A media bistro snack

I was browsing through mediabistro.com, which is a pretty good site, if you haven’t been to it. It is designed for people who are (or would like to be) in careers in the various media outlets. There’s tons of information, job postings, course listings (although I’m not sure if the courses are legitimate/accredited), a section for freelancers, tons of blogs, and more. It’s pretty impressive.

I was browsing through the job postings, as I often do, looking to see what’s available, and where I might have to move after graduation. I was pleased to see that a lot of the jobs that are listed are looking for the specific skills that are being taught to us in the book publishing program. I noticed that a lot of jobs that didn’t directly have to do with web design still wanted a familiarity or working knowledge of html and/or other platforms. As freaked out as a lot of us seemed to get after last class, I’m certainly aware that forcing myself to at least learn the terminology and basic functions of web design will greatly help me in working with programmers and web designers in the future. So thanks Marty, even though I’m still a little worried about our mid-term. But I digress…

One of the blog posts on the site was about Nike’s most memorable TV ad campaigns. It highlighted Nike’s relationship with Portland’s Wieden & Kennedy. A quote from the blog reads: “Nike has been one of those brands that worked out that it's better to influence culture than simply reflect it.” I thought this was interesting in terms of our discussion of brand and product marketing.

How might book publishers influence book culture rather than reflect it? It seems as though publishers, especially the big-name, longstanding ones, are constantly trying to react to changes in the industry, or to make their old strategies keep working (even when they clearly are not). I’m not sure what the answer is, but it’s certainly interesting to consider the ways in which publishers might go about changing the game, so to speak.