In the context of the event that took place, under the motto “Learning to work within the boundaries”, during the context or Readmagine week of 2019, the presentation of Brian O’Leary took place with the title of “Edit in the era exponential».
The presentation of O’Leary had as its fundamental focus to define the role of a publisher in a context of challenges, derived from the emergence of new actors and very fast changes.
The concept of publishing in the exponential age, is linked to the two ideas of complexity in production and complexity in consumption, that O’Leary has analyzed and develops in a very inspiring way.
In his intervention O’Leary describes and extracts meaning from an array of examples of the increase of complexity in production across the different phases of the book chain. From this explanation, offers a new definition of the meaning the publishers role and priorities.
Brian O’Leary is one of the great international experts in the world of books and since 2016 is Executive Director of the Book Industry Study Group, the organization of the US publishing industry, created to generate information, implement standards and research to to benefit the book publishing supply chain. Before being named to this role in 2016, O’Leary was principal of Magellan Media Consulting, which helped publishers improve how they create, manage and distribute content. In that role, O’Leary wrote extensively about issues affecting the publishing industry. With Hugh McGuire, he co-edited Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto (O’Reilly Media, 2012). Before that, O’Leary served as senior VP with Hammond Inc. and oversaw production and distribution operations at several Time Inc. magazines. O’Leary earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and holds an A.B. in chemistry from Harvard College.
During this presentation -that you can follow in the video-, O’Leary also analyzed the complexity on the consumption side of this market and the trends on a global scale.
O’Leary proposes to work with an eye on the end and a concerted and determined effort in investing in standards. This agreement refers to the need to establish a collaborative dynamic: “Our fate is not dependent (on platforms), but interdependent (based on collaboration)”.
A fundamental key to this intervention by O’Leary is that the content must be open, accessible and interoperable.
