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February 1998, Vol. 9, No. 2
Listening
Paying attention at a spate of winter conferences reaps benefits
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Sitting in the airport here, waiting for another delayed flight to take off, I reflected that I had been to a lot of conferences in January.
Since the Newspaper Association of America consolidated its technology meetings into a single "superconference" in 1995, the first month of the year has become busy. Between the SuperConference, Macworld and the annual publishing seminar sponsored by Harris Publishing Systems Corp., there have been a lot of regularly scheduled confabs in January.
And now, with the advent of the Online Classifieds Industry Symposium, the meeting Macarena can keep an industry pundit on the road for much of those first four weeks of the year.
Though I missed Macworld, I was at the other three meetings, and I came away somewhat disappointed (I couldn't be more than somewhat crestfallen, as I personally participated in all three; there’s a chance my contributions weren't good enough to pull the meeting out of the doldrums).
But, while sitting here in this artificially cheerful airdome (I swear the public address system announcers are the same as those used by Disney World), I realized that though others had told me they too had concerns about the content at all these meetings, the real issue was not that of content, but of context.
You had to listen to what people were saying to get the most out of these conferences.
The staff and I heard some interesting things, once we started listening:
At Macworld in San Francisco, Correspondent George Powell heard some bad things about the state of the Mac, but he found much good as well. Inside, he gives you his look at the annual winter meeting of Mac mavens and more than a few interesting productivity products that were shown at the exhibition for the first time. Powell found eight high-quality trends or products, certainly not the least of which was a system for transmitting digital pictures with a Newton or eMate and the first blush of Rhapsody, the new operating system.
At the SuperConference in Miami Beach, Fla., I was personally put off by keynote speaker Thomas Landauer, but once I got over my consternation, I heard a number of interesting items. Senior Editor Pete Wetmore provides you with a wealth of information about the pre-press segment of the conference, and he highlights some comments made by industry suppliers in a roundtable chaired by NAA Senior Vice President Eric Wolferman.
At the Online Classifieds Industry Symposium in Napa Valley, Calif., I found an energized group. There’s no question that classified advertising -- especially on-line classifieds -- has moved beyond the "bastard stepchild" status of just a few years ago. Newspaper and supplier executives told the crowd that though the classified franchise was in jeopardy, the newspaper business could keep its leadership role -- if it worked hard.
And, lastly, at the annual Harris Publishing Integration seminar in nearby Melbourne, the focus again was on advertising. The speakers talked about important issues facing newspapers: data warehousing, training print sales people to sell on-line, sales force automation and a vision of a unified advertising system.
So, as I sit here waiting for the jet (they're now saying I'm going to miss my connection in Dallas), I realize that the most important thing to bring to a conference is the ability to listen.
-- David M. Cole
See also Hellbox
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