New Directions: We all work for the reader

 By Stacy V. Bearse

Have you made the conversion to a reader-centric mindset? Is the reader at the center of your universe? Is service to the reader at the core of all your key business decisions? I certainly hope so, because today we all work for the reader. READ ON

Stacy V. Bearse serves on the Board of Directors of AHP. In 2010, he retired as CEO of Blood-Horse Publications after 20 years of service, and is founder of Compass Rose Media Solutions, a management consultancy. He was honored with the AHP Champion Award in 2012.  

Recently, I escorted 5 lucky members of ACTHA to the idyllic Flag Is Up Farms owned by the Roberts Family. My members had the horse person's fantasy day of riding with and learning from Monty Roberts and then being entertained and dined on steaks as big as Texas cooked by Monty and served by Monty and his family. Jovial conversations and wonderful stories abounded around the table into the late hours. 

Then I realized something. This legend I was admiring for his modesty and generosity is 78 years old! Hell, we were all tuckered out to the max! But he looked and acted as fresh as when he greeted us at 8:30 AM at the front gate. There he was feeding deer and all I wanted was my pillow! 

I mean here we were on this horseman's paradise with the ocean just over the hill worth heaven knows how much, a staff of 30-50 to manage, another trip to the Queen of England to update her on the horses being prepared for various races, and wife, Pat Roberts, a sculptress extraordinaire with her amazing bronzes everywhere. It was almost too much to take in. Just thinking about managing all this was exhausting. Then the bomb was laid on me...Monty is only at this incredible home about two months of the year. All his other time is spent primarily helping out the Queen of England's race horses and the Sheiks racehorses...traveling...traveling. As if that weren't enough I learned Monty was a diabetic having had very serious bouts requiring hospitalization. For years he's dealt with it his own way and it hasn't affected him or his incredible energy.

Then I realized. This gracious man, who had such a tough start in life but never lost his dream or his third grade sweetheart, who had performed at the highest levels and won, who became known as the Horse Whisperer, and who wrote books and took part in movies, never took the time to learn how to become arrogant.

He isn't old. He's found the secret to youth, a cup of graciousness every morning.

Submitted by Lisa Wysocky

By Elizabeth McCall

AHP member Elizabeth McCall wasn't just reading about the official one-year countdown to the start of the 2014 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in Normandy, France on August 23, she was among a handful of journalists from around the world attending as guests during an action packed 3-day weekend in a region ever-cognizant of its ties to America (2014 is also the 70th anniversary of D-Day and Battle of Normandy). "From our breakfast meeting in Caen with Games CEO Fabien Grobon at the start, to dinner with members of the Alltech and the WEG Organizing Committee the final night in Rouen (at the gorgeous 5-star Hotel de Bourgtheroulde) we got a whirlwind glimpse of Normandy's equestrian attractions, along with a glimpse of major WEG competition sites," says Elizabeth. "We did everything from riding at scenic Mont Saint Michel Bay to seeing a championship polo tournament in Deauville. During a private tour of Le Pin National Stud Farm there was a real surprise-seeing a stilt walker who performed with a liberty horse during an afternoon spectacle!"  Want more info and insights? Contact Elizabeth at elizmccall@earthlink.net

Facebook's new rules for competitions

By Liam Killen, EquestrianCreative.com

Facebook moved the furniture around recently. This happens now and again. Social networking sites are learning from us all the time and adapting their offer accordingly. The most recent development is a U-turn on the rules for running contests by using Facebook's page features. READ ON

In a recent NicheMedia blog post, Robyn Ireland, wrote about not using your sales staff to collect overdue accounts. "Your sales people aren't accounts receivable management experts, so it's hard for them to get tough with your key overdue clients without hurting sales chances, and the time they should spend making new money is spent collecting old money," writes Robyn. "All this adds up to a BIG dam in your magazine's revenue stream!"

Robyn suggests taking the position that the founders of Government Security News took six years ago when they outsourced their accounts receivable to Media Receivable Management, experts specializing exclusively in the media industry.

"With MRM, we don't have to handle training, turnover and administration of collections people," said Adrian Courtenay, a managing partner at GSN. "Plus, we get efficient, reliable reporting and don't have any of our sales people making collections calls.  Instead, we have the experts at MRM handling our collections, allowing our sales people to do what they do best."

Collecting overdue accounts can be problematic for small businesses and publications whose staff handles multiple roles. Being the debt collector can take up many valuable hours when you or your staff should be focusing your time on improving your bottom line.

To read Robyn's article, click here.

Samir Husni aka Mr Magazine was invited to be the keynote speaker in September at Revistas Mexico in Mexico City. He took the opportunity to interview Manuel Yáńez Herrero, Director General of the Asociación Mexicana de Revistas, who believes that magazine publishers should be creators of change, not Chicken Little running from the Digital sky that is about to fall upon their heads.

Samir Husni: How do you see the future?

Manuel Yáńez Herrero: The future is quite interesting. We stopped reacting to digital buzz and readership

changes and are working on being the creators of change. We know that not only is content important, but what that content means to our audience. Engagement is nothing without passion and emotion. Also, every media is different. Our brands should speak differently in each one, same message, same brand identity, but different ways to be read or heard or viewed. It's a complicated, but bright future.

To read Mr. Magazine's post and interview, click here

Are you looking for creative ways to embed tweets on your website? Do you want to show off your customer's kind words about your business? Since Twitter allows the ability to embed tweets on websites, people have discovered lots of creative ways to use them.

In this SocialMediaExaminer post, Kristi Hines demonstrates six ways to use embedded tweets to enhance your content, drive engagement and establish social proof. And if you do not know how to embed a tweet, then she walks you through the simple process.

To read on, click here

New Best Management Practices Guide available

By Chris Brune, Executive Director

There are days that I miss my IBM Selectric typewriter.

You had one sized font, unless you purchased those changeable typestyle balls. Spacing and alignment were limited to the options on your keyboard. There was no colored type unless you bought a colored ribbon and then all the type was one color. And there were no hyperlinks.

Basically, you had no formatting. And while I love manipulating text based on my creative mood, formatting can create headaches.

Most of us in the publishing world receive copy from many sources. We copy text from e-mail messages, documents and websites when we using quotes or information sent to us for publication.

But formatting is sneaky. What looks perfectly wonderful on my computer screen, suddenly turns into a visual wreck when copied into a new document or inserted into a file. And while most times I can identify the font style or type size change and the different spacing, there are other times when all I can do to fix the problem is to clear formatting.

Clearing the formatting works great except it also wipes out embedded links. Then I have to locate the URL and hyperlink the text again. Not to mention adding in the italic and boldface changes to match the original text.

Okay, so what's the beef?

Simply venting over a problem that really can't be fixed.

The AHP Newsgroup generates a lot of press releases and they come into my inbox from numerous sources using a variety of software and operating systems. In the beginning, I copied and pasted into Note Pad to eliminate the formatting issues, but that pretty much put appearance back to the generic days of the IBM Selectric.

In order to preserve the unique style of every press release, I try to maintain the source formatting as best I can. It's another reason, AHP doesn't allow images. The press releases are posted on the website using a style sheet that matches the design of the site.

It would be great to be able to have a one-size fits all system when it comes to formatting, and technology in general, but it's never going to happen.

I enjoyed my publishing days of the IBM Selectric, Wang computer, and Compugraphic equipment, but times have changed. The creativity and speed with which we operate today is remarkable and allows us to produce amazing results in very little time.