Association of Catholic Publishers presentation on best practice approach to technology application to the publishing enterprise. Relevant to all organizations for whom technology is a service.

1. Association of Catholic Publishers
Annual Meeting
Strategic Approach to Technology
Craig A. Miller
V 1.0
3 September 2015
Bert Davis Consulting Services Confidential © 2015

2. Agenda
• Brief Introduction
• Expectations
• Technical Strategy
 Principles
 Efficiency
 New Technology
 Common Pitfalls
• Q/A
• Feed Back
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3. BRIEF INTRODUCTION
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4. • Computer Engineer/Strategic Finance MBA
• Hardware computing (PCs, Graphics & Video Chips),
Internet Startups
• Publishing: NewsStand, LibreDigital
• Bert Davis:
 Consulting: dStrategy, Publishing & edTech Systems
 Retained Executive Search
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Scott Lubeck, President
BDCS, presented IT
Governance immediately
following this
presentation.
CS
Editorial High Technology

5. • Lumen Christi Catholic School
 K-3 through 8th
 School Commission
 Technology Committee
 Project Lead the Way (STEM) Network Chairman
• Milwaukee School of Engineering
 Director, Corporate Board
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6. Expectations
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What were you hoping
to hear or learn from this
presentation?

7. TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY
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8. STRATEGIC APPROACH TO
TECHNOLOGY
(FOR NON-TECHNOLOGISTS)
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9. Define Strategy
• strat·e·gy
/ˈstradəjē/
noun
“a plan of action or policy designed to
achieve a major or overall aim”
• Technology alone does not a Strategy
make
 Technology as a strategy: tail waging the
dog
 Where do you want to take your business?
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10. Strategic Analysis
• Leveraging navigation principles
• Know where you are… (Current State)
• Know where you want to be… (Strategy as Driver)
• Illuminate the terrain over which you must travel…
• Make a plan to get from here to there
• Scientific Method
• Hypotheses & Test
• No foregone conclusions
“The great thing about fact-based
decisions is that they can overrule the
hierarch.” Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com

11. Major Paths of Technology Strategy
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1. Increased Efficiency
• Improving existing/known processes and work
2. New Technology
• Cool, new stuff…
We are going to Cover both, which first?

12. Basic Principles
1. Executive’s Technology Right
 You are smart, accomplished;
 Own it, run it, manage it (insert activity here);
 You have the right to understand how
technology helps/impacts your business
 Understanding != (does not equal) knowing
how to do it
 Head of House/Exec Team: You or the
senior team member you designate has the
responsibility to understand this
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13. Basic Principles
2. Articulate what you want in non-technical terms then
find and understand technology to accomplish it
• Business Requirements
 Define what makes this a win (ROI, improve customer interaction/retention/etc reduce
cost, increase efficiency, etc)
 What happens when it fails? What is the backup plan (another service, physical
processes, etc)
 How will we know and how will we get out when it is time to change (growth oriented,
strategy is key)
 Use help from peers/staff/advisors as needed
• Why bother?
 Write it down, think it through, gather history for review
 Collaboration
o Correct View: Communication
o Wrong View:
• IT: “The business tells us what to build.”
• Business: “We tell IT what we want (and never get it)
• Recipe for failure
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14. Basic Principles
3. Few (if any) Original Problems: Rent, Buy, Build
 Rent It: If the function is a pure commodity and there is no
differentiation (eCommerce, Payrol, Workflow Management) should
be 100% SaaS (Software as a Service)
 Buy It: Solutions that are self-hosted either on PCs (WinX and
Mac), Servers or Devices. Heavy use, most current not always
critical
 Build It: Only if there is nothing in the market and functionality is
required that only you can do; an opportunity to uniquely
differentiate a product. The bar for this should be very, very high
4. Data is the Crown Jewels: Have it backed up in structures
outside the SaaS/Main system so if anything goes out of
business, you have it
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15. Basic Principles
5. Key components to successful tech project
 Document Requirements*
 Document Solution(s)
 Pick who will implement the project
 Pick who will manage implementation of the project*
o If you do these (*) two well, who does the rest is less important
and can be readily outsourced
6. Play in the sandbox
 You can’t break it there, find out how it works
7. Relentless Drive to Simplicity
 Due to lack of planning and process mapping, non-integrated
technologies tend to quickly seem complex
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16. EFFICIENCY
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17. Programmatic View of the Organization
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Process/Workflow Management
Editing
Layout
(Physical,
eBook)
Inventory
Management
Content
Calendar
Marketing -
Promotion
Sales Returns
Printing
Content Repository
Customer/Stakeholder Interactions
Author
Management
In Out

18. Example
• Promotional Email
 Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, Exact Target, etc, etc.
 Marketing has one
 They want a new one
• Reasoning?
1. Not O.K.: ABC is hard to work with, doesn’t do what we
want, etc. I’ve heard XYZ is really great
2. O.K.: With the targeting and segmentation tools in XYZ the
industry expects a 1% increase in conversion rate. We are
targeting 0.5% in 6 months and expect a $NNNN increase
• Issues?
 Silver bullet thinking
 If you allow Option 1, then some time from now, you’ll get
to do this again wo/any likely impact in the interim.
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19. IT Governance
• Once you know what you want to do,
how do you get there
 Align IT with business Strategy
• Limited resources and budget
 Prioritization
 There will be team members who wait
• Topic of Scott’s session, next
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20. NEW TECHNOLOGY
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21. Managing the Media Industry Hype Cycle
Gartner Hype Cycle 2013

22. Hype Cycle, cont.
• Avoid Magical Thinking
• Trends vs. Trendy
• Be careful about where in this cycle is good for your organization to
adopt
 It is likely not too early
 Don’t let the tail wag the dog…
• Identify an organization similar or slightly larger than yours who you
view as doing it right – What can you learn from observing them
• Allow time/resource for experimentation
 Experiment has expected outcomes: hypothesis
• Examples now Social Media
 Digital Editions/eBooks
• Don’t get on an infinite treadmill of cycling tools…
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23. COMMON PITFALLS
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24. 1. Wrong tool: Don’t fall into the “buy
the best” trap!
 Sailboat analogy
Common Pitfalls
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25. America’s Cup Racer
• Crew: Former NFL players, Captain
and strategist with decades on the
water
• Some of the best physical and
mental athletes in the world
Common Pitfalls
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A moderately skilled crew would struggle to get this launched,
efficient sailing – improbable; winning a race (e.g. ROI for a
system) – almost zero chance…

26. Race/Cruiser: Beneteau 42S7
• Will get you there in good time
with a good crew
• Grow the crew
• Right sized
• Learn to Sail It
Common Pitfalls
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27. • Pick a tool that aligns with current and
near term (12-18month) business and
drive it.
• Plan to upgrade – especially straight
forward with well thought out SaaS
approach.
• A great team using an OK tool will
outperform a OK team with a great
tool…
Common Pitfalls, 1 continued
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28. Common Pitfalls
2. (Over) Doing it Yourself
 Industry Hypothesis: Most everything in
publishing can be done by a reasonably
intelligent person who studies the task at
hand over time (thus expertise is gained)
o Editor: People write, but there is a big difference
between the average blogger and a great editor
o You use technology, but there is a big difference
between a user and a technologist
 Self assess when you need the support of
someone trained and experienced in the
issue at hand
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29. Common Pitfalls
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30. Common Pitfalls
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31. Common Pitfalls
3. Cognitive breaks in Requirements
 Watch how heavily you leverage your
history in creating new requirements
o The sailboat analogy applies…
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32. Common Pitfalls
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If your team have been crewing a broken boat
(system, process, etc), their requirements may
emulate that

33. Common Pitfalls, 3 continued
3. Cognitive breaks in Requirements
 Watch how heavily you leverage your history in creating new requirements
 Be certain of what you are going to get - watch out for wishy-washy
requirements
• Be wary of anyone who wants you to write code other than glue
 Glue = use of API’s
o Often others have coded a connector between the two systems and/or
o Third party services (such as Zapier) provide pre-made, drag-and-drop configurable
connectors
 Surgeons perform Surgery. Developers write code. Make sure you are
asking the right expert
• Know how you are going to get out.
 SaaS vendors are great at telling you how to get in, not so great at telling
you how to migrate out. Be clear on this from day one (their API is usually
key)
 If you are swapping out a solution, make sure the old one is turned all the
way off – otherwise you will be hard to recognize the ROI
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34. Q/A & FEEDBACK
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35. Audience Question 1
Q“Our big questions are how quickly schools will
adapt to digital applications, and how valuable is
having a fully digital high school curriculum with
over 200 resources in the software?”
A2nd Part of Question: I don’t know
A1st Part: Depends about which schools you
are talking about:
o Leading schools: too late, they are not
waiting for you.
• Building their own curriculum
• BYOD…
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36. Bring Your Own Device
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37. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
• Schools can’t sustain the cost of maintaining and
replacing in-classroom devices
 Push the cost to student’s families
• Build a culture around solving common problems
(presentations, making a video, etc) with groups
focused on a particular device
 e.g. all the iPads, Samsung Galaxy’s, etc..
• Tier to grade range
• More resources:
 Lumen Christi School BYOD Program
o Links out to Nation Educational Technology Plan
o COPPA, CIPA
o Digital Citizenship Curriculum, etc.
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38. Audience Question 2
Q How can you find affordable, competent
IT staff? They blow our pay scales out of
the water.
A Make sure you know what you want: What does
your org need to be good at in IT
o Infrastructure
o Translating Biz Requirements into Technical
Requirements
o Managing resources (internal and external) to accomplish
projects
 Focus on the Mission and Lifestyle
o If your organization is missing or can’t articulate either of
these, there are different issues to solve first…
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39. Audience Question 3
Q Recommendations for those starting
out "behind the curve"--new to
technology, especially the Internet,
SaaS
A Sandbox to experiment and not worry
about breaking
 Youtube: New products have
extensive videos on their benefits and
how-to
 Seek advisors/peers w/more
experience who you can leverage
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40. Feedback
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How could the next session
be made more valuable?

41. Contact Information
Craig A. Miller
cmiller@bertdavis.com
224-374-1808
Scott Lubeck
slubeck@bertdavis.com
212-838-4000
Connect with us on
LinkedIn to learn
more and discuss
your challenges!

42. More from Craig A. Miller
• See my LinkedIn
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