Passing the Torch

Hi Everyone,

Let me begin by saying thank you to all of the regular and occasional readers of this blog.  The CITE turns 4 this week, and in the past 4 years we have had 1240 posts, and more than 73,000 visitors from 175 different countries.  We received recogition as being among the top textbook blogs, and I have appreciated the many kind emails and comments people have shared with me about how they enjoy reading The CITE. 

When the blog began, there was little news and discussion out there about the future of course materials.  Now that discussion appears to be everywhere, and new informational items come out a few times a day. It is hard for anyone to deny that that the transition is underway.

As the volume of activity increases, I have found it increasingly dificult to keep up with blog posts on a regular basis.  Thus, I have decided that it is time to "pass the torch" and step down from managing The CITE. 

Within the near future the NACS publication team will take over as owners of the CITE.  They have an excellent staff of writers and they follow developments in this space quite effectively.  They will ensure that The CITE remains a useful resource for folks looking to understand or have awareness of the latest course material and retail technology innovations. I am sure the blog will continue to be as good -- and most likely even better -- under their ownership. 

It has been a great four years and I hope this resource has been valuable to many of you.  Thank you again for your continued readership. 

Keep innovating!
Mark

Temporary Hiatus

Hi everyone,

Due to some staffing changes and heavier than usual travel this month, I need to put The CITE on hiatus for 1-2 weeks.  There are many interesting things going on and I have some topics queued up. Hopefully posting will resume again early in April.

Thanks,
M

Thank you to our readers...

As we reach the end of another year, Jeong, Veronica, and I will take this opportunity to thank the many readers of this blog from around the world, whetheryou follow the CITE occasionally or regularly. A special thanks to those who contributed with thoughts, comments, encouragements and even disagreements.

In the past year, numerous innovations, emerging technologies and other developments affected the course materials and retail industries -- from Borders closing and the rise of the tablet, to new course material providers, growth in price comparison, rapid adoption of rental models, and new legislation. 2011 was an eventful year, and 2012 promises to provide an even faster pace as digital course materials and mobile technologies begin to pass the "knee of the curve" and move toward meaningful adoption. The question, of course, is, "Who will control the channel and markets for the new course material formats?"

In 2012 NACS Media Solutions (NMS) and the CITE will take time to focus on some very specific themes. In line with our "Market Share, Not Margins" theme of the past couple years, this year we will emphasize "Grow Custom." We will take time to highlight companies and technologies that grow 'smart custom', why custom is good business practice, and how custom provides increased value to faculty and students. Our real "Grow Custom" campaign will kick off with CAMEX in March, so stay tuned for that and other announcements and developments.
As for The CITE, we welcome your feedback, as always. Readership was down this year, due in part to the summer hiatus, as well as possibly other reasons. There are far more voices out there now talking about changes in course materials, and so some of the original purpose of The CITE is now somewhat served by others. However, the CITE did earn a top 5 spot among the "50 Best Textbook Blogs" this year, and saw its 1000th posting after passing its third year of existance. Many thanks to our readers -- new, old, regular, or occasional, North American, or abroad.

Hoping for a happy and prosperous new year to you all!!
Mark

NetFlix provides lessons for stores...

There has been a lot of flack  surrounding movie rental company NetFlix lately.  First they changed their pricing plans.  Now they are separating the physical DVD business from the streaming business -- requiring customers to have two accounts.  Amidst all of this is was a breakdown in communications between the company and its customers as the company tries to transition from a world of more physical media to one of more digital delivery.

There are several lessons book stores could learn from NetFlix's recent foibles:  Perils of rental models; transitioning from physical to digital; or communication.   However, one quote from CEO Reed Hastings in his apology blog post captures one of the key messages I think stores should hear. 

For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn't make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something--like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores--do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us) because they are afraid to hurt their initial business. Eventually these companies realize their error of not focusing enough on the new thing, and then the company fights desperately and hopelessly to recover. Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly.

And there it is.  So whether we are talking about mobile commerce, digital course materials, rental, data analytics, price comparison, or any of a number of other technologies and developments in the retail book space -- we can not be afraid as a channel to venture boldly into a new future if we hope to have one.  This may mean trying new models that at first seem less profitable or sacrificing margins for market share. 

I hear many arguments that say "digital course materials is moving slowly, so I do not need to worry about it."  I believe this strategy is flawed.  Frankly, I do not care so much whether digital course materials take off this year, or in 5 years, or in 10.  We can all debate the rate at which digital takes hold, but that debate is hardly productive.  The truth is that the transition has begun.  Our window of opportunity to drive developments in favor of stores is now.  We must as a channel place "enough focus on the new thing" that when the time comes to move quickly we are not caught in a position of desperation or unviability.  That is key aspect of channel and business stewardship, and it is a critical strategic activity for all levels of management.  With the emerging technologies ahead of us, we are more likely to fail for having taken no action, than we are for having acted and making some mistakes along the way. 

Ok.  Back off of my soap-box. 

The CITE returns!

Hi everyone. Sorry for The CITE being on a longer hiatus than originally expected or indicated. Thanks to everyone who sent messages to see if everything was okay and to everyone who came to the site to see if we were posting again. More than 10k of you came back at least once this month to see if posting was active again, and many days had over 1000 unique visitors -- more than a few of you checked back very often! My apologies for making you wait, but thank you for your persistence!



Regular posts have already been scheduled to start showing beginning on Monday (Aug 29)and we should be back to regular daily posts quickly. A great deal has occured in the past two months while we were on hiatus, so we will try to mix some updates of news from the summer in with current events. A few quick items on the blog to point out:



A new look. You will notice a slightly updated look and feel to the page. Hopefully this revised layout will make it easier to use and find information of value.



Ask Your Questions. In addition we will be experimenting with a "community answers" tool over on the right-hand toolbar. Currently, it only seems work for select browsers or if you log in. The latter should not be necessary. If you can see content under the "community answers" label, then your browser works with this widget. Here you can post questions to me or the community. I will work to see if I can resolve the problems with the widget, if not, it will likely get removed. You can always send messages to me directly with your questions.



New Voices. The blog will have some new voices. We have hired a new Emerging Technologies Strategist (Jeong Oh) who will be a regular contributor to the blog. Our Digital Media Specialist (Veronica Gancov) will contribute occasional posts. Our fantastic publication team will hopefully also continue to send stories to me for posting.



Thank you again for your continued interest and support. On to the blogging!!!

The CITE on a short hiatus.

To our loyal readers,

The CITE now reaches tens of thousands of readers from more than 170 countries. Your continued interest in our part of the conversation is appreciated. However, due to travel and meetings, preparation to launch some larger pilots and programs, and some resource constraints, the CITE will be on hiatus for the month of July.

We plan to make several announcements in August -- and of course, much is happening quickly in this space these days so there will be a number of news stories to report. We will look to get back to frequent if not daily postings next month.

We are also looking at moving the blog to a new platform, and may make that shift in the next month, time permitting.

I hope that many of you return when posting resumes in August. In the interim, please feel free to post questions here which you would like to see answered in future blog posts.

Best regards,
M

Video for learning: Corrected

Sorry -- I accidently embedded the wrong video in the original posting. I have since edited that posting so that the correct video appears.