Deutsche Fassung hier.

“How often do publishers ask their interns for advice?” Sara Sargent of Penguin Random House was raising the question, provocatively, yet with a smile, in her keynote address to the Publishers’ Forum in Berlin. She discussed how traditional book people can learn about new young audiences who seamlessly navigate between reading, binge watching, gaming, chatting, texting and posting, while having no remorse of blending their books and reading with all the other intake they have in their daily lives.

How, and where, and from whom do book people learn? This is the question I want to raise, after countless conversations over the past half year with colleagues and friends, recognizing that, at least in my view, in our industry we are dramatically short of functional, adequate, open and diverse enough platforms and formats to address

• Concerns around transforming markets and reading audiences;
• Insights on new audiences, not just for books and reading, but to new storytelling, new consumer practices, and crossovers between entertainment, education and access to knowledge;
• Learnings from successful, and failed, steps of transformation;
• Strategies for re-thinking the business of books and reading.

Closing the Publishing Forum in Berlin after 16 editions, and hearing from other organizers of professional discourses many similar acknowledgements of a loss of traction with stakeholders and audiences, I see a necessity to re-think the professional debate about the business of books (and as a result, of publishing conferences) on multiple levels:

1. We need better formats.
   The common mix of keynotes, panels and workshops results in debates that are either too general, or too granular, and hardly effective in feeding new insights and experiences across sectors and hierarchies;
   Too little preparation and formatting of input occurs before people gather for their exchange; and too little provision of tangible takeaways is given after they return to their routines;
   We spent most of the cost on airfare, hotels and fancy venues instead of investing in a smart mix of on-site and online interaction, before, during and after a convention.
2. The communities of participants need to be opened.
   Gatherings are too exclusive, bringing together people of similar functions and status, rather than cutting across hierarchies and experiences;
   Diversity and inclusiveness are neglected in their central relevance to the industry, by gender, but also by culture and background, ignoring the changed demographics in the societies that publishers are catering to;
   Input with data and learnings from other – neighboring or entirely alien – sectors must come as a key ingredient, not some exotic fancy.
3. Collaboration must become an organizing principle.
   How can industry stakeholders become owners, not customers of the debates and events?
   How can professional educational organizations, industry researchers and practitioners convene interactively?
   How can expectations and targets become guidelines in the curation of debates and events?

I have been running publishing programs in many ways since 1995, as coordinator for Austria as a guest of honor in Frankfurt, head of communications at the Frankfurt Book Fair, international director of BookExpo America, and now for six years as director of the Publishers’ Forum.

Today I am convinced that we must return to the drawing board, to re-design the agora for the book industry from scratch.

You are invited to help kicking off the discussion, and share your thoughts at agora@wischenbart.com – We will post excerpts and summaries here at www.booklab.info as a first step.

English version here.

„Wie oft fragen Verleger ihre Praktikanten um Rat?“ Sara Sargent von Penguin Random House warf die Frage provokativ und doch mit einem LĂ€cheln in ihrer Eröffnungsrede am Publishers‘ Forum in Berlin ins Auditorium. Welche Gelegenheiten haben Buchmenschen, Neues zu lernen ĂŒber junge Zielgruppen, die nahtlos zwischen Lesen, Binge-Watching, Spielen, Chatten, SMSen und Posten wechseln, und die ohne Reue Lesen und BĂŒcher zu mixen mit all den anderen Dingen, die ihren Alltag ausmachen?

Wie und wo und von wem lernen Buchmenschen? Diese Frage treibt mich heute um, anlĂ€sslich der Einstellung des Publishers‘ Forum nach 16 Jahren, und nach unzĂ€hligen GesprĂ€chen ĂŒber mehrere Monate mit Kollegen und Freunden, die Ă€hnlich feststellten, dass unsere Branche neue stimmige, offene und wirkungsvollere Plattformen und Formate benötig, um ihre strategischen und praktischen Perspektiven zu reflektieren:

• Verunsicherung durch die Transformation der Buch- und MedienmĂ€rkte und der Rolle des Lesens;
• VerstĂ€ndnis fĂŒr neue Zielgruppen und deren verĂ€nderte PrĂ€ferenzen, nicht nur betreffend BĂŒcher und Lesen, sondern in deren Zugang zum neuen „Story Telling“, zu Unterhaltung, Lernen und Wissen;
• Lehren aus erfolgreichen wie auch aus fehlgeschlagenen Experimenten und Innovationen;
• Strategien, um das VerlagsgeschĂ€ft rundum neu zu denken, ohne die Basis des bestehenden Brot-und-Butter GeschĂ€fts deshalb aus den Augen zu verlieren.

Es gibt zahlreiche AnstĂ¶ĂŸe und GrĂŒnde, die Fachdebatten der Buchbranche neu anzulegen:

1. Wir brauchen bessere Formate.
   Die ĂŒbliche Mischung aus Keynotes, Podien und Workshops resultiert in Debatten, die entweder zu allgemein, oder zu kleinteilig sind, und nur selten beitragen, neue Einsichten und Erfahrungen ĂŒbergreifend ĂŒber Sektoren und Hierarchien hinweg zu gewinnen;
   Zu wenig inhaltliche Aufmerksamkeit geht in den Vorlauf der Veranstaltungen, und noch weniger in die Nachhaltigkeit, sobald der Alltag das neu Gelernte rasch verschluckt;
   Der meiste finanzielle Aufwand gilt bisher FlĂŒgen, Hotels und schicken Veranstaltungsorten. Es braucht eine intelligente Mischung aus gemeinsamer Arbeit vor Ort und auch, davor und danach, innovativer digital unterstĂŒtzter Informationsaufbereitung und deren ergĂ€nzender Vermittlung Online.
2. Die Zusammensetzung der Teilnehmenden muss aufgebrochen werden.
   Funktion, Status und Erfahrungshintergrund der Teilnehmenden sind zumeist viel zu Ă€hnlich, und verhindern Überraschungen und Entdeckungen ĂŒber die gewohnte Komfortzone hinaus.
   DiversitĂ€t und InklusivitĂ€t, also die Vielfalt nach Gender, Kultur und Herkunft, haben zentrale Relevanz fĂŒr die Branche, aber die verĂ€nderte demografische Struktur unserer Gesellschaften spiegelt sich kaum in den ZusammenkĂŒnften von Buchmenschen.
   Fakten und Analysen aus anderen – benachbarten oder völlig fremden – Branchen sollten selbstverstĂ€ndliche Zutaten sein, und nicht bestenfalls peripherer exotischer Kick.
3. Kollaboration muss zum Organisationsprinzip werden.
   Wie gelingt es, dass sich die Stakeholder selbst als Akteure, und nicht als passive Kunden in den Debatten und Veranstaltungen betrachten?
   Wie gelingt ein interaktiver Mix aus Experten, Bildungseinrichtungen der Branche und Praktikern?
   Wie lassen sich konkrete Erwartungen und Erkenntnisziele der Stakeholder in ein Gestaltungsprinzip fĂŒr die Debatten und Veranstaltungen verwandeln?

Nach einschlĂ€gigen Erfahrungen seit 1995, als Koordinator fĂŒr Österreich als Ehrengast in Frankfurt, Kommunikations-Chef der Buchmesse, International director der BookExpo America und nun fĂŒr sechs Jahre als Direktor des Publishers‘ Forum, bin ich ĂŒberzeugt: Wir mĂŒssen zurĂŒck ans Zeichenbrett, und die Agora der Buchbranche neu entwerfen.

Helfen Sie mit die Diskussion zu eröffnen, teilen Sie Ihre Gedanken unter agora@wischenbart.com, und ermöglichen Sie uns, diese Inputs unter www.booklab.info branchenweit zugÀnglich zu machen.

Is artificial intelligence coming? That’s the wrong question. Because there are already countless – often unnoticed – examples for the use of AI. On 9 and 10 May in Berlin, the Publishers’ Forum will present two approaches to this mega-trend – Early Bird rates available until Feb 2019.

Discussion points include:

• Which questions and problem areas can the use of AI already provide solutions for that are suitable for everyday use?
• Which practical examples in the publishing industry demonstrate how we can already benefit from the use of AI here and now?

AI has a broad spectrum of potential applications across the areas of creation, discovery (and management) of talent, review of specialist content, and the provision of complex interfaces between content/rights owners and end consumers. Hear about exciting examples of all these scenarios:

• Creation: Why did computer giant IBM acquire a creative agency? And what does this step have to do with Watson, one of the world’s leading AI suites? David Linderman, currently Executive Creative Director at Aperto, has been heading up projects at the intersection of AI technology and design for 10 years. After stints in London and New York, he is now back in Berlin, where he will impart an overview of the broad palette of potential applications for AI and their design requirements.
• Talent discovery: Not merely thousands, but millions of texts are submitted to author platforms like Wattpad every month. Only by means of AI is it possible to find the proverbial “needle in the haystack” with the potential for development and exploitation as a book, film, TV series, or game. Ashleigh Gardner will be reliant on these discoveries to scale up the newly founded book publishing division of Wattpad.
• Content review: In specialist and academic publishing, manuscripts must be checked not just for linguistic accuracy, but also – by means of comparison with thousands of published texts – for factual inaccuracies or contradictions. This is precisely what the software from Danish startup Unsilo does, as co-founder Mads Rydahl will show at the Forum.
• Customer interfaces: With SciGraph, academic publisher SpringerNature has already been using AI for years to link its thousands of articles thematically, thereby improving discoverability, as Henning Schönenberger can report. But end consumers who pose a “Gute Frage” (good question) or consult the “Netdoktor” on Holtzbrinck’s digital portals also receive assistance via AI. These are tricky undertakings, as Miriam Rosin knows, because there is hardly any room for error when, for example, an AI bot helps provide answers.