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A survey of more than 250 business-to-business editors shows corporate digital training and publisher leadership are lacking even as titles become cross-platform brands.

The final, complete report of the ASBPE-Medill-MMC Survey on Digital Skills and Strategies can be downloaded here.

The research covers 16 digital activities, 16 digital strategies, and 12 leadership parameters. The final report contains 20 tables of data, more than 200 open-ended comments from respondents related to several survey questions, and a discussion of methodology.

The survey of 273 B2B editors by the American Society of Business Publication Editors, the Medill School at Northwestern University, and the Media Management Center found that B2B editors have been left largely to their own devices to gain the skills necessary to do their jobs across platforms.

Four out of five editors who answered the survey participated in one day or less of corporate-sponsored digital training during 2009. The median amount was less than a half-day, and 36% said they had no corporate digital training whatsoever.

The research data in the report covers the following questions:

• What percentage of your work is currently devoted to digital?


• What percentage of your work should be digital to benefit your organization the most?


• In general, is your individual digital skill level running behind, equal to, or ahead of your brand's transition to digital?


• How adequate is the digital skills training provided by your company?


• How adequate is your digital skill training relative to your brand's transition to digital?


• In the last 12 months, approximately how much digital skills training have you received from your company?


• At your title/brand, is focus on digital issues affecting the quality of your print editorial content positively or negatively?


• If you were in charge of planning for the near future (next 12 months) of your organization, how necessary are the following 16 strategies?


• For 16 digital activities, how often do you do each as part of your job?


• For 16 digital activities, what is your digital skill level for each?


• For 16 digital activities, how important are each to you doing your job successfully in the next 12 months?


• How much time do you spend engaging in social media as a part of your job?


• In your experience, is time spent engaging in social media helpful or a hindrance to producing quality print or digital content?


• How is amount of time spent on social media associated with social media being helpful or a hindrance?


• For 12 parameters, rate the knowledge or skill level of the person who is your publisher (to whom you report).

Download the report

For more information, contact:
Abe Peck, director, B2B communication, Medill, a-peck@northwestern.edu
Robin Sherman, ASBPE associate director, info@asbpe.org

Alexander (Zander) Baron and Dinesh (Dino) Ganesarajah have been named the Kellogg School of Management's media scholars for 2010-2011, Media Management Center executive director Michael P. Smith announced this week.

The scholars program is funded through a grant from the Chicago-based McCormick Foundation. The scholars will receive full tuition for three academic quarters at Kellogg, where they are majors in the media management program. They were chosen after a rigorous application process by a panel of judges from media and academics. They become the fifth team of Kellogg scholars to receive funding from the Foundation.

"The judging and selection gets more difficult each year," said Center director Smith. "Zander and Dino were chosen from an excellent field of Kellogg students. Each of them brings a real passion for the media and innovative thinking about the media and journalism."

Zander Baron is a 2011 MBA candidate at Kellogg. He came to Northwestern after serving as director of programming and content development at The Atlantic Monthly, where he developed events and content around contemporary intellectual issues featuring top global business, cultural and policy leaders. Before that he worked in marketing and business development for Titan Technology Group in New York. He also served as a legislative correspondent in the office of U.S. Sen. Paul Sarbanes. He holds a bachelor's degree from Skidmore College and a master's from the London School of Economics.

Ganesarajah is also a 2011 MBA candidate at Kellogg. Before coming to Northwestern, he did a new media internship with Advent Venture Partners, Europe's oldest capital venture firm. He also was a new media portfolio manager for the British Broadcasting Corp., where he assessed business opportunities and projects. He also held various positions for London and Bangalore-based Orbis Technology, a technology provider for Europe's top gambling Web sites. He holds a master of engineering in computing from the Imperial College of London. At Northwestern, he serves as editor-in-chief of The Merger, the Kellogg school newspaper.

Consistent with the guidelines of the scholarship, both winners plan careers in media management.

Said Baron: "I came to Kellogg in large part to learn the management skills I would need to run a successful media company. I am passionate about the importance of a strong media in a free society, and I believe a successful organization is one which provides not only breadth, but depth as part of its value to its audience."

Ganesarajah is also focusing on the changes being wrought by new technologies: "I believe the most important challenge facing the news and information industries is the dispersion of the audience away from trusted media channels; i.e., a small set of newspapers, television and radio stations, to disparate new media channels," he said. "A consequence of this dispersion is the increased difficulty media organizations face in generating revenue."

The scholarship is accompanied by a research stipend, which will allow both students to explore solutions to some of the problems facing media. Ganesarajah wants to create a news organization that rather than have articles pushed to an audience, the audience will be able to commission articles of interest from expert writers. Baron's project will assess the many new ideas being implemented across the news industry that are enhancing the profitability of news organizations.

The Scholars Program was created by the McCormick Foundation in 2005 to cultivate a new generation of leaders in media management. Over the course of the 10-year program the Foundation will grant 20 merit scholarships to Kellogg Media Management students and 60 merit scholarships to students in the Medill School.


More information about the McCormick Scholarship Program can be found at
www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academic/media/scholarship.htm

Or contact:
Michael P. Smith, Executive Director, Media Management Center
847.467.2065, m-smith3@northwestern.edu