The United Nations of Communications

Recently, as a guest of IDEAlliance, I attended the back-to-back seminars “Beyond Print: The Keys to Tablet Publishing” and “The Creative Workflow: How to Achieve the Best Color Result.” Both events, held at the Hearst Tower in New York City, were well managed and packed with information.

David Steinhardt, IDEAlliance’s President and CEO, along with his very professional team, provided fertile soil for planting, growing and harvesting the future of media convergence. The soil was the publication business, tablets are the seeds, and the harvest—future profits.

The main topic of “Beyond Print” was the future of the tablet. The diverse panel of presenters was knowledgeable, multi-talented and, much like tablets, interactive. Based on the panel discussions and the morning session alone, I would suggest to David that he change the name of his group from IDEAlliance to The United Nations of Communications, or UNC. Whether you like or dislike the United Nations (U.N.) is of no importance. It is the premise of the U.N. that works for communications.

Contained within David’s group is a body of intellectual thought, data and experience providing the link and proof to the theory that no media stands alone, at least not today or tomorrow—a theory that I fully support. I will say that this new world of UNC provides a nearly perfect converged marketing tool that has never before been seen.

If you are a follower of this blog, you know that I am a firm supporter of cooperation in media, of media, and for media, along with the the selection, use and integration of the same, hence my belief that media convergence is the future and a perfect—or near perfect—marketing tool. Th “Beyond Print” seminar proved this point time and time again.

As an example, what Sports Illustrated has done and will offer to please its media-converged readers is spectacular. Offering a multitude of products designed for readers—using, in part, HTML 5 as the compass for not repurposed, but redeveloped media—is one of the reasons publishing has recovered from the doldrums of the print/digital age. Through the use of media convergence, Hearst, Conde Nast, Time, and other giants have managed to beat the evil dragon of dying media. They are alive and getting better.