From Community to Content

I had lunch with Michele Miller a week or so ago along with some other colleagues from the office. The conversation we had was centered around the current presidential race (go figure). One thing she spoke about was no matter how you feel about Barack Obama, you cannot deny that his campaign has effectively built a following and one of the ways they have done that has been through the power of social networking. This online phenomenon is growing millions of unique communities built around millions of unique ideas, interests, or industries. As I think about myself I have joined multiple online communities that enable me to easily keep up with varying facets of the lives' of people I know, or hope to know. Currently, I have profiles on Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn and Classmates.com.

What in the world does this have to do with ECPA's education program and Pub U? Well, we believe strongly that the Christian publishing industry has two distinctive areas where there are common bonds to help build community, Christianity and publishing. Therefore, with Pub U 2008 in our sights we are working toward a program that will help to further build community, between individuals, between core publishing disciplines, and yes, even between houses.

In my peripheral contact with the ECPA Board of Directors, I am amazed that the leaders of companies that are by all rights competitors share such a strong bond and friendship. They truly desire to serve one another. I believe it's this attitude that trickles down to "the rest of us".

So, instead of tracks this year, we have communities.

Sales & Marketing
Production
Business Leadership & Advanced Management
Rights
Design
Technology
Editorial

With each of these we have selected a community leader that we feel will help us to develop the content that you want and need to hear at this year's event (with the only exception being Editorial). Last week we added Jim Seybert as the community leader for the Sales & Marketing community and he is already hot on the trail of some great presenters and topics. Speaking of which, what would you like to hear about at this year's Pub U?