Burns Talk - Rashmi Parikh

Grady College presented Rebecca Burns, recently appointed Director of digital strategy at Emmis Publications, who spoke to students on a topic which was entitled Paper, Pixels, and iPads: Rethinking Magazines.

Burns spoke briefly about her background in the industry: editor and later editor-in-chief for Atlanta Magazine, editor of Indianapolis Magazine,Interactive Director and Digital Strategy Director for Atlanta Magazine,as well as author of three books.

Burns explained how Atlanta Magazine and Emmis publications still adhere to the standard magazine format, being one of few magazines that still publish 9,000-10,000 long-form articles. They also publish narratives, features and investigative reports as well.

Burns then talked about where their roots were as far as digital concepts were concerned. Atlanta Magazine had a website, however, there web-presence was inconsistent. Their resources and expertise in this field was limited. Whatever work they did do online did not illustrate their editorial excellence.

Burns personally took the lead on making improvements on their digital weak points. Her strategy was to begin with the overall look of the websites. Once the websites were up to standard, they focused the magazine's strengths. They did not want to t fall into the trap newspapers fell into by offering all of their services and information online for free. They would offer particulars online (e.g. restaurant information) and the rest the reader would have to refer to the actual magazine for. The third thing they did was to offer online only content. This added to the number of visitors to the website and did not lower their readership.

My takeaways: creativity and foresight can help a sinking ship stay afloat. Although print maybe disappearing slowly, readership will not. People will always want to read. We must find ways to publish on new mediums.