Seismic shifts are occurring in publishing due to tighter budgets, the digital revolution, and new distribution models. This year’s Executive Leadership Summit, designed for Christian publishing executive teams, will bring together experts outside and inside the industry to best equip the industry’s leadership to strategically navigate and lead through a “tsunami of change.”

Monetizing the Digital Revolution
Allen Noren

From their Safari Books Online service to DRM-free ebook bundles and iPhone Apps, O'Reilly Media has been on the forefront of the digital revolution. What strategies are working for O'Reilly and other publishers, which are not, and how is the company positioning its content for the storm of downward price pressure that's upon us? This presentation will also include hard questions about the value publishers are offering authors and customers in today's world.
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Beyond the Book: Starting with the End in Mind
Keith Fahlgren, Publishing Technology Engineer, O'Reilly Media

Keith Fahlgren is the Publishing Technology Engineer at O'Reilly Media. He's been involved in extending O'Reilly's use of DocBook and the DocBook-XSL stylesheets, building an Atom Publishing Protocol infrastructure, and contributing generally trying to keep O'Reilly's content as flexible and re-usable as possible. Keith is the secretary of the OASIS DocBook SubCommittee for Publishers. More recently, Keith has been heavily involved with Ebooks, encouraging the adoption of the IDPF ePub standard and contributing the ePub output for the DocBook-XSL stylesheets.
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A Case Study in New Media Publishing
Peter Schumerth, Director of Marketing, ConversantLife.com
Stan Jantz, CEO, ConversantLife.com

This session will show how ConversantLife.com developed into a premiere New Media content hub and social media experience reaching spiritually minded 18-34 year-olds by providing a compelling blend of culturally relevant blogs, video and podcast content, as well as user-submitted news on faith and cultural topics.
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State of the Economy:
What happened and when will it come to an end?
Christopher Thornberg, Principal, Beacon Economics

Last year even as the US was already in a recession not only were forecasters saying we weren't in a downturn, they were predicting that the economy would be moving strongly forward by the beginning of 2009.
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Change Management: Lessons from Visionary Leaders
Jay Conger, Senior Research Scientist, USC, Center for Effective Organizations and Professor of Leadership Studies, Claremont McKenna College

Learn how to successfully manage change in your publishing house amidst global, cultural and economic change. An expert in Change Management, Conger provides studied insights into the principles and patterns of visionary leadership based on his exclusive research.
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Audiobooks – not just another format
Dan Balow, Publisher, Oasis Audio
Cory Verner, Cofounder and Publisher, christianaudio

Not every part of publishing is flat or shrinking. There is growth and great potential in many digital formats, including audio books. In this session, Dan and Cory will discuss the potential of various digital mediums including audio books specifically, the digital “tipping point” in the variety of formats, and the unique opportunities in this market, including a lesson from the ABA sub rights market.
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Case Study: The Symtio Platform
Tim Close, Senior Vice President, Symtio

With increasing pressures from the economy, shrinking distribution, and the category-killer influence of Amazon and Google, how do publishers keep some control of their own destinies? The Symtio platform is a turnkey, multi-channel media and e-commerce content delivery platform that empowers publishers to simply and effectively diversify their presence in the emerging digital marketplace.
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If You Build It, Will They Buy?
Rob Eagar, President, WildFire Marketing

A 2008 survey of 21,000 book shoppers found that those who had visited an author's website in the past week bought 38% more books from a wider range of retailers. However, the research also revealed that most authors and publishers fail to satisfy the online needs of readers.
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Hitting a Moving Target:
Tracking the Consumer Book and Media Landscape
Kelly Gallagher, Vice President Publishing Services, RR Bowker

The way consumers become aware… purchase… and experience books and ‘content’ continues to shift with unprecedented speed and unpredictability. Here first-hand how the publishing landscape changed in 2008 and the forces behind.

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Leading and Innovating In A Hyper-Change World
Larry Osborne, North Coast Church

In a world of hyper-change, what some see as great loss others see as great opportunity. We’ll explore the one monster change most ministries and Christian organizations seem to have missed – and the changes it begs for.

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