by Megan Norris

This year's summit kept members moving nonstop from Ellen Payne's opening address Thursday afternoon to the magazine panel on Friday. In just 24 hours, members connected with experts in their fields, met professionals from across the region and reenergized their publications with MAP's combination of inspiration and practical advice.

"Enthusiasm was high," says Don Ranly, MAP's Executive Director. "The conference was well-attended and well-evaluated."

Ranly attributed the success of the conference to "a lot of hardworking people and a good bit of luck."

One of those hardworking people is Sharon Reus, publisher of Louis, the Magazine for St. Louis Teens and secretary of the board for MAP. She headed up the committee that developed the Summit’s program.

“We started by looking at the big picture and at what we thought people would want to learn,” Reus says. “We looked at the different types of people who are part of MAP.”

MAP’s members include city and regional magazines, associational publications, business-to-business publications, farm journals, medical publications and newsletters, just to name a few.

“The most challenging part was whittling it down into a day and a half." Reus says. "It was really just 24 hours. We could easily have put on a week’s program."

Reus and the MAP program committee did manage to fit their events into the two-day conference, and the result was a summit packed full of useful information, inspiration and networking opportunities.

Fred Parry of Inside Columbia magazine says the Summit was influential in shaping the course of his new launch. “I paid for four members of our staff to go and feel confident that I have already paid for membership and conference fees several times over with all the ideas we’ve learned,” Parry says.

Of course, with such a tight schedule, some conflicts were inevitable. Lizabeth Fleenor of Missouri Medicine was hoping to attend both Jacqui Banaszynski’s writing session and the panel discussion on “How to Create and Deliver Successful E-Mail Newsletters.” Unfortunately, the two were held simultaneously.

Pat Todd of River Hills Traveler had a similar experience. “I missed ‘Circulation’ because I wanted the continuity of ‘Sales,’” she says.

Even with so many options packed into two short days, MAP members were able to learn from each other as well as from the speakers who led the break-out sessions.

“Having the exhibits and the refreshments in the main hall was beneficial because it gave us the opportunity to network,” Fleenor says. She met a freelancer and a designer who are new friends and good contacts for Missouri Medicine.

To see the summit schedule, click here.

MAP’s first Publishing Summit drew nearly 200 communications professionals including 18 speakers and 14 exhibitors. In addition, more than 100 journalism students attended the event. Sixty-nine different publications and organizations sent representatives from university, city and regional, agricultural, medical, business-to-business and associational publications.

Bob and Pat Todd of River Hills Traveler, a regional outdoor tabloid, were among those who attended the conference. “We call ourselves a journal. Some people call us a paper, and some call us a magazine,” Bob Todd says. “We would like to be a part of the Missouri Press Association, but they don’t have anything for less-than-weekly publications.” MAP has filled that need among Midwest publications.

Lizabeth Fleenor of Missouri Medicine heard about the Summit through her printer and MAP board member John Bell. “I looked at the course agenda and found several educational offerings that I could benefit from,” she says.

Because Fleenor, like many MAP members, is responsible for multiple aspects of her publication, she attended sessions in both the words and visuals tracks to help with all the aspects of publication for which she is responsible.

“The visual track gave me confidence that I was making the right decision in my current page layout,” she says.

Fred Parry, publisher of Inside Columbia magazine, attended the conference just a few weeks before the first issue of his magazine was set to launch. “What we learned at the conference radically changed what we put in our first issue,” Parry says.

In addition to publications professionals, journalism students also attended the conference. Elizabeth Hendrickson, a graduate student in the Missouri School of Journalism, attended the Thursday sessions and hosted opening speaker Ellen Payne during her time in Columbia. “I thought the pre-dinner reception was well-orchestrated, and I met quite a few interesting and enterprising people,” Hendrickson says.

The exhibitors at this year’s Summit also brought valuable information to members and attendees as printers, software producers, communications businesses and publishers shared their products and experience.

“I enjoyed the trade show as well and really enjoyed interacting with vendors,” Parry says.

For a list of all Summit exhibitors, click here.

If you would like a list of attendees, write to info@missouripublications.org

Ellen Payne opened the first MAP Summit on Thursday, March 3 with her speech, entitled “The Good, the Bad and the Inevitable in Magazine Publishing.” Payne outlined the changes in production that she has orchestrated as director of editorial operations at Hearst Magazines.

“She is very knowledgeable about technology and workflow issues and the future of printing and publishing,” says Elizabeth Hendrickson.

When Hendrickson, a graduate student in the Missouri School of Journalism, heard that Ellen Payne would be giving the opening presentation at the MAP Publishing Summit, she immediately offered to help. Hendrickson knew Payne from the time both of them spent working at Glamour magazine.

“Her position had changed since I worked with her, and she’s doing a lot more at a corporate level now that she’s at Hearst. She’s been put in charge of a lot off the corporate workflow situations,” says Hendrickson.

Bob Todd of River Hills Traveler especially enjoyed Ellen Payne’s presentation, and when it was over, he could give himself and his publication a little pat on the back. Payne discussed the way in-house prepress has changed publishing at Hearst. River Hills Traveler already employs this technique.

Fred Parry, publisher of Inside Columbia magazine, took special note of some of Payne’s suggestions. “Ellen Payne’s recommendations about using local celebrities caused us to rethink our initial approach to our magazine,” he says. Inside Columbia’s first issue was published in April and featured former Missouri basketball coach Norm Stewart.

The evening’s keynote speaker, Samir Husni, a.k.a. “Mr. Magazine,” kept listeners enthralled with his lightening-fast lecture on “303 Ways to Create a Better Magazine.” Husni follows trends in magazine launches across the nation and drew on this expertise to give MAP members and conference attendees insight into the latest in magazine publishing.

Husni is not only a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism but also a former student of MAP Executive Director Don Ranly whom he still refers to as "my professor." Ranly invited Husni to speak at the MAP Summit.

"I'd heard him do presentations and knew the effect he had on an audience," Ranly says of Husni.

“I never give the same presentation twice,” Husni, a widely recruited speaker, says of his speeches.

After Payne and Husni’s presentations Thursday, the break-out sessions on Friday morning gave MAP members and attendees a chance to delve into the details of the trade in small-group settings.

The conference included tracks on words, visuals, added value, sales and circulation. These tracks were planned around the anticipated needs of the attendees.

The words track began with a presentation by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and associate managing editor of the Seattle Times, Jacqui Banaszynski.

Banaszynski’s first concern was developing a presentation that would be valuable to her listeners.

“I batted some ideas back and forth with [MAP Executive Director] Don Ranly in terms of who the audience was going to be and what was most valuable to them,” Banaszynski says.

Her goal was to provide both inspiration and practical advice. She says people want to leave a conference both reenergized about their work and equipped with practical steps for improving their writing. The result was “The Road to (Writing) Oz.”

Banaszynski’s approach was successful. “I got some very nice notes from people afterwards that said they had gone back and looked at some of their work and were ready, in mid-career, to take it to the next level in their writing,” she says.

“It was a very generous audience. They paid attention, seemed open to ideas and to helping each other,” she says.

Lizabeth Fleenor, managing editor of Missouri Medicine, found that Banaszynski’s session was useful even for those who were already experienced writers. “She gave us some good writing tips, things to take back,” Fleenor says.

Fred Parry of Inside Columbia attended both the visuals and added value tracks and found them both valuable. “Gary Whitaker gave some very useful, practical suggestions on how to add value to the relationship you have with your customer,” Parry says. “There were two to three ideas I walked away with that I could immediately implement.”

MAP member Bob Todd attended the visuals track, which featured a presentation by John Cowley and Danita Allen on “Covers That Stand Out from the Crowd.” The information he learned in that session prompted him to incorporate new sell-line techniques into the April issue of River Hills Traveler.

Drew Barton, art director and creative consultant for Wiesner Publishing led a session in the visuals track on “The Visual 'Wow' Factor: Five Rules of Good Publication Design."

Barton says in many smaller publications constant deadline pressure forces quick decisions, especially where visual elements of the magazine are concerned.

“Visual decisions often just make themselves,” Barton says.

He told listeners to how develop a structure for publication visuals. That structure serves as a set of rules that allows staff to make consistent decisions about the publication’s look.

Barton says this process is about establishing a brand. “Your publication’s identity should be what decides its design—not the designer or editor or even something that you see in some other publication that you like.”

For the Summit program, click here.

To see descriptions of all Summit presentations, click here.

For speaker bios, click here.

Now with one summit successfully completed, MAP is already preparing for the next.

 “We have talked about adding another session, maybe in the afternoon on Friday so people can take more sessions,” says Sharon Reus, who headed the program committee for this year’s summit.

The Second Annual MAP Publishing Summit is scheduled for March 2-3 in Columbia. The staff of MAP are eager both to continue the success of this year’s conference and to improve upon it to make the next conference even better than the first. Addressing the needs of MAP members will be crucial in this process.

“It would be nice if there were an opportunity to do one or two things in between times, a publisher’s roundtable or something,” Fred Parry of Inside Columbia magazine suggests.

"There's talk of extending it into the afternoon a session or two," says Don Ranly, MAP's Executive Director. Ranly is also discussing the possibility of pre-conference workshops on specific topics such as InDesign or grammar.

Such events are a real possibility as MAP continues to grow and search for new ways to serve its members. Members’ input and participation are the keys for such development.

"The challenge for the future is now to build on this," Ranly says. "We said if we had a successful conference, we'd be off and running. Now we need to see that we are."

To offer suggestions or to become more involved, contact MAP at info@missouripublications.org.