There was a great
post today
on Charkin Blog written by Richard Charkin, CEO of Macmillan publishers in the UK. It’s a one page "wiring diagram" of all of the interested parties in their publishing process.
It doesn’t get
into the internal process of creating product. Instead, it covers the landscape of all the players from the author to the
end consumer (the reader).
Look at this even
if you’re not a publisher.
It’s a great way
to outline the players involved in the creation and distribution of any product
(on one page!).
Many of us map
our internal processes to create
product but we don’t spend much time looking outside
of our own company.
It’s critical to
understand how all of our intermediaries fit together to move our products into the
hands of our end consumers.
Another great Charkin
blog entry quotes some statistics provided by the Publishers Association
published in their Statistics Yearbook for 2005.
Some highlights
(taken from Charkin’s blog):
“On average
across the world people spend 6.5 hours a week reading…
On average people
now spend more time on the Internet for leisure (not work) than reading – 8.9
vs 6.5 hours…
Internet use
reduces the time people have for reading by around 20%.”
Think about those
statistics when you look at Charkin’s wiring diagram.
Does it look like
Macmillan is taking these stats into account when developing products?