InfoBeans at the Folio Show

We had a great time at the folio show. Attendance was much better than last year, that is what the folks say. I was not there last year so can’t say for sure.

My impression out of the show on the cms/ technology side is this. There is an overwhelming majority of publishers who are not satisfied with their CMS solution. About 90% of the people I talked to said they were not at all happy with their cms solution on these counts

1. Non unified
2. Non integrated
3. Does not support print to digital transformation
4. Have no clear roadmap for supporting digital devices going forward

This is what I see is the problem – people have been relying on out of the box solutions way too much. Each business is unique and each business has it’s own set of challenges, opportunities and stake holders to deal with. If you are to run a successful business you need tools that acknowledge these unique situations and work with you understanding your environment.

Unless you are running a really tiny publishing business and using only one distribution channel to reach your audience – just print or just online, you cannot expect to survive the challenges and tap the opportunities that the new publishing era is throwing up.

There were opinions in the crowd that print is not dead. I agree. But at the same time, print is also not going to take your business far. If you do print only, you have to transform. Now!!

And let me get this straight. I do not say you need to stop doing print. There is still money to be made. Question is – for how long? Print will be dead, at some point. We will not see paper after a certain day. I do not see my 7 year old son doing a lot of things on paper for a very long time to come. Great print offerings are just going to extend the eventuality. Someday, print will be dead and that day is not very far out in the future.

I have certain other observations for the digital devices people are so gung ho about. Will touch upon them in another post soon.