Here comes convergence

Sometime last year I was conversing with Thinkerbell’s Adam Ferrier on the challenged state of journalism, B2B journalism and business publishing models generally. At that point our small, slightly mad, overworked team had already been chipping away at Mi3’s ‘project next’. We were trying to figure out how to better understand the different stories and podcasts our diverse audience were drawn to – marketers, for instance, are generally reading quite differently to those in agencies, consulting, media or tech. Even within each of those industry sectors, consumption patterns vary wildly based on an individual’s industry tenure and job function. 

So as we approach 10,000 industry professionals who have become our most regular and loyal audience as signed up “Mi3 Members”, the team was wrestling with a key challenge: How can we deliver more personally relevant content to Mi3’s different audience sectors but not lose the art and importance of serendipitous discovery – essentially the stuff we didn’t know we needed or wanted to know? How do we as editors produce and present more of the content Mi3 Members want without losing the capability and value to do the work around what they need to be sharper on industry developments, trends, challenges and new thinking? 

It’s the perpetual wrestle, isn’t it? We are all in our professional swim lanes, doing what we do in the now. Yet industry convergence is coming at pace – some of the obvious macro trends include: 

• The marketer’s agenda is stretching from advertising and communications to IT, martech, customer, CX, product and business impact (what real marketing should be). 
• Advertising and media is meshing with martech and customer experience. 
• Splintering audiences across different channels are forcing a global move by blue chip brands for single source cross-media measurement and even disruption in econometrics
• The crossover of remits between consulting groups and traditional agency networks is blurring once untouchable strongholds.
• Privacy, individual data and tracking is no longer the domain of policy wonks and lawyers – legislation and competition reviews will affect everyone from CMO though to creative, adtech, personalisation, CX and search specialists.
• In short, industry professionals have to be at their best in their function but increasingly carry broader vision on how their roles plug into and impact other parts of marketing, customer and ultimately business results.

What's changing?

With all that as context, from today here’s some of the changes you’ll start seeing at Mi3:

1. The most obvious to the eye is our overhaul and restructuring of Mi3’s content into key industry verticals and their sub sectors:

• Marketing
• Agencies & Consulting
• Media
• Tech

This may seem small but it’s at the core of where Mi3 is going – we’re not just tweaking the website’s taxonomy but aligning our Mi3 Member experience and editorial around those specialties.

2. These changes lead directly to the personal messaging our Mi3 Members will start seeing from today – the first being a 30 second request to update member and industry sector details. This is super important for the Editors – we have partnered with Piano, a subscription platform used by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Economist and a slew of other tier-one international mastheads although, to our tolerant and intrigued Piano partners, we’re not moving to a subscription model. Never say never but there is no plan for subs for now. Instead, we’re using Piano’s platform smarts to better understand aggregated content consumption patterns by professionals in their specific industry verticals to help us create, curate and personalise Mi3 content. Piano’s APAC boss Tim Rowell has already flagged some surprising consumption trends gleaned from all the data coming from our larger and more prestigious publishing peers who use Piano. This one is fascinating – on average just 11 per cent of a masthead’s audience drives 70 per cent of the content consumption. We’ll soon learn where Mi3 sits.
3. We’re also partnering with Piano to introduce a registration and membership gateway for those who regularly enjoy Mi3’s content and find it useful – and borrowing Piano’s impressive media subscription lessons over the past decade to help us with our new “Supporter” program. This is a big roll of the dice for us. We’re essentially asking our Members – individuals and corporates – to choose a support option so we can do better work with better informed editors and journalists – and more of them. We have no idea how this is going to land but publishing, certainly B2B publishing, needs to reinvent and do things differently. We’re up for some test and learn – although for us the experimentation phase is a little too public. We are about to find out whether the market really values the fresh and different perspectives it says Mi3 brings. Wish us well!
4. Ultimately we’re moving to a logged-in base for Mi3 Members which ensures the editors know what matters and doesn’t to our diverse audience and member base because we’ll see sector-level content patterns. And for the record, we’re interested in aggregated data. We don’t and won’t sell or share anything on individuals. Period.     

The close

In winding up this spiel, it returns to my opening stanza with Adam Ferrier. With his consumer psychology credentials, I’m hoping there is no margin of error in his prediction for Mi3. As we discussed publishing, journalism and Mi3’s distinctive market position, Ferrier fired back: “Your readers will 100 per cent donate. Just ask them and remind them often.” 

That’s precisely what we’re doing from today. Let’s blame Adam if it goes to shite. Thanks Adam. And an even bigger thanks to the incredibly under-resourced Mi3 team for pulling this off – Josh Blanket and Lauren Martin in particular as tech and project management powerhouses – and Piano’s Tim Rowell, Stephanie Sim, Gen Tan and Simon Taig for their patience, global expertise and insights. And finally, a nod to my former Editor at The Sydney Morning Herald, Robert Whitehead, for the nudge and know-how to make the leap. Here we go. 

Paul McIntyre | Executive Editor

PS – As with any new tech project, there are inevitably gremlins. Any issues, contact info@mi-3.com.au