As part of the solution to STC’s financial situation, some members have talked about making Intercom an online magazine only, removing the printed version that is mailed out to thousands of members each month. Many people think the move from paper to online would be a tremendous blow to the STC, one that would significantly decrease member value towards one of STC’s most attractive assets.
Sometimes people talk about this potential move, from print to an online format, with a doom and gloom that would make you think they’re foreclosing on a house or planning a funeral for a close relative or giving up their children for adoption.
When I hear these discussions, it blows me away because I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. I admit, the look and feel of paper can provide a comfortable reading experience if you’re immersed in a 200 page novel lying on your bed on a rainy day. But the Intercom and other professional magazines or journals are not novels. With professional publications like these, the online format better matches the reading behavior of the audience. In fact, online formats provide more than a dozen advantages that print formats lack, including everything from interactivity to portability, feeds, metrics, multimedia, and more.
I’ve had some thoughts brewing all week about how people read online, not just online versus print. It’s somewhat of a collage of assertions I’m relaying here. The gist of it is that any organization or company would be crazy not to convert their paper-based magazine, journal, or newsletter into an interactive online format.
Reading Habits. When it comes to professional, job-related information, most people read on the job, during little breaks, when they’re tired of some task, or during the morning when they’re checking their e-mail and the news, or during lunch as they’re eating, or on the bus or train if they ride one. Some even read a bit in the evenings, but not as much, and rarely do they consume professional, job-related blogs on the weekends. With these reading habits, short online content that is easily accessible from a computer where most people are working better meets the reader’s needs.
Digestibility. With articles for online magazines, you can push articles out little by little, several times a week, rather than dumping 20+ articles on readers all at once and overwhelming them, as periodic print magazines do. Because you can push out articles in a more digestible rate, reader consumption of the content increases. Of course if you push out 20 articles at once through an RSS feed, the effect is the same as pushing them out all at once in print.
Portability. With online content accessible from portable mobile devices, you can read the content anywhere without forethought or preparation. For example, you can read it while you’re waiting in line, waiting for your computer to reboot, when you’re in a boring meeting, or alone in the cafeteria, or at church, or in the bathroom, or in the car while your spouse is picking up groceries. Of course you can read a print magazine in similar situations — if you’re always carrying a print magazine in your back pocket. The trouble is, opportunities for reading often sneak up on you at various times of the day. Having the content accessible at your fingertips through a BlackBerry, iPhone, or other device can mean the difference between reading and not reading.
Interactivity. With print content, you can rarely talk to the author. But with online articles, you can usually click the author’s name and find an e-mail address or contact form, or you can leave a comment below the article, or link to the author’s site (which often sends a pingback to the author’s email), and you can receive feedback from the author the next hour or day. The ability to interact with the author to share your thoughts and reactions makes reading more of a conversational, personal experience that is more engaging.
Selection. Because online forms can draw upon a global audience and stream content from hundreds of sources into a running list with thousands of titles to choose from, you’re more likely to find articles that meet your specific, niche interests. In contrast, print magazines usually have only about 10-20 articles and must keep the content at a general interest level. Because the online experience provides such a broad selection, you have greater chances of finding content that is relevant, focused, and applicable to your own interests than with print formats. I wrote about this principle previously in Damping Versus Selection.
Speed. Print magazines often require several months notice between the time you request an article, the time the author submits it, the time necessary to edit the article, lay the magazine out, proofread it, publish it, and distribute it. In contrast, online articles can omit most of these steps and publish content quickly and conveniently, even overnight. Because of this speed, online formats can tap into real-time news, stay current with the latest topics, and not worry about whether an article released months from now will still be relevant. Readers also like to know that they’re getting the absolute latest news, down to the week or even day.
Cost. Online content is usually laid out in a few standard templates with advertising in the sidebar or embedded within the article. The layout is inexpensive, and the distribution is even less expensive. Online content has almost no printing costs, and no need to outsource the content to a contract agency that creates the layout, draws dozens of accompanying illustrations, and mails the content to readers across the world. These reduced production costs generally compensate for the loss of revenue from print advertising. The result is that you can give more content away to readers for free. In this model, both the readers and publishers benefit.
Advertising Opportunities. Most advertisers don’t harness the full potential of advertising opportunities available to them in the web format. Rather than just use static images in banners and sidebars, advertisers can incorporate multimedia, including short videos, flash, audio, polls, and interactivity. Users are just a click away from entering the advertiser’s site and learning more about a product (whereas with print, users have to turn on a computer and manually type in a website). Advertisers also have an opportunity for guest posting, because space is not a limitation. If more advertisers took advantage of multimedia in the interactive web space, they would discover that online advertising can be more powerful than static print advertising.
Content Manipulation. Because online formats give you the ability to rate articles, and then sort by the most popular, or highest rated, and to automate the ratings based on page views, trackbacks, and emails, you can create compelling groupings of the most popular articles online. These lists can create more interest in the content, as they draw upon the curiosity of readers. Top 10 lists, most e-mailed articles, most clicked-on posts of the week, or lowest rated articles groupings simply aren’t possible with print.
Metrics. With print formats, you can’t rely on automated metrics tools apart from human surveys to calculate the degree to which each article is read. In contrast, online formats give you a suite of tools to track readership. Google Analytics, Woopra, Omniture, Performancing — you can use any of these tools to find detailed information about reader demographics, time per post, time on the site, most read articles, click paths, and more. Your metrics aren’t a guess.
Search Engine Optimization. With online formats, your content is findable by the whole world. People in remote countries can search and discover you. Open access and indexing of your content on Google gives you visibility, which increases your readership because it makes you discoverable. The more you search engine optimize your content, the more findable you are, which means you can actively grow your audience each day. Print formats, in contrast, aren’t easily discoverable by users unless they buy your magazine. If it’s a niche magazine, chances are it isn’t in the supermarket checkout line, so how do people find out about it? And without access to the content, how do they trust you enough to pay for a subscription?
Feed Manipulation. Most online formats have RSS feeds, which you can manipulate in interesting ways. You can create mashups of feeds that integrate multiple sources, filtering, truncating, and outputting the feed titles according to what you want to see. You can display one RSS feed on multiple sites (for example, a “What We’re Reading” type of feed from Writer River). Most importantly, readers can pull in hundreds of feeds into a single feedreader and actually stay updated with all the content (at least the content that interests them). You can’t do any feed manipulation with print formats. Nor can readers keep up with hundreds of sources. At most, you may subscribe to five or six magazines and a journal or two.
Community. Perhaps the coolest thing about online formats is the community that develops in the comments. It’s not just a one-on-one type of experience between you and the author, but rather a community of readers interacting with each other. It’s a truism that many times the comments below an article are more interesting than the article itself. Articles with a lot of comments also increase your site’s search engine visibility, drawing more readers who can find you through keyword searches. Comments are user-generated content that increases your site’s findability and value. Again, print formats lack this advantage.
Concision. Although the quality of well-researched, thought-out, and carefully structured book material is on a level above what you usually find online, I frequently find that books carry on and on about ideas they could wrap up in 20 pages. Typically, a book author must write at least 200 pages to publish a book, whether the content merits the entire length of a book or not. In contrast, online authors give you the information in short, powerful bursts. The online author gets quickly to the point, without wasting your time or padding the content with fluff to fill the pages of a book. You don’t have to slog through 35 pages before the author gets to the core of the message. For more on this, see “How the Web and Weblog Have Changing Writing.”
Niche content. In a world that is trending more and more toward specialization, we need niche content. Even in a field such as technical communication, which some might feel is already niche, really isn’t. The field has at least a dozen subfields, including information architecture, usability, content management, single sourcing, design, video, technical writing, DITA, and more. We want to learn about what we want to learn about. Online magazines and blogs provide niche content in ways that print magazines can’t. Print magazines must rely on general industry interest. According to the Long Tail, the global audience available online allows niche products to survive and even dominate mainstream products in revenue.
Completion. I recently listened to an interview with Heather Armstrong (Dooce) about her experience writing a book versus writing blog posts. She compared writing a book to pulling her brain out through the top of her skull. A book is almost never finished. It drags on for years. Books require you to structure an arc throughout hundreds of pages. In contrast, a blog post is something you can finish in an evening. You can feel completion. And you receive feedback immediately after publishing it. You get the whole writing experience in a much quicker, painless way. You don’t have to wait for years to experience it all (if what you’re working on for years even gets published). The same might be said of readers: they can completely consume your content in one sitting, rather than chipping away at it for weeks.
Shareability. Content online is immediately shareable. When you read a post you like, you can retweet it, and chances are someone else will share it, and so on until you’ve suddenly reached dozens of potential new subscribers. When content is online, readers have a quick mechanism for sharing through Twitter, blogs, email messages, Facebook, social bookmarks, or other online technologies. Because the content is more immediately shareable, you can grow your audience more quickly and increase your influence. In contrast, with print, about the only thing readers can do is cut out the article and mail it through the postal service.
Multimedia. If you look at the New York Times or the New Yorker, they incorporate a lot of multimedia into their content. The online experience isn’t just about inserting a few Youtube videos here and there. Many times you see podcasts or videos that you can subscribe to, such as discussions with the author or conversations about the latest articles. These multimedia formats provide a whole new dimension to the content. In contrast, print is one-dimensional.
Wrapping It Up
Overall, I prefer to be online is for the whole web experience. It’s not just about interactivity, immediacy, or multimedia but rather all of these components working together to provide an experience that makes that the print magazine sitting in my mailbox, or the 300 page book on my shelf, or even the newsletter PDF waiting in my inbox so much less inviting than opening up Google Reader.
If you’re interested in getting involved in a collaborating reading project, I invite you to become a link journalist on Writer River. Writer River is a social news site for sharing information about the latest news in technical communication. I’m currently revamping the site with more tools and ways to share and discover content — tools not possible in the print world. If you aren’t already registered as an author, sign up now and stay tuned for new announcements later this week.
Free Resource from I'd Rather Be Writing: Get an easy-to-implement WordPress tip delivered to your inbox each week by signing up for my free Weekly WordPress newsletter.
Great manifesto! See my sample scenario at online vs on-line
Mike, I loved your article. We’re definitely on the same wavelength. I’m really glad you’re next in line to be STC president.
Tom, I appreciate your well-reasoned manifesto. I couldn’t agree more.
I switched to an electronic-only STC membership during the last two years. I can now download and read only what I find timely and useful. This suits me well because
(1) As a senior TC, I find many Intercom topics redundant.
(2) As someone who has always worked in business and not in acadamia, I often seek practical information, and I find the TC journal a bit heavy on research and theory and slim on practice.
Truth be told, I don’t believe that either publication is providing much member value. The STC should consider a vibrant, online publication where members can contribute content and comment on/share information.
Eddie
Eddie, thanks for your comment. I share your same view here. You did surprise me a little when you said that you don’t believe either publication provides much member value. I think ultimately that’s right, despite what surveys may conclude. Of the benefits of the STC, Intercom is high on the list, but even something high on the list may not have substantial true value. It just has more value than other items on the list.
Doesn’t address the critical issue for me… I like it in print better than online. You can make all the arguments you want about how online is better (and I’ll admit that many of them have validity) but I just like it in print. I’ve been paying STC extra to get the print version. If members pay extra for the print version and the sum of their premium payments equals or exceeds the cost of the print version, what’s the problem?
Mike Starr – do you feel it’s value for money each time you get it? I too like the feel of printed material but often, even if it were a monthly publication, the quarterly ISTC magazine lags behind the online information.
And what I think Tom is proposing is more akin to removing the publication-centric view so there would be a ‘print version’ so to speak (I mean there could be but would cost even more?)
I don’t know enough about the cost breakdown for the STC to comment here, but I’m guessing that providing a print version in an attractive magazine layout isn’t something that the STC can provide for the few (assuming it’s a few) who want it. I know a lot of money goes to an outsourced company to design the magazine. If you were to pay true cost for the magazine, I’m guessing that the content would really have to be dynamite.
Gordon,
When I make a commitment to a publication it’s inevitably with the understanding that not every issue of the publication is going to be of the same value. However, another aspect is that I spend an enormous amount of time in front of a computer screen already. The ability to get away from the computer screen and take my reading to the patio or my living room easy chair (or for that matter even to the porcelain throne) is one of the joys of my life.
I’m an advocate of each member benefit paying its own way. I don’t particularly want to see STC charge more for one benefit in order to subsidize another. That’s why I have, in the Governance discussion on the STC ning.com site, suggested that the annual conference be budgeted at breakeven levels and that other benefits be priced to the members at their true costs.
So I’m not opposed to it if the print version of the publications costs more as long as that cost reflects its true cost, not a subsidy of other member benefits.
Mike, thanks for your comments. I respect that the online format won’t meet everyone’s needs. I know that many technical communicators who spend all day staring at a computer enjoy a break from the computer at home. Maybe technologies like the Kindle will help merge the online with the print experience.
Simply make the print version a print-on-demand (ala Blurb, LuLu, etc.) and simply pass the actual cost along those who want it.
I think that idea has some potential as it would yield a quality print approximating the quality of offset and far superior to printing a PDF on a typical home or office printer. If STC standardized page count, the cost of the monthly issues could be incorporated into the membership dues.
I’ll have more comments down the road, but for now, I’d like to point out that I read this article on my phone while waiting for an appointment.
Hi Tom – I’m reading through this entry and comments with interest.
There are certainly examples of old media (magazines, newspapers, and journals) increasing their online interactivity with readers. But it’s likely their model is to have online components with a print format still available. A very recent example I think of immediately is the 100-year-old Christian Science Monitor’s move from a daily printed format to a web-based daily online publication with a weekly printed edition. Their weekly printed paper focuses on longer-view articles and more in-depth investigations into the backgrounds or history on issues that the readership indicated they still wanted to read. Duo Consulting is making that move for them, and there’s a good article describing the move here: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/oct2008/db20081028_224442.htm
Even if the frequency of printing decreases, the increase of online content that people can share and talk to each other about is a big win in my mind. But a pure blog format doesn’t necessarily accomplish those goals. I think a hybrid approach may work well, where some columnists contribute to a blog for the STC but print and PDF are still available. There may also be good reason to move Intercom to online-only or change the print frequency like the Christian Science Monitor did. (Though I do appreciate the ISTC datapoint about quarterly publication, Gordon, thanks for that.)
And finally, a story or two. Printed copies were circulated 2.1 times according to their Dec. 2007 survey. I believe that. I like to have a printed copy to give to my co-worker’s daughter who wants to be a writer. And my babysitter reads association magazines I have in the living room after my kids are tucked in bed.
Mike Starr, I agree with the desire not to have one benefit subsidize another. Nicely put.
Michael Hughes, I enjoyed your entry on PDFs designed for online consumption. You’d probably like Tim O’Reilly’s survey data from 2006 in “Gentlemen Prefer PDFs” at http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/05/gentlemen-prefer-pdfs.html.
I’m looking forward to what Sarah has to say also.
Anne, I enjoyed your point about the Christian Science Monitor dual publishing model, with some content online for free and print available with paid access.
It seems to me that creating a print magazine in addition to a web magazine would require an additional overhead that wouldn’t be supported if only a minority of readers paid for it. I mean, if only 20% of members paid for the print version, wouldn’t the cost of that print version increase by 80%?
This discussion if obviously much larger than the STC. I really like how the New York Times has approached it.
I’m curious about the data — surveys, studies, whatever — on which you’re basing your comments in Reading Habits. This section would benefit from actual numbers than opinion and speculation.
If you’re basing your case on personal observation of your friends and acquaintances, be careful turning them into generalizations of the reading public at large. Your community of readers seems a highly wired group. Not everyone is that wired. Not everyone spends as much time online. Not everyone wants to.
A hybrid solution would work.
Some readers prefer print, especially for longer articles. (Wish UX Matters had a print edition. Their articles too long to read on-screen, and difficult to print. You would think a usability blog would have done a better job with printer friendly design.) Some readers prefer online, and seem happy to jump on every bandwagon that comes along.
Each group resents having the other’s paradigm forced on them as an all or nothing thing. It creates alienation. If you presented your case to members in the way you present it here, it’s no wonder you got the reaction you did. Your option takes away print entirely — it forces your paradigm on them, it doesn’t look for middle ground between the two paradigms, it alienates them, leads them to shut down without hearing you because you’ve shown that you’re not hearing them. Your second and fourth paragraphs are judgmental,in a bullyish way, of those who disagree with you; they’re offputting to me and I’m not an STC member.
I suspect you would react similarly if a print person took this tack with you (an online person.
I find it interesting that you ended this post with a plug for Writer River — your venture. I left your article with the same impressions that I left criticisms of STC made by that Content Wrangler guy. Someone else building their empire. Someone trying to bolster their following by disenfranchising someone else’s following.
Perception is 9/10 of the rule. Be careful that you’re creating the perception you want.
Matt, thanks for the comment. You make a good point about the need to find a hybrid solution. I definitely do lean towards the online format as my preference, without much consideration for those who prefer print.
That said, I do not think the print model — in the current slick magazine format model that STC currently has — will work in the long-term. Too much content is available for free online. People aren’t going to pay for print content when the same content is available for free. Would you pay $20 for a monthly magazine when the content isn’t really that exciting and when you can more or less find the same information online?
Perhaps the Lulu or Blurb solution that Rick suggested might be a workable solution. The irony about this whole discussion is that technical communicators pride themselves on the single sourcing of their deliverables — the ability to produce both online and print content from the same source. This is essentially what DITA is all about. But when it comes to a magazine article like this, single sourcing suddenly seems a lot more difficult. Undoubtedly, if you single sourced the content, it would lose the slick magazine appeal and look pretty plain jane and boring.
Re the empire building, isn’t competition healthy? Your argument smacks of fascism. “Someone trying to bolster their following by disenfranchising someone else’s following.” Every time a new product or service arises in competition with another product or service, would you say oh, look at that, there’s someone trying to take away business from someone else.” Is this how you feel about the Zune and the iPod? About Burger King and McDonald’s? About Chevy and Honda?
Actually, Writer River is not like anything the STC offers. It does not require payment, and I do not profit from it at all. I offered it at the end as an example of the online potential I’m trying to argue for. And even if I was trying to build my own empire to take away from the STC, such an enterprise would be the best thing to improve the quality of the STC. This is how our free market works. Competition forces improvement or extinction.
Thanks again for your comment. Exchanges like these — as hard as they sometimes feel — are part of the appeal of the interactive, online format. Supposing you had read my article in print, you wouldn’t be able to comment like you did. At most, you could send an email, or perhaps post an entry on your blog. But the lively exchange of comments and the community that develops wouldn’t be possible.
As someone who prefers print and hybrid solutions, I’m glad at least one “all online” person is open to hybrid solutions. At least you acknowledge that you lean to the extreme (all online) and tend not to consider those who lean to the other extreme, or sit in the middle. Demonstrates more flexibility than I saw in your post.
As with Rhonda, I filter a lot in my RSS aggregator. With blogs producing 3-5 posts a week, there’s simply too much content to keep up with. So much content that it all becomes noise. I clear out more than I read. For some, Writer River may lessen the noise. For me, it feels like it’s adding to the noise. Maybe time will change my mind. With magazines, I read more, will explore more.
I learned in a Yahoo group this morning that you are on some kind of committee for Intercom. Is that true? If so, I am surprised your terms of service allow you to have such “political” discussions about Intercom on a personal blog. Many publication committees, paid or not, place limits on members for the duration of their service. And they would not allow you to have a money-making competitor to their publication while serving on the committee (see your comment: “And even if I was trying to build my own empire to take away from the STC, such an enterprise would be the best thing to improve the quality of the STC. This is how our free market works. Competition forces improvement or extinction.”).
If you started making money off your site during your (alleged) service to Intercom, would you excuse yourself from the committee? And as you build your site, are you blurring the line between your committee service and your own efforts? Are you taking what you learn as a committee member and using it as the basis for making changes in your own site instead of changes in Intercom?
On the competition front, no, I don’t believe competition is unhealthy. But your post’s last paragraph created the impression of competition, cast your entire post into doubt because it made me question your real motivation. In light of what I learned in the group this morning, if it is true, I’m still not clear on your motivation. It does seem that you’re blurring lines between your two roles, and I wonder how much of a disservice will be done to one role in favor of another.
Matt, I’m on the Intercom Advisory Panel, which consists of about 8 volunteers who meet quarterly to recommend topics and authors for Intercom. I’m also on STC’s Social Media Task Force, which is trying to explore STC’s best approach to adopting social media. Neither of these volunteer service opportunities conflicts with Writer River, which is merely a site I created to try to collect the best content published online in our industry. I am not taking anything I learned in these groups to try to use it for my own benefit. Instead, I offer advice to the STC on how to improve in both of these areas. If I truly wanted to displace the STC and build my own empire, I would recommend that they continue with print publications, avoid blog formats, and continue as is. Since clearly that is not what I have recommended, then I am not somehow twisting my volunteer association on these committees for my own ends.
You’ve been a good sport about defending your position and platform. You handled a request for fair disclosure with reason and level-headedness.
Some would have caved to emotion-driven reactions, which speak volumes more about a person and their underlying motivations than they realize or may want.
In the end, this exchange benefits you (personally) and your readers. In our culture, consistent character is rarer than it should be…and appreciated when found. In your case, the consistency and level-headedness makes for good content.
Which is why I come back week after week.
Matt, I’ve appreciated our exchange. You made me think more about the issue. Mainly, based on discussions with you and a handful of others, I think that many people still strongly prefer print to online formats, so if the Intercom ever does move to an online medium, that online medium will have to do much more than the print medium — perhaps it will need to provide the community that Sarah just alluded to. The benefits of the online medium must be readily apparent and felt, not just argued in a post.
In looking through my thread, you’re right that I probably shouldn’t have ended my article with a plug about Writer River. I did say earlier that I don’t profit from that site. In the spirit of disclosure, I do have 2 ads in the Writer River sidebar, which earned me a little (not much more than offset web host fees). Depending on whether the site takes off with the full collective link journalism sharing that I envision, I may remove them after the 12 months is up.
Again, thanks for your comments and replies. I appreciated the care you took to express your criticisms and point out gaps in my arguments.
My reply turned into kind of a novel, so it’s posted on my blog:
http://www.scriptorium.com/palimpsest/2009/07/manifesto-destiny.html
Sarah
Sarah, thanks for the extended reply on your blog. I appreciated reading the detailed financial breakdown of the situation. I’ll leave my comment below your article instead of here. It would be nice to have a more detailed cost breakdown of the problem from the board of directors. I’ll see if I can dig that up.
For cost reasons, I’d prefer online (see Sarah’s great ‘novel’), and for ‘hunter trophy’ reasons (see Michael Hughes’ excellent article) and for the tactile experience of handling paper, I’d prefer print.
I also like to get away from the computer and print out and read my Intercom while I’m having lunch or in bed before falling asleep (yes, I get the electronic copy and sometimes I print out the articles or the whole copy — the horror!). I do not have a device that I can download it to (and do not want one), and to be honest, the last thing I’d want to do would be try to read an article on a small form factor device. None of us is getting any younger and nor are our eyes — that’s a fact of life.
That said, at least two fundamental things are missing from Tom’s article, which, to me, are the ‘elephants in the room’ and without which online delivery is not universal:
* reliable and regular power supply for all those computers, electronic devices, and their chargers
* reliable and fast internet access to download the articles.
Not everywhere in the world — and I’d venture to suggest not everywhere in the US — has those two things. Without them, having everything online will be of no value at all to many potential or existing members of STC.
One other thing — I like the variety of articles in journals like Intercom. Sure, not all the usability articles are together (as Mike Hughes mentions), but I like being exposed to things I hadn’t heard of, thought of, or considered before. If I was to get an RSS feed of just the stuff I’m interested in, I’d be missing a lot of other perspectives and information. That sort of self-selection would keep my focus narrow.
Rhonda, thanks for leaving a comment. You bring a valuable perspective to the situation. I hadn’t considered the power issue or the reliable internet access. In fact, I’m writing this comment on a laptop tethered to a mobile device for internet as I ride the bus to work. I doubt everyone is so privileged to connect online anywhere and anytime they want. If I didn’t have this setup, I probably would want paper.
I guess in the end, everyone prefers the format that most suits their situation and reading preference. I know with my blog, I try to accommodate that by providing RSS, email, Twitter, iTunes, and Facebook delivery.
“collage of assertions” — nice one.
Here’s what I’d be interested in seeing: sample populations of our membership and those of similar organizations (ISTC, IEEE PCS, SIGDOC, etc.) surveyed on what they require from their professional reading materials. The sampling and surveying would be done by an organization that knows how to do such things and has no vested interest in the results. And perhaps the requirements could be correlated to things like location, age, length of time in the TC field, specialty within the field, and other variables.
To ridiculously simplify Sara’s novel, her estimation is that taking Intercom to an online-only approach would be a net positive to STC’s cash flow (and I don’t disagree with her speculation). However, she does not make any allowance for the number of members for whom the loss of the print version of Intercom might be the tipping point… the straw that breaks the camel’s back as far as the value of STC from their perspective is concerned. I’m already close to that point and that may just be that straw for me. How many other members feel the same? I haven’t got a clue but that would reduce Sara’s speculative net-positive impact on the organization’s cash flow. My most recent membership dues payment was approximately $210. If we round it down to $200 for purposes of simplification then it would only take 750 members reaching that same tipping point and leaving the organization to completely negate those cost savings.
However, I don’t think the print run is anywhere near one copy per registered member as Sara speculates. I have no idea what the actual typical print run is but the true numbers must be available somewhere within the organization.
Mike, good point. However, while membership may drop due to perceived loss of value from not having a printed magazine, membership will also increase if you put the magazine in a place not restricted by “pay walls.” I think much of the discussion about Intercom going online or not going online could be analyzed in light of the newspaper industry. Excellent article here by John Gruber on Pay Walls. Here’s an excerpt:
“But I say he’s very much wrong that charging readers for access to news is a credible solution. It would just make things worse. If the Times and/or Post were to erect a pay wall, I see things playing out as follows: they lose most of their readers; ad revenue declines accordingly; the revenue they make from readers who do pay won’t even make up for the lost ad revenue; and so by switching from free to paid access they’d actually sink further into the red.”
Tom,
I have to disagree… if the magazines are available to non-members at no charge, even more current members will drop out. As discussed previously, a large percentage of the members perceive the magazines as one of the top member benefits. If it’s no longer an exclusive member benefit, why continue to pay?
Non-profit member associations are very different from for-profit newspaper publishers. The business case against pay walls for newspaper publishers is not necessarily valid for a non-profit member association.
In my opinion, STC’s only chance at survival is to provide community for technical writers. In the olden days, this was done through chapter meetings. Today, there are also online communities and it’s important to provide that community. At the moment, STC is not doing so. Providing content such as Intercom online and allowing people to discuss/comment/debate, as is happening in this blog, will help to establish the TC community online.
If stc.org can become a destination for tech comm content, then the organization has a chance at survival.
Many disclaimers: I am a regular columnist for Intercom. I am currently working on web site strategy for stc.org. I am a long-time STC member. I have a lot of opinions.
Sarah, I agree with your point about the need to establish community and as means of STC’s survival. As is apparent here, the comments are more valuable than the initial article. Such would be the case if Intercom moved online. People would get the benefit of not only the articles, but also a ton of community-oriented commentary about those articles. And the opportunity to participate and engage. Though perhaps the site would need to be member-restricted at first. Or people would need to be members to reply and discuss? I’m not sure.
I haven’t yet seen anyone mention how STC’s print publications support its goal of playing a role in training the new technical communicators coming out of college and university programs. And those programs are part of colleges and universities that have established libraries with large stacks of printed periodicals, to support the processes of scholarly research.
I haven’t been on a college campus for a while, but I wonder how students’ research is performed these days–that is, to what extent it happens in the library and, if so, to what extent the research involves works stored in digital form and how researchers access them. I know that the publishers of scholarly journals have transitioned to publishing new papers in digital form, but older works are not always available in digital form and might never be. And the libraries maintain subscriptions to those publishers that students and faculty can access via their campus login accounts. The libraries must have already performed the comparisons of costs for stocking new periodicals versus providing access to periodicals available in digital form.
Also, recognize that for librarians in general, digital media present a problem of persistence. The preferred digital presentation media tend to change every decade or two, so there’s a challenge to librarians of making available to researchers the software needed to access (or transform) works found in older digital formats. And this issue won’t be going away for a long time.
//Paul K. sholar (Twitter: @bkwdgreencomet)
Paul, thanks for joining in on the discussion and raising a new dimension to the problem. As a former university instructor who required students to do library research, I can comment on this issue. EBSCO Host is a digital collection of journals and periodicals that most libraries subscribe to. You can search for topics across journals as well as limit the results by year, publication, and other criteria. It’s not cost effective for universities to subscribe to hundreds of journals by mail. Additionally, even if they did, the material would be out of date in 5 years. The constantly changing technology landscape makes the issue of long-term preservation somewhat irrelevant.
Scott Abel pointed out a great video called “Are you irrelevant?” In the context of this thread, the video couldn’t be more relevant.
This is an issue that so many organizations are facing, not only for financial reasons but because of political pressure to go green.
I usually keep a stack of reusable paper on which I can print non-important documents. Once you get used to it, it works great and you would be surprised how much longer your paper will last.