Welcome to PR Vibes™, created by Calysto Communications to provide you with key insights into the publications and events in the telecommunications industry. Today, we’re featuring a short interview with John Siefert, the former senior vice president and publisher of InformationWeek Business Technology Network at United Business Media TechWeb, who was named the new CEO of Virgo Publishing in August, 2010. Virgo’s B2B information services business includes telecommunications, healthcare, and natural products industries. Virgo’s telecom portfolio includes the print and online Billing & OSS World (B/OSS), Phone , and VON/xChange, as well as the Channel Partners Conference & Expo and Billing & OSS World Conference & Expo events. Calysto spoke with John about his reasons for joining Virgo, his vision going forward, as well as his views on new and traditional media. Enjoy!
What prompted you to move from InformationWeek to Virgo Publishing?
I started my career in sales at CMP (now UBM) and eventually became the publisher for Network Computing, a “for IT, by IT” enterprise-centric product where we built an entire network of websites around that brand that went really well. When we decided to ramp up Network Computing, WE realized the path of least resistance was to merge Network Computing with another CMP brand, InformationWeek. We created the InformationWeek Technology Network, with InformationWeek at its core, surrounded with a number of different media brands, both print and online, and events. We created role-specific sites for users, such as Global CIO, Dr. Dobbs for the developer and others. We also had vertical industry entry points into the network for Wall Street, banking, insurance, government and healthcare for technology, as well as technology-specific entry points — Dark Reading for security, Network Computing for working IT professionals, etc.
We also launched an analyst business, acquired The Help Desk Institute for the service category of IT, and created a number of events. We ran about 60 roundtables a year, a number of conferences, forums and summits through InformationWeek and our brands. This entire network really worked together to give the IT professional multiple points of entry to information to really help them make their decisions for their companies.
All of that experience was really fun for me because I got to build a lot of these things up with a lot of smart people! I was approached about the CEO position at Virgo and after a series of conversations with Arlington Capital, the private equity firm that backs Virgo, and conversations with the then CEO Jenny Boulton, my mind shifted from “boy I’m really happy doing what I’m doing” to “this could be a really exciting opportunity for me personally and also a great opportunity to come into a company that has an incredible foundation and apply some of the things that I know how to do.” So after 15 years with CMP and the transition to UBM, I said “OK, now’s the time” and I started with Virgo Publishing this past September.
Can you share your vision for Virgo Publishing, and its telecom products in particular, going forward?
I’ve been around the telecom industry for almost my whole career, growing up on the IT side. What compelled me about what I saw here at Virgo was that the telecommunications industry continues to go through massive shifts; working to determine business models, the proper SLAs they will be assigning, AND determining what their differentiated services should be.
There is a huge opportunity for a media company such as Virgo to really play the role of strategic guide for the service providers who are trying to make these decisions. So what we have been really working on is how we can build an entire information distribution strategy that plays into the purchase and services analysis that this audience is going through.
With the print magazines, like B/OSS, we’re really focusing on the early stages of analysis and long-term strategic decisions the audience needs to make, beyond the typical news that’s always been done. On the website we’re focusing on what’s going on right now—and what does it mean to your daily decision-making? For the next stage, we’re building registration-based content, more analytical-type content like reports and research, which are centric to the informational needs later in the decision-making process..
As for our events, the way we’re trying to frame that as is a “greatest hits package” of everything you get in the magazine, on the website and our registration-based content. Live events are the oldest type of media there is. People getting together to talk about some of these long term issues, urgent daily issues, other analytical issues they are dealing with to make decisions.
Print media is a big part of your strategy, yet many label print a dinosaur. Thoughts?
I think as long as you set a proper role for print, as a publisher and as a media company, then it is not a dinosaur. What I’ve been really focused on with the team here is thinking about exactly what our user wants from a magazine, relative to what they want from a website or a downloadable PDF. And when you start to think through that model, it means instead of cutting and pasting and repeating your content, changing your content so it fits the context of, say, a magazine. I think you’ll find that readers respond to that. And where reader interest lies, revenue follows.
Let me put it this way. Nobody pulls out their mobile phone and sits down on an airplane and reads ten pages of strategic content. But folks will sit down and read seven to 10 pages of strategic content when it’s in a print magazine because it puts them into a context where they can think. It’s not that we’re projecting massive percentages of growth in print advertising in the magazine business, but what we are doing is thinking about it strategically. And saying, boy if we really put the type of content in here that our readers can use as strategic guide with their long term planning, then magazines do play a role.
The other interesting part of that is that our reader demand continues to be high on the magazine side. The fact that even though people position magazines and print as dinosaurs, the reality is IF you listen to the audience who is reading, YOU hear a different story. They want this type of information if it is put into the proper context.
What are a few short term goals you’re looking at since coming aboard as CEO?
There are some really interesting areas of the market that need more help. The mobile category is almost like a community looking for a platform. And the IP video category right now — it’s no surprise to anybody that this category is just on fire. What’s happened for the service provider core is that they’re really trying to think about how can they take the massive demands for video-over-IP, for example, and monetize those things. So, you can look forward to some new things coming out from us in 2011 as we try to cut through the excitement and really focus on the practical essence of what these things can mean for our audience; specifically as they think about “how am I going make money on these things?”
What do you think about the iPad and the tablets?
I love ‘em! I’ve got a Kindle, I’ve got an iPad. Back when I was on InformationWeek, it was actually the first B2B technology magazine that Kindle accepted. I think it’s a great resource and if that’s the way our readers want to take the information as adoption grows, we’re going to make it available for them. We want to really focus on what our users want – for example with our Channel Partner, B/OSS audience –determine whatever reader they are utilizing, whether it’s an iPad, a highly interactive unit, a Kind
le, or what have you, and align content there to help them. And as we understand that, we’ll start to create content that can be available through those means.
What do you think sets Virgo apart from other media outlets?
I would say first and foremost, it’s our content. Everything we do starts with a nucleus of content — what is the content that my users, my readers and my attendees are really looking for? Then we say “how can we take this content and deliver it within the context that our readers, users or attendees are looking for?” Then we can determine the revenue and advertising and sponsorship opportunities that can surround that.
Will there be significant changes to any of the existing brands?
I wouldn’t be so bold as to say, everything’s changing; nor would I be so bold as to say nothing’s changing! The trick is looking at things as an evolution. Right now what we’re trying to analyze is where the markets are and how do we make sure we’re getting our users/readers/attendees exactly what they’re looking for? How can we start to engage our audience prior to an event? How can we utilize things like social media and other outlets to drive short form engagement with our audience through the number of characters you can use in Twitter to try to pull people into our standard form publishing – websites and magazines — all the way through to our long form publishing. Instead of trying to be first to market with the latest, greatest widget, we’re instead going to say, boy, how can these things actually help our users/readers/attendees connect with our content. You will see more social media in our live events! The short answer is stay tuned!
What do you like most about your new role?
The thing I love most about my new job is the people and the markets that we’re serving. They’re very dynamic. When you think about the telecommunications market, there is so much going on and there is such a demand for information because there is so much that’s ambiguous. There are so many things that are yet to be completely defined and yet to be completely catalogued. So to me, that’s a really good spot to be in for a media company. In fact, it almost takes you from being a media company to being more of an information distribution company — helping people figure these things out. That’s very exciting to me. Very fun!