Young to Educational Publishing Conference 2012
The Association of American Publishers’ School Division hosted its second annual Young to Educational Publishing Conference: Learning Solutions for Education on Wednesday, October 24, 2012, at the AAP New York offices (71 Fifth Avenue, 2nd floor) from 8:30am-4:45pm. There were 70 YPG members in attendance from over 13 AAP member publishing houses, including: Bedford/St. Martin’s, Hachette Book Group, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, John Wiley & Sons, McGraw-Hill, Morton Publishing Company, Pearson, Random House, SAGE Publications, Scholastic, W. H. Freeman Publishers, W. W. Norton & Co, Worth Publishers, and the Association of Educational Publishers.
The full program, curated by members of the YPG Planning Committee, can be found below. If you have any suggestions for speakers and topics to be included in 2013, please email them to Becca at bworthington@publishers.org.
Learning Solutions for Education
AAP’s Young to Educational Publishing Conference 2012
8:30 am Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:55 am–9:00 am Welcome & Introductions
Tom Allen, President & CEO, Association of American Publishers
9:00 am–9:45 am Opening Keynote
Jerome Grant, Chief Learning Officer, Pearson Higher Education, North America
9:45 am–10:30 am Editorial Expansion and Acquisitions
The editorial experience in academic publishing is rapidly changing. Whether K-12 or higher education, the role of the editor has expanded in the last five years to include content aggregation and acquisitions. Betsy Twitchell, Life Sciences Editor, W. W. Norton, will address the morphing nature of acquisitions in an increasingly technological climate, the ever-changing importance of the author’s role in the process, and the shift toward publishing series and less traditional works, and how that affects the overall climate of the process.
10:30 am–10:45 am BREAK
10:45 am – 11:30 am Trial by Fire: Improving Your Sales Techniques
A sales representative in educational publishing is a jack of all trades. Not only does the salesperson serve as an internal resource, as the first and ongoing line of consultancy with editorial and marketing functions in-house, but he or she also has significant impact as the house’s driving force with schools and college institutions. Howard Weiner, Vice President of Sales, John Wiley & Sons, will discuss the potential impact of the sales rep in both fields with a specific focus on issues such as how to sell directly to a professor and how to improve your sales techniques on campus, with regards to the often-terrifying campus project.
11:30 am – 12:30 pm Product Development & the Digital Sphere
As companies work to redefine content creation, delivery and consumption, it seems that custom curriculums are the new “it” item in product development. With this in mind, how can we respect the worthy traditions of educational publishing while acknowledging rapid forward momentum in the digital sphere? Marlowe Johnson, Standards Manager, Global Content Programme, Pearson, will address how digital technology and the introduction of ereader devices has affected the role of publishers with regards to classroom learning and educational standards and will touch on the teacher transformation that has resulted, including how to introduce customized learning tools to professors and various challenges that houses face in learning how to adopt effective digital asset management solutions while protecting existing revenue streams.
12:30 pm–12:45 pm LUNCH (Box Lunch Provided)
12:45 pm–1:30 pm Career Tracks: Making the Transition
With so many different career tracks in Higher Ed publishing, how does one make a smooth transition among departments and move up the corporate ladder? In this panel discussion, Karen Carson, Statistics Acquisitions Editor, WH Freeman Publishers, and Rachel Losh, Psychology Acquisitions Editor, Worth Publishers, will discuss how they leveraged their varied experiences in academic publishing to move into different roles in neighboring departments. Alongside providing specialized career advice, they will touch on their companies’ various leadership development programs, opportunities for curriculum development, and available design courses, and will address the skill sets, courses, and trainings that might be beneficial for continued evolution up the publishing food chain.
1:30 pm – 2:15 pm Corporate Communications in Educational Publishing: Issues Management and Challenges that led to HMH’s Successful Restructuring
With today’s evolving models of education and uncertain economic environment, it’s especially critical for employees in educational publishing to understand their companies’ business strategy and what they can do to help achieve results. The corporate communications function plays a vital role. Josef Blumenfeld, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, will discuss how HMH communicates corporate goals and engages employees. He will provide an overview of the issues management and challenges that led to HMH’s successful restructuring. As the company migrates primarily to digital instructional materials learn how corporate culture shifts are communicated to employees, investors and the media. Mr. Blumenfeld’s discussion will include an overview of how social media is used for internal and external communications.
2:15 pm–3 pm Publishing Policy: Online Piracy, and Accessibility for Students with Disabilities
Ed McCoyd, Executive Director for Digital, Environmental & Accessibility Affairs, AAP, will discuss the following policy areas relevant to educational publishers: 1) Online Piracy – Increasingly, publishers are discovering their content being made available illegally in pirated digital form via online sites. Publishers and AAP are pursuing a range of solutions to address the problem of online piracy of the works which our members produce. 2) Accessibility for Students with Disabilities – Under various Federal and State laws, most colleges and universities are required to ensure that students with print disabilities which prevent them from using standard instructional materials have equal access to the content (such as through the provision of alternatively-formatted digital content), and students are increasingly requesting specialized formats or inherently-accessible products. Ed will discuss how publishers are addressing the market’s increasing demand for solutions.
3 pm – 3:15 pm BREAK
3:15 pm–4:00 pm The Multimedia Instructor
Innovations in technology for educational publishing (i.e., iPad versions of a book); whether instructors and/or students actually want electronic versions; what other publishers are trying in terms of different print/electronic versions, and how they are marketing to schools and universities; how instructors use ancillary materials, whether old-school elements such as instructors’ manuals are still helpful; and how instructors use fun-type multimedia (movies, songs, Facebook) to engage students. Cathy Vanderhoof, Digital Product Development Director, McGraw-Hill School Education, and Chris Nowack, Digital Product Manager, McGraw-Hill Higher Education, speak about the multimedia instructor for K-16.
4:00 pm – 4:45 pm Closing Keynote
Margery Mayer, Executive Vice President and President, Scholastic Education
