Even as their titles plunge into the digital space, B2B editors have been left largely to their own devices to gain the skills necessary to do their jobs across platforms.

So finds a recent survey of 273 B2B editors by the American Society of Business Publication Editors and the Medill School at Northwestern University. The study was co-drafted by Abe Peck, senior director for B2B and Magazines at the Media Management Center.

Eighty-eight percent of editors who identified themselves by job function were at the executive or senior level. Four of five editors who answered the ASBPE/Medill Survey on Digital Skills and Strategies 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.

Moreover, two-thirds of survey respondents found what training was offered to be very or somewhat inadequate for an array of digital tasks, making training satisfaction the lowest-ranked of a dozen leadership initiatives taken by their publishers.

"The lack of company-sponsored training, let alone adequate training, is a major concern," said ASBPE associate director Robin Sherman. "Apparently, what skills most senior-level editors do have were learned and paid for on their own."

"Why would organizations place editors and publications at risk as a result of so little training?" Sherman asked. "Or put it another way: How much more revenue might a publisher generate with an editorial labor force better skilled in digital technologies and publishing strategies?"

Conducted over November 2009, the ASBPE/Medill survey captured the platform shift in editorial work across B2B publishing. Thirty-eight percent of responding editors currently spend at least half their time with digital content, while 62% think that spending at least half their time with digital content would most benefit their organization. Respondents split almost evenly over whether the focus on digital issues was having a positive or negative effect on the quality of their print editorial content.


Necessity of Digital Strategies
Editors were asked how they would rank various strategies if they were in charge of planning for the near future.

Improving digital content and digital training were rated as "very necessary," followed by researching readers/advertisers, resisting any loosening of editorial ethics, leveraging content between brands, and redefining the skills necessary for editorial and art staff.


Digital Behavior, Skills, and Job Success
From a list of 16 digital activities, those that were very or extremely important for editors' job success in 2010, writing and editing Web content, managing workflow/workload between Web and print, and writing and editing e-letters ranked highest.

Those deemed least important for personal success over 2010 were (from lowest):

• Developing virtual trade shows/conferences
• Coding
• Creating online slideshows or photo galleries
• Recording, shooting, or editing audio and/or video; and
• Mining online databases.

Editors were candid in reporting shortfalls in their personal digital portfolio. Twenty-seven percent of respondents put their individual digital skill levels "behind" or "way behind" their brands' transition to digital.

Moreover, a large number of editors never engaged in activities that are taking on increasing importance within B2B:

• Virtual trade shows (82% never engaged)
• Online slide shows (58%) and audio-video (54%)
• Webinars (55%)
• Coding (51%)
• Database mining (50%).

One of three respondents never blogged and more than one in five never worked with social media.

Forty-nine percent of responding editors said that the need for more training in the skills of business journalism over the next 12 months was at least "necessary."


Quality of publishers' leadership
Business-side leadership also came in for criticism. Many responding editors were pessimistic about their publishers' "knowledge and skill" for moving forward in today's dynamic B2B environment. Among the 12 publisher-level activities surveyed - digital and otherwise - all had an average rating of less than "good" (less than three on a one- to- four scale).

Senior-level editors felt that publishers fared best at being "open to new ways of doing things; not being afraid to take some risks," placing that ability at just under "good." "Stays current on trends about your market" and "has a clear vision of the future of your brand and its content" were rated next highest.

On the low end, "provides adequate amounts of training" had an average rating of less than "fair," with "really understands what it takes for editors to run our digital media" and "provides adequate support and resources for editorial staff" rating just above that level.


Moving Forward
"Many of these findings represent major disconnects for B2B even as the role of a B2B content person is rapidly evolving," says Abe Peck, director of business-to-business communication for Medill and an ASBPE Lifetime Achievement honoree. "As the editor's job sheds pro forma tasks in favor of cross-platform leadership, it is crucial for content leaders and publishers alike to maximize new skills alongside their traditional ones."

The survey had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 7%. The full results - including additional tables and anecdotal remarks - will be posted by April 1st on www.asbpe.org, and linked to www.mediamanagementcenter.org and to www.peckconsultants.com.

Sherman, Peck, and Medill methodologist Bob LeBailly will discuss and take questions about the findings at ASBPE's National Editorial Conference in Chicago this July 21-23.

---

Methodology for the ASBPE/Medill Survey on Digital Skills and Strategies
Invitations were emailed to 4,847 people on a list of ASBPE members and non-member B2B editors. Between November 2nd and December 10th, 2009, a total of 338 people answered the survey for a response rate of 7%.

An initial screening question eliminated 48 people who said they were not a staff editor or writer for a business-to-business print or digital publication. Among the 290 who indicated they were B2B staff editors or writers, 17 stopped answering the survey after the initial screening question. The results are based on the 273 remaining B2B staff editors and writers.

The 95% confidence level was used in this study. Results labeled as statistically significant have a 5% or less chance that they could be attributed to sampling error (drawing a oddball sample).

The survey questions received between 203 and 269 non-missing responses (e.g. people who answered "don't know" or left a question blank are missing responses). Percentages from these questions have a margin of sampling error from plus or minus 6.0% (for questions with 269 responses) to plus or minus 6.9% (for questions with 203 responses). So using a plus or minus 7% margin of sampling error is safe to use for all questions.

This means that sampling error should cause no more than a 7% difference between the results in our study and the true value in the universe in 95% of samples. Our finding that 81% of B2B editors received a day or less of digital training in the past year has a 95% chance of falling in the interval between 74% (81% minus 7%) and 88% (81% plus 7%) in the universe from which the sample was drawn.

There are other potential sources of error besides sampling error that are not addressed by the margin of sampling error.

---

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