Gus Balbontin, director of transformation at Lonely Planet, talks about breaking down the barriers of an established industry and learning to remain relevant.
Old habits die hard, especially in organizations like publishing houses, libraries, and educational institutions, where we’ve been doing things in certain ways—ways that have worked well—for a long time. Now, as the world around our job descriptions and buildings and policies changes, we have to figure out which bits of our organizational legacies are worth keeping and which need to be adjusted or abandoned. And that’s where new opportunities might lie.
Publishers who are willing to see their business from a new angle know this. Gus Balbontin, director of transformation at travel publisher Lonely Planet, recently talked to O’Reilly Media’s Jenn Webb about the challenges of publishing and the possibilities of digital media. The seven-minute video was shot at O’Reilly’s 2011 Tools of Change for Publishing conference.
In light of changing media, wonders Webb, “What kinds of technology should authors focus on learning?” The answer isn’t technology; it’s attitude.
“I wish there was a piece of technology called ‘the flexible brain technology’ or something,” says Balbontin. “One of the most important things is to train yourself to be flexible and curious and inquisitive enough to explore as much as possible… There could be a number of [tools] that you could use to try to expand yourself as an author, but the most important one is that internal one that says, ‘I need to remain relevant, I need to remain curious, I need to keep exploring and experimenting with things so this new world of publishing doesn’t overtake me and I still am useful and connected to my customer.’”
No one likes having changed forced on them, says Balbontin. And while individuals can take on the attitude of the curious explorer, it’s tougher to change an organization that’s been set in its ways for hundreds of years.
“What are some of the major obstacles you face bringing Lonely Planet into digital multiformat publishing?” Webb asks.
“I think the biggest challenge has been the legacy… of the publishing industry stretching in this particularly way for about 500 years since Gutenburg invented the movable type printer,” says Balbontin. “What we face is breaking down the barriers of a very longstanding way of operating and working. For Lonely Planet, for almost 40 years, we’ve been creating books in a particular way, with a particular process and tools and workflows and roles and structure and culture that now have all been thrown up in the air as new mediums and platforms come out.”
As they work on developing new content and products, the staff at Lonely Planet is “working out how to break down [the publishing industry’s historical] barriers,” says Balbontin. They must ask themselves: “How do we originate content differently, and store it in a different way, and manage it in a different way, and get it out into these [new] media in a different way that allows us to be much more versatile and nimble and flexible…?”
It’s a provocative set of queries for publishers. And for librarians. Ω
Resources
Video of Lonely Planet’s Gus Balbontin being interviewed by Jenn Webb at the 2011 Tools of Change for Publishing conference
Lonely Planet website
“One of the most important things is to train yourself to be flexible and curious and inquisitive enough to explore as much as possible.”
— Gus Balbontin, Lonely Planet
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