Longtime industry analyst and consultant Steve Sieck of SKS Advisors will moderate a focus-group style discussion of the issues surrounding the enterprise and institutional ebook market. The forum will bring together academic and corporate buyers, key players within the industry ecosystem of hardware, software, and services suppliers, as well as participating conference registrants.

The objective of the discussion is to illuminate issues emerging from the rapid evolution of the ebook market as e-reader devices begin to significantly impact mainstream book publishing and ebook collections continue to grow in importance within institutional collections. While topics will be affected by the participants and intervening marketplace developments, the discussion is likely to engage topics such as trends in the institutional markets; the institutional impacts of e-readers’ growth in consumer, business and educational markets; how competition and collaboration among Google, Amazon, other major booksellers, and global professional and academic publishers may shape the landscape; the Google settlement; licensing and content bundling issues; DRM pros and cons; the ebook service environment; and potential future formats and standards.

Our overarching goal is to help define areas of common interest and opportunity for both buyers and sellers, as well as improve the understanding, and perhaps help to accelerate the resolution, of key areas of contention and/or uncertainty. In addition to the discussion itself, a subsequent report will be provided to attendees that will document areas of consensus, disagreement, and suggested further dialogue.

Underneath all its glamour (and despite a mountain of missteps), Hollywood has shown a continual ability to capture the next generation of audiences with content that truly engages them. As content companies, the strategies we create today must similarly understand how to engage our next generation of customers. This keynote will tap some lessons learned from decades spent advising many of the entertainment industry's biggest brands to help these traditional content companies tear down walls, create customer feedback loops, and capture the hearts and minds of our customers.

There are many forces impacting the econtent business today. Investment in digital infrastructure continues while, depending on the market, investment in print infrastructure has virtually stopped. "Multi-channel publishing" is giving way to "media-neutral" publishing. Many qualified partners have emerged for all aspects of digital publishing-digitization, editorial development, digital development, hosting, distribution, sales, and marketing. Most critically, new products and brands from upstart companies are being "born digital," taking market share and revenue from established brands and products. Trippe will discuss these forces to help guide publishers forward to develop the digital infrastructure and profitable partnerships required to launch the compelling, feature-rich content products that today's market requires.

This presentation will address the changing faces of content on the web and how agile businesses seek to engage and capture these new audiences. The discussion will center on meeting end-user needs, in particular by addressing the challange of enabling customers to more easily find what they are searching for through user-centric design, taxonomy, and more.

The pace of change in the information industry has never been faster as academic institutions, businesses and individuals around the world need simple ways to share knowledge while supporting the principles of copyright. Today's digital world requires innovative rights licensing and management services that support the needs of both content owners and users. Publishers, authors and content creators want to make their work available to as many people as possible but not at the expense of losing control over their work as technology has revolutionized the way people living in different parts of the world can use and share content. It is essential to recognize these challenges and make it easy for content to fuel collaboration easily ... and legally.

This discussion will focus on how advisory boards allow content providers to stay on top of the market, seed innovation, and validate the product pipeline. Communicating with customers regularly through an organized channel such as an advisory board allows feedback to be relayed to the appropriate channels, pushing a content provider's offerings to a level of high value and demand. In this way, advisory boards help to drive ROI for content providers. Receiving feedback in a timely fashion is crucial for successful innovation and to gauge customer needs, allowing the company to better shift direction to match demands. George Scotti from Springer will provide insight from the vendor perspective. Rob Urbanowitz from Geehan Group, will provide best practices from managing an array of customer advisory boards on a global basis. You will also hear from three librarians their experiences from participating on Springer's LAB program.

Leading-edge media companies have adopted content aggregation as a mainstream strategy. Sometimes a controversial subject, sites that aggregate links to the best of the web are a clear hit with consumers and have been rewarded with increased traffic, engagement, and customer loyalty. Now publishers and nonpublishers alike are using aggregation to supplement their original content and extend their brand as a trusted source for their audience. Cohen will show how technology is being used to find, filter, and prioritize the best content for vertical audiences and will discuss the business benefits in specific case studies.

Technology has lifted the barrier to entry in digital publishing; it has also disrupted many models and businesses along the way. So, how do we create more effective and real business models in light of this disruption? Mouton will discuss innovative ideas emerging in the digital publishing world. He'll talk about new partnership programs that yield creative content offerings. Mouton will also discuss SEO optimization around large content collections and ecommerce tools in the context of effective content monetization.

The publishing landscape is constantly evolving, but never more so than in the past year. While the need remains for publishing print materials such as hardcover books and daily newspapers, there has been a drastic shift to digital content including ebooks and e-magazines. This has not only created a challenge for publishers from a technology perspective, but also in terms of pricing. Publishers need to know how to best leverage their existing content in a variety of digital formats. In this session, Eckler and Steinberger will discuss the specific challenges publishers face today with regards to remaining flexible, competitive, profitable and able to meet customer needs in the digital publishing world. Perseus has been at the forefront of this industry shift, making available all of its content in multiple digital formats spanning several platforms.

Join your peers on the terrace for fabulous food and stimulating conversation.

Like so many book publishers, Simon & Schuster has heavy competition for readers' attention and seeks to set itself apart. LivingSocial offered a new vehicle that allowed the company to strategically target a number of audiences to promote The Mortal Instruments to readers of its Twilight series and other vampire books and movies. It captured a massive and diverse audience using such tools as a personalized e-reader and the Visual Bookshelf Facebook application.

The law enforcement establishment is complex. It starts with local police or sheriff departments and goes all the way up to the Department of Justice. Needless to say, there are many technology and services vendors working in this area, which creates a large number of different record structures, access methods, and the like. This has led to inevitable problems in information sharing. This talk describes how Specialty Systems, Inc. (SSI), a New Jersey-based company working in the law enforcement area, is using standards created at a federal government department level, to effect information sharing in New Jersey counties to help reduce the threat of terrorism. SSI chose MuseGlobal's Smart Connector federation and harvesting technology to gather and normalize content from county police, sheriff, and prosecutors' departments. In addition to describing how SSI and MuseGlobal are solving this problem, the talk will also address the broader issues of siloed content and information-sharing obstacles in the law enforcement area.

Infotrieve has seen a huge change in the way published content is purchased, accessed, disseminated, used, and evaluated by R&D clients around the world. What's changed? The need for fast and compliant access to published content has increased as people expect information to be easily accessible from their desktop. Economic challenges have put every purchasing decision under the microscope. Therefore, decision makers want to see the return on investment for every expenditure, including licensed and pay-per-view content. Weaver will share how access, speed, and ROI come together for content users and administrators by implementing technologies that provide a streamlined workflow, easy-to-use self-service tools, and detailed tracking capabilities.

Libraries around the world are making tough choices about their content collections in this challenging economic environment. Renewal budgets have been cut to the core, meaning that renewals that were once guaranteed are now in the balance. But in some channels, new business is on track and even above plan. Join this discussion group to talk about trends in subscriptions and collection development. Topics will include macroeconomic indicators and geographic factors on these trends, as well as what content providers can do to poise themselves for success as the economy turns toward recovery.

This discussion will focus on taking a consultative B2B process, to help move the industry to a new frontier. Today's content executive should consider taking a consultative approach to business development, which may involve moving outside their comfort zone and using new technologies and best practices outside their expertise domain. As the market picks up with activity B2B activities are going to be essential as companies look to grow their solutions and here attendees can bring forward ideas about how to transform the business development process.

@lfschwartz -Sample Content Promotion using twitter and tools to assist. Also create new content from Twitter for fun and profit. #BSEC

Content comes from a wide variety of sources, supported through a wide range of economic models. As content budgets have tightened, free resources have increased in importance. At the same time, the risks associated with information work require knowledge workers to have reliable, always-on sources and clear boundaries around usage--requirements that lead them back to fee-based resources. Today's content portfolio includes a range of free and fee sources. Content providers must be able to fit their offerings into this framework, and correct pricing has never been more critical. Meanwhile, content buyers must manage a diverse portfolio, understanding the hidden costs of each resource even if the direct cost is zero. This discussion will ask content buyers to talk about price sensitivity, both for content itself and the assurances their organizations need. It will ask content vendors to discuss the positioning of their products along the continuum of free to fee. And the objective will be for everyone to come away with a clearer understanding of exactly what they are buying and selling, for exactly what price.

Do content containers matter anymore? Paper objects implied a confined entertainment or learning experience, but simply replicating objects as content does not maximize their value. Users today require multimodal content experiences that allow them to derive the maximum knowledge from their interaction with information. From books to elearning and images to streaming media, the shape of our content containers is changing. This new, elusive form of content hybrid serves genuine end-user needs. However, models, regulation and laws, channels, licensing, and pricing are all in flux. Join this conversation to help our industry adapt and build new productive content models around this emergent form of "experience publishing."

Fun, food, and the industry’s best networking under the wide Arizona sky.

As we enter the first truly digital news decade, many of the rules of publishing have changed. Ken Doctor, author of Newsonomics: Twelve New Trends That Will Shape the News You Get (St. Martin's Press, February 2010), and a leading content industry analyst, lays out the new rules. At BSeC, he will tour this altered landscape and urge publishers to challenge business as usual, while providing insights into state-of-the-art content production models, the new aggregation ecosystem, and the rise of the Digital Dozen.

This panel will explore the tension between content creators, internet economics, and the content consumer. It will offer discussion and debate about the best ways to deliver income to content creators. The focus will be on what sustainable approaches will work in the years ahead. Panelists will address the roles of audience building, content aggregation, the link economy, content creation, and various approaches for redistributing wealth-all in the context of internet economics, unlimited and free bandwidth, unlimited audience potential, unlimited content creators, and the internet's universal portal: Google.

According to Cisco Systems, video will account for over 60% of all consumer Internet traffic by 2013.  As a result, the content running over these pipes will continue to increase in value, but how do you get it consumed on a large scale and realize that value? Placing your video on YouTube and hoping for audience is not a realistic distribution strategy. Norlin will discuss how syndication is changing the content distribution landscape. This presentation will walk through the top syndication strategies and how this translates into increased distribution, larger audiences, and new revenue streams for video content owners.

The "Free vs. Fee" discussion is like the Energizer Bunny. It keeps going and going and going. Many content providers still struggle to find the right balance between free and fee. Customers are increasingly demanding more high-quality data in the format of their choosing. It's all about expanding reach, starting most importantly with better segmentation of your customers (both free and paid) and truly understanding their needs. From there, you can start nurturing a lifecycle trajectory-from free visitor, to free registered user, to prospect, to customer, to satisfied customer, to engaged and loyal customer. Hoover's will demonstrate how its customer life cycle management discipline manages and sustains customer relationships.

As tough economic times strike nearly every industry, it is no surprise information organizations and libraries are faced with justifying budgets. Information professionals must define the inherent value of electronic content to other internal departments, as well as defend staff resources and time. What is the role of the agent in times when every penny must count? This presentation will examine how agents must strategize to develop smart solutions that resonate with library professionals and speak to the needs of tough economic times. Andrade will cover how agents are becoming more innovative, creating solution packages that help libraries defend, define, and manage their most important e-resources. He will also demonstrate how the rise of the electronic age has made it difficult to manage licenses with respect to electronic resources.

In a digital world, there's no cost associated with reproducing information. While the volume of data and information has its own challenges, it does allow information to be specifically designed for individuals or groups. The context of information and its customization within workflows is and will remain critical. And technologies are proliferating as a result. For publishers, this requires an appropriate licensing vehicle. Which is why, about 18 months ago, the FT launched its direct licensing model and its-channel neutral-approach to publishing news. The licensing model ensures a fair and transparent means of separating the value of FT content from the value provided by technology platforms. The implications of this for information professionals will be illustrated by considering some examples from the last 18 months.

Continue the conversation over a lovely lunch with a view of Camelback Mountain.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Walt Disney Co. is close to unveiling technology it says will enable entertainment companies to adapt their business models to a new reality in which consumers increasingly rely on computers and cell phones in place of DVD players and TVs. Safari Books Online is developing the technology that will enable book and video publishers to do the same thing, in which customers increasingly rely on computers, cell phones, and e-readers in place of print books and DVDs. The technology will allow consumers to pay a single price for permanent access to a book or video across multiple digital platforms and devices-from the web for on-demand viewing, to mobile gadgets like iPhones and the Kindle for offline consumption-combining the features of a subscription service with the convenience of an ebook purchase transaction.

Online search and reference tools to date have focused primarily on simply aggregating and indexing online content, but consumers are coming to expect more from data providers: better natural-language processing, more interactive and computable content, and greater accuracy in search results. Participants will learn about new frontiers in data gathering and organization; technological challenges that confront data providers as they seek to remain competitive in this new landscape; and novel business models and opportunities that exist for those who can surmount these obstacles.

As information continues to proliferate online and within organizations, search has become a mission-critical application for decision makers. To unlock business value from vast stores of internal data, placing search at the center of business applications helps users explore vast amounts of enterprise content without being database specialists. To maintain a competitive edge, organizations are enhancing search technologies with text analytics. Why? The merging of the two disciplines helps solve a core business challenge left unaddressed by search alone: gaining the right insight into the right problem without already knowing what the solution is. The decision-making process often involves critical trade-offs that are not evident as users approach their problem with each search. The potent combination of search and text analytics helps users inject interactive guidance into every aspect of their experience. The Lexalytics-NewsSift.com collaboration leverages text analytics to enable exploration by providing metadata combined with search.

Technology is facilitating information discovery in ways never before possible. While many corporations think of digital information in terms of entire documents, chapters, and even paragraphs within documents, gaining vast amounts of relevant knowledge can begin with a single word. This presentation will demonstrate how corporations and higher-education institutions are using new technologies such as ebrary InfoTools-which turns every word into a portal to additional online resources from multiple resources and vendors-to increase end-user knowledge and productivity.

Particularly for use by the masses, video is a relatively new medium of communication. However, because of broadband adoption and growing consumer interest in video, we are poised to see it become a much deeper and fundamental part of how society communicates and operates. Publishers of all kinds are now recognizing that when it is done effectively, video can be a major force in diversifying content offerings, driving readership, and creating new revenue streams. Online video platforms like Brightcove's make it easy for publishers of any size to roll out effective, ad-supported, user-friendly video on their websites, as well as to distribute their video content to a host of third-party outlets. In this session, Brightcove will discuss why publishers need to diversify their content through video and highlight innovative use cases from leading media organizations including Conde Nast and Philly.com.

This case study examines the Institutional Investor Journals' successes after transitioning to a new digital publishing platform. The new platform, which enables this publisher of professional journals to create new digital products in response to customer requirements, has resulted in increased registrations, subscriptions, renewals, and other on-site purchases. A number of commercial models are examined, including advertising, standard and premium subscriptions, pay-per-view, and one-off collection purchases.

Selling online subscriptions is the most-hyped content business model for 2010--and yet there's been a dearth of practical data around it ... until now. The research team at SubscriptionSiteInsider.com conducted an intensive survey of actual subscription sites, including pricing, marketing, and profits. Publisher Anne Holland will present this data, including her analysis of what the biggest opportunities are in M&As, new service launches, and how to raise profits for current sites. If you are already selling subscriptions, or, considering launching an online subscription offering, this keynote presentation will help you make business decisions based on real-world data.