The Cole Papers

Cole co-sponsors new media seminar

A day-long seminar devoted to new technologies for newspapers, co-sponsored by The Cole Papers, will be held this fall in conjunction with Seybold San Francisco.

The Newspaper & New Media Seminar will be Monday, Sept. 29. The main Seybold conference starts on Tuesday, Sept. 30, and the trade show opens Wednesday, Oct. 1.

At the Cole/Seybold Seminars' session, newspaper executives will learn how to use new techniques to publish better print products and how to make new media projects more profitable.

Preliminary seminar topics include:

  • Affiliate or die? As the Web becomes saturated with sites that provide news, what's to help differentiate one newspaper web site from another? Newspaper new-media executives debate the issue of whether newspapers must band together to succeed on the Web.

  • Intranet-based solutions: In an effort to smooth workflow and increase communications, newspapers are beginning to implement intranet-based enterprise information systems. These distribute not only mundane things like forms from the human resources department, but also important data like marketing information.

  • Cannibalizing the news? Does a newspaper's web site eat the young of its print parent? Is "breaking a story" on the Web the same as doing it in print? Print and new-media editors will offer differing opinions.

  • Front-ends for the Web: Many new-media managers are struggling with a variety of technologies to get content up on the Web. What's needed is a front-end system that handles all the content types -- text, images, audio, video -- not only during preparation but also for serving out of an object-oriented database. Industry experts lay out the specifics of what they believe is needed.

    The sessions will be moderated by the editor and publisher of The Cole Papers, who is a Seybold Fellow. The Cole Papers is a Seybold Affiliate.

    Seybold Seminars is part of the Softbank Exposition and Conference Co. To get the current agenda for the Newspaper & New Media Seminar, write Seybold Seminars, Softbank Expos, 303 Vintage Park Drive, Foster City, Calif. 94404, or visit the web site at http://www.seyboldseminars.com/ or http://colegroup.com/.

    Seybold Seminars, (800) 488-2883.

    -- dmc

    Some things you should know

    (The following is reprinted from the July 1991 issue of The Cole Papers, which was the first paid issue.)

    In a scene early in The Greatest Movie Ever Made (Citizen Kane), neophyte publisher Charles Foster Kane (portrayed by Orson Welles) earnestly scribbles down a statement of principles for his newspaper.

    Neither scribbled in crayon nor remotely resembling a statement of principles -- and destined never to see a hot-lead composing room -- here are a few things about The Cole Papers I think you should know:

  • It will be a lively, informative, entertaining, accurate, useful and honest tool to explain the rapidly converging worlds of publishing, technology and journalism.

  • Humans weren't designed to run computers. The Cole Papers is designed to help reporters, writers and editors cope with -- and maybe overcome -- this fact. Every story I publish will have the end-user in mind -- not the guys who designed or bought the box.

  • Publishers don't know enough about technology; technologists don't know enough about publishing. The Cole Papers will explain the technology so any copy editor (or publisher) can understand it, and explain publishing so any programmer (or manufacturer) can understand it.

  • After a dozen years at the San Francisco Examiner, I left to become a consultant to newspapers. This monthly is not a full-time job and working with publishers and technology is still something I'll do. But I cannot reconcile publishing an independent newsletter and taking money from companies that market their products directly to the publishing industry. Since May (1991) I've turned down all offers from players such as System Integrators, Leaf Systems and Harris Composition. (When given the chance, I will work for makers of CPUs -- such as Apple and Sun -- because they don't sell directly to publishers.) If in covering industry news I sense a conflict of interest, I will be quick to note any connections I might have.

  • Advertising will not appear in The Cole Papers, though occasionally I may send readers accurate promotional literature which I find equally valuable and inoffensive.

  • My meager stock investments have not included media companies or vendors of pre-press products, nor will they ever as long as I'm in the business.

    In the end, Charles Foster Kane proved something of a rogue. I intend no such role for myself. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I see that the principle thing I have in common with him is girth.

    But, to quote an infamous UPI story, "now you know."

    -- dmc

    Bit bucket ...

    "We always end up at these shows with at least one engineer under the table."

    -- A marketing drone from Cybergraphic, the last time NEXPO was in New Orleans, 1993.

    New media mavens: Excite Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., reports a number of changes, including the departures of Managing Editor Betsy Richter and Assistant Managing Editor Leah Gentry. Also at Excite, moving from editorial to marketing is legendary newspaper editor Jim Bellows (New York Herald-Tribune, Washington Star, Los Angeles Herald-Examiner). ...

    Real bits: At Times Mirror Eastern Newspapers (Long Island's Newsday, The Sun of Baltimore, Hartford (Conn.) Courant, Morning Call of Allentown, Pa., The Advocate and Greenwich Time in Southern Connecticut), Robert Zikias has been named general manager of CoOpportunity Center, which has been designed to study and oversee technology and systems used to handle various financial and benefits administration processes for these newspapers; previously Zikias was chief financial officer at The Advocate and Greenwich Time. ... At The Sun of Baltimore, Charles Fertig has been named publishing systems manager; he was previously the pre-press superintendent at the News-Press in St. Joseph, Mo. ... At Ottaway Newspapers of Campbell Hall, N.Y., Ronald Regan has been named vice president of information services; previously he was a consultant. ... At the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, Russell Leseberg has resigned as data services director; he plans to return to consulting. ...

    Vendor visuals: At AdOne Classified Network of New York, a bunch of new hires: Isaac Sacolick (director of software development), Alex Ravvin (senior software developer), Colin Rand (software developer), Matt Hennessy (system administrator), Jason Robinette (web services manager) and Beth Modlin (manager of administration and human resources). ... At Advanced Technical Solutions Inc. of Wilmington, Mass., Joanne Rennie Angell has been named training programs manager; previously she had been with Sun Microsystems. ... At Autologic Information International Inc. of Thousand Oaks, Calif., Al Brunner has been named vice president for Americas operations; previously he had been director of commercial sales. Also at AII, James Hanger has been named vice president of sales administration; previously he had been vice president of business development. ... At Bitstream Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., Charles Ying has been named chairman of the board and chief executive officer. Ying, a co-founder of Atex, most recently was the chairman and chief executive officer of Information International Inc., before it was merged with Autologic. ... At CText Inc. of Ann Arbor, Mich., Anthony Peri has been named president and chief operating officer; most recently Peri had been general manager of Harris Publishing Systems Corp. of Melbourne, Fla. Also at CText, Michael Pearson, the chief information officer of Blade Communications Inc. of Pittsburgh, Pa., has been named to the board of directors. ... At Freedom System Integrators Inc. of Wichita, Kan., Ed Slattery has been named vice president of sales; previously Slattery was director of sales at Publishing Partners International. ... At ECRM of Tewksbury, Mass., Gil Green has been named western regional account representative, based in Los Angeles; previously Green had been with Polychrome. Also at ECRM, Gregory Paterson has been named Canadian account representative; previously he was with Ilford Anitec Canada Ltd. ... At Optronics International Corp. of Chelmsford, Mass., Jeffrey Rapson has been named director of sales for the Americas; previously Rapson was president and COO of Highwater Designs Inc. of Salem, N.H. ... At Printware Inc. of St. Paul, Minn., Timothy Murphy has been promoted to vice president of sales and marketing; previously he had been director of sales and marketing. ... At Tribune Media Services of Chicago, Donald Kraska has been named vice president of finance and syndicate operations; most recently he had been director of finance. He has been with the Tribune Co. since 1986. ...

    Confabs: Mactivity, the conference for Macintosh managers and webmasters, is June 15-20 in Santa Clara, Calif. Speakers include Marc Andreesen of Netscape, Don Crabb of Macweek and author Danny Goodman. For the details, point your browser at http://www.mactivity.com/ or call (408) 354-2500. ... WebInnovation, a conference about the World-Wide Web, will be June 17-19 in San Jose, Calif. Speakers include Simson Garfinkel of Wired, Dan Shafer formerly of Salon Internet, John Duhring formerly of Wais and Roger Fidler, currently of Kent State University but formerly of Knight-Ridder New Media Lab. For the webinformation, call (415) 372-7074 or browse to http://www.webinn.com/. ... "Everything you need to know about Asynchronous Transfer Mode" is the kicker for ATM Year 97, June 23-27 in San Jose, Calif. Speakers include a bunch of people you've never heard of, but Scott Adams ("Dilbert") will make a "special presentation." For information, call (310) 394-8305 or send e-mail to custserv@tticom.com. ... Connections '97, the Newspaper Association of America's annual new media conference, is July 18-20 in San Francisco. Speakers include Lawrence Ellison of Oracle, Anthony Ridder of Knight-Ridder, Pattie Maes of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab and John Seely Brown of Xerox Corp. For registration details, call (703) 902-1950. ...

    Errors & Omissions: In last issue's coverage of Seybold New York, we misspelled the name of the founder of Marimba Inc.; correctly, it is Kim Polese. Also, in last issue's Bucket we got Richard Norbraten's title wrong at the New York Times; he is staff assistant in the newsroom technology office. We regret the errors. ... #

    From THE COLE PAPERS, June 1997, Copyright (c) 1997, All Rights Reserved.

  • Top | ColeGroup.com | Consulting | Cole Papers | NewsInc. | Cole's Store | Miscellanea | Search
    Copyright © 1990-2008, The Cole Group. All Rights Reserved. Contact us.
    Modified date: 06/15/1997, 01:19:23 AM.
    URL: http://www.colepapers.net/nexpo97/hellbox.html