PNA, Oct. 16

PNA Portal: Gearing up for Annual Convention

By Corinna Wilson, Chief Operating Officer
Pennsylvania Newspaper Association

Next week, PNA members will gather in Pittsburgh for the PNA’s 84th Annual Convention. The theme this year is “Changing Lanes,” and the programming certainly matches the theme – it is fast paced, focuses on agility and mobility and is geared (no pun intended, seriously!) to help you get from where you are now to somewhere else, quickly.

Ralph Martin, Trish Hooper and their staff at Trib Total Media grabbed the bull by the horns in planning this Convention. We want to thank them for that, particularly for calling in all their chits and scoring such high profile and relevant speakers.

This is a lean year for a lot of papers, and we anticipate convention attendance to be somewhat down. The shame of low attendance is that the programming this year is so strong. So for those of you who can’t or won’t be there, we will be covering the sessions in depth for next month’s edition of Insight, the PNA’s marketing newsletter. For more information on this online publication or to subscribe, click here.

To whet your appetite, here’s a Convention preview:

Sen. John McCain, the Republican candidate for president, has accepted our invitation to deliver the keynote address at Convention, although we do not yet have a firm day or time. A similar invitation was extended to Sen. Barack Obama. We haven’t ruled out the possibility that he might just show up, too!

For those of you who participated in the Pennsylvania Newspapers Pay It Forward initiative this year, the highlight of Convention may be the luncheon keynote address by Catherine Ryan Hyde, the author of Pay It Forward, the novel that inspired many such campaigns across the country. Catherine agreed to travel from her home in California to speak to us because she loves this initiative and believes that newspapers play a vital role in encouraging community engagement and acts of charity and philanthropy. We have prepared a short video showcasing the various Pay It Forward winners from around the state. All I can say is, bring tissues!

Len Kubas, the international marketing consultant and analyst who spoke at last year’s Convention in Hershey and who consults for many of you, is back to present his latest advertising pricing strategies, covering print and online pricing models.

The PNA Foundation held a day-long, standing-room-only session this summer on the new ABC rules. To follow up, several of the state’s circulation directors will be speaking about the practical impact of these new rules, including Jeff Simmons from Trib Total Media and Randy Waugaman from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

There has been a lot of buzz about the session on how to develop new compensation and commission plans in today’s complex environment. Bob Oliver, Gannett’s vice president of compensation and benefits, will share his company’s experience in developing the right incentives to get the right results for both print and online products.

Dr. Kathleen Clancy Jefferson with AchieveGlobal, an international management consulting firm that focuses on helping companies sell, service and lead in a changing world, has agreed to lead a session on leading through transitions. She will offer best practices to help you create a roadmap for change at your paper and talk about the importance of aligning organizational and individual goals. Certainly this is something we all need.

Mark Hawley, another old friend of Pennsylvania’s newspapers, a man who is considered to be the foremost authority on shared mail distribution systems, is presenting a program on target marketing sales, TMC programs, new distribution methodologies and an insider’s view of Valassis. As we see more and more Valassis activity around Pennsylvania, this session alone is worth the price of admission!

We are also offering a session on the all important topic of finding new revenue. Earl Wilkinson, the executive director and CEO of the International Newspaper Marketing Association, will present new research from that organization’s “Newspaper Outlook 2009.” Earl will compare the U.S. newspaper industry’s strategic search for value with other media industries.

The closing keynote address should also be valuable. Chester Elton, author of The 24-Carrot Manager: The Remarkable Story of How a Leader Can Unleash Human Potential, will share his knowledge of managing people to their fullest potential, something we all need in these demanding times.

Paul Calouri, director of client content services at the Associated Press, is presenting on the latest changes at the AP.

Finally, we are also holding a day-long training session on Thursday, Oct. 23 called “The Fine Art of Multimedia Storytelling.” Naka Nathaniel, formerly of The New York Times, was until this year that paper’s premier videographer. He catapulted into the spotlight after he captured the events of Sept. 11 on video as a new Times hire in 2001. His accomplishments are diverse. He is best known for his extensive travels with Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, covering the horrors of war and poverty and the impact of globalization. He also pioneered multimedia coverage of events such as the Olympics, forever changing the way we expect to experience sports news. Naka has trained for the PNA Foundation before and is back by popular demand. For more information on the session, click here.

We hope to see many of you next week. But if you can’t make it, rest assured that you will be able to read up on all of the sessions in next month’s Insight.

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