ECPA has assembled a cast of eminent presenters and experts to help your company’s executive leadership team strategize for the future.

2008 Executive Leadership Summit Sessions

Strategizing Cultural Creativity: From Consumers to Creators

Andy Crouch, Editorial Director, The Christian Vision Project at Christianity Today International and Executive Producer of Where Faith and Culture Meet, a series of short documentary films on Christians creating “a counterculture for the common good.”

In 1900 most Americans considered themselves citizens. By the year 2000 most Americans considered themselves consumers. What will we consider ourselves in 2100? The answer might be creators. As weblogs, YouTube videos, and increasingly interactive forms of entertainment and communications proliferate, our audiences are changing their posture: from sitting back to leaning forward. Is this bad news or good news for Christian publishers? Learn why encouraging your customer’s creativity may be the riskiest - and best - thing your organization will do this century.

Breakthrough Thinking: Innovation and Solutions

Matt May, Author, The Elegant Solution: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation (Free Press, 2006), Founder, Aevitas Learning, and former senior advisor and master instructor at University of Toyota

Innovation and Elegant Solutions - part 1
The business world is waking up to the fact that innovation is taking on a new shape. Smart managers know that what's next is all about thinking differently at every level, creating solutions that deliver compelling customer value and impact, and developing streamlined processes with minimal burden and expense. Matt May offers a vital prescription for organizations seeking new inroads to innovation.

Ingenuity - part 2
Companies don't innovate, people do. Customers don't want products and services, they want solutions. In this interactive session, participants will learn how to better define and solve problems using a proven methodology that employs creativity and logic. Your entire leadership team will benefit from this unique professional training experience.

Two Publisher Case Studies on Successful Direct-to-Church Selling: InterVarsity Press and David C. Cook

Bob Fryling, Publisher, InterVarsity Press
Jeff Crosby, Associate Publisher, Sales & Marketing, InterVarsity Press
Ryan Dunham, Senior VP, David C. Cook

The value and opportunities to work directly with the church is growing in its importance for publishers. In this session, we will hear from publishers who will present their individual case studies for how they’ve been successful in growing sales directly to the church.

Direct to Church Marketing

Scott Evans, President/CEO, Outreach, Inc.

Communicating your story to churches about your publishing house and products, and then motivating them to make a buying decision is always challenging. Outreach Inc. is a California based organization that creates and sells resources to churches so they can market themselves in their communities. They also market their products and services to the churches. Scott Evans, an expert marketer and President of Outreach Inc., will share principles to help you strategize how to drive sales and communicate effectively to churches.

Digital Publishing & Digital Distribution: Strategies & Experiences from Trade Publishing

Moderated by Michael Healy, President, Book Industry Study Group

The largest publishers in the U.S. trade sector are actively planning, investing and experimenting to capitalize on what they believe to be the opportunities presented by digital publishing and distribution. In this session, senior figures from the general trade publishing industry will share some of the strategies being pursued with executives and senior managers of Christian publishers.

Thinking Digital

Presented by Ken Brooks, Senior Vice President, Global Production and Manufacturing Services, Cengage Learning

Preparing your company for a future in which content is prepared, produced, distributed, sold, marketed and consumed electronically requires you to think differently about every facet of your business. How do you maintain today’s successful business while planning for the changes ahead? How do you prepare a systematic, end-to-end digital strategy and what are the critical foundations necessary for success going forward? In this presentation Ken will describe how “to think and behave digitally” and what preparations are required to change attitudes, processes and systems for a successful digital future.

Technical foundations for business success

Presented by Bob Kasher, Director of Sales, MacMillan Publishing Solutions

Investing in the technology necessary to publish and distribute digital content is costly. Integrating new technology into existing editorial, production, marketing and distribution workflows can be expensive, time-consuming, and risky. How do you develop a technology strategy to meet your company’s needs going forward? Many new services and partners have emerged to help deal with the challenges of managing and distributing digital assets. Is partnership the right choice for every publisher and, if so, how do you determine your requirements and evaluate potential partners? In this presentation a leading trade publisher will describe how his/her company planned and implemented their technology strategy, integrated it into existing processes and systems, and what they learned along the way. He will share experiences of selecting and working with a technology partner in the development of their digital strategy.

Re-thinking Content and Business Models in the Digital Age

Presented by Allen Noren, Director, Online Marketing and Digital Initiatives, O'Reilly Media, Inc.

Technology is not just changing how content is produced, delivered and consumed. It’s changing fundamentally how publishers think about content itself. In response to changing reading and purchasing habits among book buyers, many publishers are experimenting in different ways with their content. Some are publishing parts or fragments (such as chapters). Others are enabling consumers to create customized content, selecting and mixing content from one or more publishers. Pricing and business models are changing too, with publishers experimenting with book rentals, free content, and advertizing-driven content. Innovations such as these are provoking difficult questions about the management of rights and how they are protected in a digital supply chain. Noren will describe how O’Reilly is experimenting with these innovative models and the lessons learned.

Strategies for Digital Marketing

Presented by Nicole Poindexter, President of Unbound Media Inc.

Developments in technology are transforming how book content – both digital and printed - is marketed. Reading devices such as the Kindle, the Sony E-Reader, and the iPhone; “look inside” services from Barnes & Noble and Amazon; social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace; new marketing tools like widgets - all these recent innovations offer publishers a variety of new ways and channels to promote both digital and printed content. How are trade publishers responding to these opportunities? Which should you choose and which can you ignore? What has worked and what has failed? In this presentation a leading trade publisher will describe how these new devices, channels, and tools have changed how book content is marketed and how his/her company evaluates risk and reward in these new and untested areas.

Know Thy Consumer:
Understanding the Who, What, Where, Why, and How of Today’s Christian Book Consumer

Kelly Gallagher, General Manager for the Business Intelligence Unit, RR Bowker
Keith Stonehocker, Executive Vice President, Christianity Today International

Understanding the diverse make-up of today’s Christian book consumer is critical to guiding your business in the coming years. Knowing where they shop, what else they purchase, how often they read, and what motivates their purchases are just a few of the questions and answers to be explored in this session.

Online Strategies: the Use of Internet Communities and the Blogosphere

Moe Girkins, President and CEO, Zondervan

This session examines the use of internet communities and the blogosphere, for the purpose of discerning the best options which Christians have to use this media to be effective agents of redemptive change and the role Christian publishers can play.

Update on Amazon's Digital Initiatives

Daniel Slater, Digital Product Development, Amazon.com