(Vivian Vahlberg)

How did Meredith Publishing Group successfully transform itself in five years from a "traditional, stodgy, old-line Midwestern media company" based largely on a few print properties to a multi-brand, multi-media company with "an explosion of new content formats in every one of our brands" and a greatly diversified revenue stream?

It's quite a tale – of vision, customer focus, culture change, and leadership -- and one every modern media executive can learn from. For the inside story, read the full text of "Organizational Transformation," John H. "Jack" Griffin Jr.'s keynote address at Media Management Center's recent conference on Our Digital Future, now available at:
http://www.mediamanagementcenter.org/digitalfuture/Griffin_transcript.pdf

Among the highlights:

· How intense customer focus and extensive research about the rise of women led to a corporate repositioning – and $600 million in new investments. As Griffin said, "Meeting the customer and doing the kind of research that makes you 'quantitatively cogent' was a huge part of it."

· How Griffin's attention to changing the culture along with the business plan paid off (more about this in my next post.)

· How Meredith introduced new online tools and features to take consumers from inspiration to action – to enable them to browse, research and compare products, envision what they would look like in a room and then purchase the products directly -- and in the process give Meredith a cut of transactional revenue.

· How a new mantra -- giving the customer content "where she wants it, how she wants it, when she wants it" -- "led to an explosion of new content formats in every one of our brands," including podcasts, video, syndication feeds, mobile, blogs, wikis, desktop alerts, personalization tools, photo sharing and user-generated content?

• How editors have become "content strategists," using "vision and savvy to program their content in subject matters across all media platforms."

· How they've created "an architecture of participation" where "our team doesn’t make a move without thinking about how they can give customers the chance to participate" – through contests and events (online and in person) and social networks.

· How they’ve greatly expanded the company's media marketing capabilities and business, with cross-platform selling and sophisticated customer relationship management programs.

Why try to learn from Griffin and Meredith Publishing’s experience?

· Wouldn't you like analysts to say about your company what Citigroup Equity Research said about Meredith: "Meredith is showing an ability to evolve with changing media trends."?

· Wouldn't you like to be able to say, as Meredith could in mid-year, that your core print properties are turning in solid performances while your online properties are booming, with Web ad revenue up 50 percent?

· Wouldn't you like your stock price to rise, as Meredith's did, from $48.91 in July of 2006 to $61.94 in June of 2007? (Note: strong results from Meredith's television broadcasting group also contributed to that rise.)
Additional comments by Griffin are featured in Media Management Center's new publication on innovation in media companies, called "Running While the Earth Shakes," which is available at:
http://www.mediamanagementcenter.org/digitalfuture/RunningWhileTheEarthShakesReport.pdf



What do you think?
Please share your thoughts, experiences and reactions by clicking on the comment button below or by e-mailing the Media Management Center at v-vahlberg@northwestern.edu.

Vivian Vahlberg is director of digital media at the Media Management Center at Northwestern University.