggest that what comes next is a change in our mindset in which we remain attentive to the transformative nature of digital technology, but also appreciate that our move to digital platforms is only one of the transformations we need to go through as publishers. In some ways, this will be the coming of age for digital publishing, as we are reach the point where digital strategy is just one among many strategies, with each strategy holding the potential to energize and be energized by the other strategies.
My thinking on this began taking shape when I finally listened to something I had been saying about Merriam-Webster for several years – that we are a company in transition in three different dimensions:
- From being predominantly a print publisher to having a significant electronic component.
- From creating products intended primarily for native speakers of English to products expressly designed for English-language learners.
- From being primarily a domestic US publisher to being an international publisher.
There are two noteworthy aspects to this list. First, while it is clearly the list of a dictionary publisher, I think most AEP members have a somewhat similar list. Even if the specifics vary, we all want to evolve and expand the formats in which we publish, the content we deliver, and the markets we serve.
Second, none of these transitions implies that one business replaces another. The emerging business can coexist with the traditional businesses. The traditional formats, content, and markets don’t go away, although they may become smaller parts of the business.
Notice also that these transitions are occurring simultaneously, so that radiating out from a traditional core business we have three transitions that can be thought of as existing along three axes in a three-dimensional space. Along the x axis, moving from left to right, is a transition from print to electronic; along the y axis, moving from bottom to top, is the transition from native speakers’ products to English language learners’ products; and on the z axis, moving from front to rear, is the transition from being a predominantly domestic publisher to being a significantly international publisher.
To begin exploring this space, the digital transition along the x axis has clearly been a success for us. The biggest piece of this is our Merriam-Webster Online business, which is an example of serving existing native speakers’ content to, for the most part, existing domestic markets. This is the fastest-growing part of the business, but more important, it is now in a position to help promote growth on other dimensions.
A case in point is the effect that Merriam-Webster Online traffic has had on our efforts at international growth–one of our surprise successes. Trying to expand our print business along the z axis is one of our longest-standing and, frankly, least successful expansion efforts. The reasons are easy to see: (1) English-speaking countries outside the United States have their own dictionaries and don’t need ours, and (2) non-English-speaking countries are looking for learners’ products, and our print products don’t fill the bill.
However, our online dictionary has been surprisingly well received in international markets. Again, the explanations are not hard to see. The major English-language dictionaries in other countries do not offer a robust free service, so we have been able to attract online users in those markets. And in non-English-speaking counties our online dictionary, with its audio pronunciations and more user-friendly display of data, has appeal for English-language learners. So, the online service is helping us move along the z axis and is introducing our brands and products to new markets where we wish to grow.
Of course, if we mean to enter international markets seriously, we must develop products intended for English-language learners. We set about creating a dictionary specially designed to meet the needs of learners, and we will be introducing it later this year. Originally, we saw this as primarily a print product for international markets, so this was mostly an effort to move the print business along up y axis into international markets, but now we see this content as opening up entirely new dimensions in our publishing program, expanding opportunities in both print and electronic platforms and in both domestic and international markets.
Most obviously, we also have a domestic print market for English-language learner’s content – the ESL market, which we all know is growing at a tremendous pace.
But to fully exploit the potential of the new learner’s content, and expand our online business, we will bring the new learner’s content to our Web sites both domestically and internationally. We are coming late to the learner’s market, and we need a platform that will give our product added visibility, and that is what Merriam-Webster Online and a re-launched LearnersDictionary.com can do. It is only with our Web sites and with other kinds of digital publishing that we will build a successful English-language learner’s business. And only with new content and markets can we build our online business.
Whether or not all this works out is another story, but the story is plausible enough to demonstrate the point that we need to be involved in multiple transitions and that success along one dimension can help promote success along another.
In the future we will move past the stage where digital publishing simply involves migrating existing products to digital format for existing customers, and we will focus on more basic question of how we grow our businesses. In that quest for growth, digital strategies will be hugely important, but they won’t stand alone. They will be integrated into a whole that also includes, at minimum, a content strategy and a market strategy.
And with that digital publishing will truly have come of age.
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John M. Morse, President and Publisher of Merriam-Webster Incorporated, joined Merriam-Webster in 1980. As Manager of Editorial Operations and Planning beginning in 1983, and as Executive Editor in 1991, he assumed overall responsibility for all product-development operations. He was promoted to the position of Publisher in 1996, widening his responsibilities to include all company operations, and was named President and Publisher the following year. He continues to be actively involved in the company’s editorial process, including the creation of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition in 2003 and Merriam-Webster’s Primary Dictionary in 2005. He is a strong advocate for cross-media development and has written and spoken widely about the evolution of reference books in both print and online formats.” Mr. Morse is a graduate of Haverford College and holds a Masters of Arts degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago.
John,
Thanks for sharing this provocative piece. I’m wondering how different your second and third points really are from one another. Perhaps I tend to think of too many things from a content perspective, but it seems to me as if the same content can be used for ELLs living outside of the U.S. as ELLs inside the U.S.
I would imagine that from a sales and marketing perspective, however, you’d have to take a very different approach?
Andrew Pass