5of13 - making information pay 2010 (jabin white, wolters kluwer)

Practical Approaches

to Change and its

Impact on People

Jabin White

Director of Strategic

Content

Wolters Kluwer Health

May 6, 2010

Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – [email protected]

Agenda

Introduction

What does all this change mean to me?

Lessons from Changeville (via a case study), and how

to know when you can‘t turn back

Closing Thoughts

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Introduction: Who Am I?

Director of Strategic Content for Wolters Kluwer

Health – Professional & Education— Responsible for making sure content flows through company more

efficiently (DTDs, Content Management, Authoring Tools, Semantic

Enrichment, Product Information Management, etc.)

Wolters Kluwer Health includes:

— Lippincott Williams & Wilkins titles

— Ovid

— UpToDate

— Provation Order Sets

— Drug Facts & Comparisons

— Medi-Span

— Clin-eguide

3


Baseline Assumption: The World of

Publishing is Changing, Get Over It

Understand that change = opportunity

Control change – ie, change for the better, not for the

sake of change— A subtle difference, but a critical one. Realize that your business

fundamentals can remain the same in the time of great change.

Understand that an environment that tolerates failure

is critical to change and growth

So what does all this mean to me?

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WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN TO

ME?

Change is inevitable – except from a vending machine.- Robert Gallagher

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Impact on Different Groups

Editorial/Product Management— ―Getting close to customer‖ is no longer a nice-to-have but a necessity

Production— Probably biggest impact, innovation while keeping the store running, and

―last link in the chain‖ problem gets worse

Sales & Marketing— Opportunity for super value if close enough to customer; figuring out

how to sell less to more; business model flexibility

Executive Suite— Patience in a time of impatience; stomach for infrastructure, promoting

an atmosphere that tolerates mistakes

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Why do we think failure is bad?

Because society tells us so?

Many companies create an environment wherein

failure is unacceptable

Studies show failure as a learning experience is

incredibly more effective than success

Sports psychology has something to say about this

Obviously we don‘t want to encourage failure, but

promote acceptance/recognition of it, and learning

from it— ―I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.‖

— ―I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that

precedes what the world calls success. ―

Thomas Edison

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What The Experts Say

Peter Drucker: ―The 9-month memo‖

Jim Collins: ―Extreme personal humility with intense

professional will‖

— A different sort of leader: singles and doubles instead of home

runs

George Eliot: ―Life is like playing chess with each

piece having thoughts, feelings, and motives of their

own. It is complex beyond reckoning‖

Every move, every decision, is a partial failure, to be

corrected by the next one (even walking)

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PRACTICAL LESSONS ON

CHANGE, VIA CASE STUDY

―The reasonable man conforms himself to the world. The

unreasonable man conforms the world to himself. Therefore, all

change depends upon the unreasonable man.‖George Bernard Shaw

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Case Study – The Background

STM Publisher in the late 1990s

SGML was a known thing, decent penetration in

journals, and XML was being developed

Business case for providing journal files in SGML was

getting to be a ―slam dunk,‖ but *how* exactly that

was accomplished was still being figured out

10


Case Study: Change Before Its Time?

Built a DTD** for journals

Built a DTD** Suite for books

— Both used by compositors for post-print conversion

Started building Editing Tools that were SGML aware

Upper Management was on board, and realized the

long-term savings of producing data once and using

multiple times

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**DTD = Document Type Definition, the ―road map‖ of an SGML/XML document


Case Study: Change Before Its Time?

Built a DTD** for journals

Built a DTD** Suite for books

— Both used by compositors for post-print conversion

Started building Editing Tools that were SGML aware

Upper Management was on board, and realized the

long-term savings of producing data once and using

multiple times

Or so I thought!

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**DTD = Document Type Definition, the ―road map‖ of an SGML/XML document


Case Study: What Went Wrong?

Upper Management changed, as it sometimes does

Middle Management not engaged properly (we learned

this later)

DTDs were too ―hard‖ to work with, the editing tools

added time to copyeditors‘ workflow

— Result: Tools abandoned, DTDs put in a drawer

DTDs continued to be used for journals, but a ―mixed

bag‖ for books

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Case Study: Post Mortem

Knowing the difference between real commitment

and ‗lip service‘ is a critical skill for change agents

Knowing *when* to change is as important as knowing

*how* to change

Must tie the *reasons* for change to the causes of pain

in people‘s minds – we were trying to solve a problem

that people didn‘t realize they had

My ―20-60-20 Rule,‖ learned the hard way

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Where to Focus?

16

The ―Early Adopter‖

• Sure, I get it. Tell me what to do!

The ―No Way, Jose‖

• A no looking for a question to answer

The Middle

• I may be willing, but show me

20%

20%

60%

•A really unfortunate note: People aren‘t always what they seem, and they

don‘t always stay in their respective boxes


Where to Focus?

17





The Middle


20%

20%

60%




Where to Focus?

18





The Middle


20%

20%

60%




Case Study: A Happy Ending?

I‘m back, baby!

The book DTDs were maintained, and they are now

being put to excellent use

The world has moved forward in its embrace of XML

(a rising tide lifts all angle brackets?), so the power of

these DTDs is ready to be unleashed

That doesn‘t make what we did in 1999 right; it

makes us lucky

— If you predict your baseball team is going to win the World

Series every year, it doesn‘t make you a genius the year that

they do (See White, Jabin. The 2004 Red Sox)

Everything new becomes old, then maybe new again

(if you wait long enough)

— This also explains my wardrobe

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How To Know There‘s No Turning Back

1. From an XML perspective: when you‘re scratching

your head thinking: ―Why am I paying to do

essentially the same thing twice?‖

2. From a cultural perspective: when you realize you

are asking people to do things you have no

confidence in their ability to do

3. From a systems/tools perspective: when you

cannot support said people with the systems

necessary to do what they need to do

4. From a product development perspective: when

your infrastructure is preventing you from doing the

things you want to do (I feel your pain!)

5. From a customer perspective: when they are

asking for things you can‘t provide (see No. 3

above), or when delivering these things cannot be

done in a cost-effective way20

AND NOW, BACK ON MY

SOAPBOX

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Impact on People

Not everyone will adapt, but they should be given the

chance

Just because we have to be ―experts‖ at technology

doesn‘t mean we still don‘t need editorial expertise

— Publishing is still part art, part science

Technology is an ―enabler‖ of what we do, not a

replacement

The way some technology companies talk about

content and its importance, it‘s a good thing I‘m a

pacifist

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Closing Thoughts

There *is* no turning back

It is no longer acceptable or responsible to talk about

*when* your organization will change; the

conversation needs to be around *how*

The point of no return is behind us

People matter more than we might think, but they

have to be set up to succeed

Yes, digital publishing is hard, but no one ever said it

was easy!

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THANK YOU

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Jabin White

Director of Strategic Content

Wolters Kluwer Health

[email protected]

215.521.8911

Twitter: @jabinwhite

Blog: Technically Speaking at

http://www.bookbusinessmag.com/channel/technically-speaking

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.bookbusinessmag.com/channel/technically-speaking