5of13 - making information pay 2010 (jabin white, wolters kluwer)
Post on 18-Dec-2014
628 Views
Preview:
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
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 – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
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
2
Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
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
Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
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?
4
WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN TO
ME?
Change is inevitable – except from a vending machine.- Robert Gallagher
5
Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
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
6
Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
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
7
Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
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)
8
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
9
Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
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
Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
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
12
**DTD = Document Type Definition, the ―road map‖ of an SGML/XML document
Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
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!
13
**DTD = Document Type Definition, the ―road map‖ of an SGML/XML document
Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
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
14
Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
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
15
Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
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
Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
Where to Focus?
17
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
Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
Where to Focus?
18
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
Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
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
19
Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
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
21
Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
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
22
Jabin White – Wolters Kluwer Health – jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
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!
23
THANK YOU
24
Jabin White
Director of Strategic Content
Wolters Kluwer Health
Jabin.white@wolterskluwer.com
215.521.8911
Twitter: @jabinwhite
Blog: Technically Speaking at
http://www.bookbusinessmag.com/channel/technically-speaking
top related