This is not just another transformation story. Thomas (formerly Thomas Publishing) has made a radical leap from directory publisher to becoming a "data platform company that runs like a software business focused on user experience."

"I was recently talking to a group of young professionals and asked them if they had any learning to share," James Pogue, a much-lauded speaker and the CEO of James Pogue Enterprises, told a gathering here in June. Pogue—who will deliver the opening keynote at our Business Information & Media Summit (BIMS), Nov. 12-14 in Fort Lauderdale—said that a young director related a story of an older colleague who thanked her, but she owes an apology to.

About two-thirds through a great session at our 2017 BIMS conference titled Know to Grow: Getting Smarter About Your Customers, Digital Prism Advisors' Jonathan Murray asked Jeffrey Raymond, VP of product strategy for the American Institute of Architects, "What are your three keys to success in implementing agile inside an organization?"

When it comes to getting feedback from customers, Victoria Mellor, CEO and co-founder, Novatum Group and before that Melcrum, does not like most surveys.

Towards the end of a takeaway-stuffed session at our BIMS conference in November titled Bringing Customers Into Your Marketing, Fulfillment & Product Development, Jim Sinkinson of Fired Up! Marketing asked his fellow panelists this: "Do you ever get to the point of asking customers or prospects, 'Would you buy it [if we built it]'? How do you get as close as possible to the answer in your interactions with customers?"

"One of the things that has struck me is how comfortable publishers are getting with data now," said Russell Perkins, founder and president of InfoCommerce Group. "Media companies are pushing with different levels of intensity, seeing the potential of it. [Opening keynote speaker] Debra Walton said she is seeing that on a smaller scale now, data products becoming important to customers. 'You've got to keep up with us.'

"My job is making sure the customer is at the heart of everything we're doing across all our initiatives," Robyn Duda, VP of brand strategy & experience design for event-giant UBM, told us Monday on Day 1 of SIIA's Business Information & Media Summit (BIMS) here in warm and friendly Fort Lauderdale, where winds of change swirled outside and in. That means focusing on instant gratification, Duda said. "It's the biggest disruptor we have in business now, especially in B2B."

Diane Arseneau, CEO of SIPA member Zagora, was ahead of her time. Back in 2008—when silos still stood tall and “publisher events” still was not an everyday phrase—she went to TC Media, publisher of the Montreal newspaper Les Affaires, and proposed an events division.  They agreed, and four years later Arseneau came up with the idea of renting a plane for a traveling “conference” for entrepreneurial Canadian miners to venture 2600 kilometers north in Quebec. “Let’s try something different,” she recalled saying yesterday while presenting a session at Day 2 of SIIA’s Business Information & Media Summit (BIMS) in Fort Lauderdale. Only the word “completely” was missing from this over-the-top idea that would have given it a Monty Pythonish, fantasy feel. But Arseneau showed us the video! And we watched entrepreneurs bonding on frozen runways with layers of clothing, regaling in the ...

“’As long as you do not fully understand the behavior of your customers, you will not be able to develop any new products,’ said Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. Those who develop digital products based on a gut feeling and not on a comprehensive pool of data are flying blindly and can only fail.” —SIIA member Dietmar Schantin of the Institute for Media Strategies writing on the INMA site. Data was one of his five takeaways from a high-profile media workshop he held earlier this year

BPA Worldwide this week announced the official launch of its B2B Media Exchange, a programmatic marketplace connecting advertisers with brand-safe B2B media suppliers. More than 100 business brands have signed on for the debut, including publishers such as SourceMedia, PennWell, GrandView Media and Wainer Finest Communication's Whole Foods Magazine.