The Wiley-Blackwell Executive Seminar program, launched in 2002 by Blackwell, has proven to be an effective and popular way of keeping society officers and editors up to date with industry news and issues, and providing a forum for them to network with their peers. We recently hosted two events, the first in Washington, D.C., on May 29, and the second in London, U.K., on June 19. Both addressed the timely theme Journals Publishing: Policy and Practice in an Uncertain Market, and both drew strong attendance and positive feedback.

The U.S. seminar was chaired by Shawn Morton, Vice President and Director, Medical Journals Publishing, with opening remarks by Steve Smith, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Wiley author and leadership expert Clint Swindall delivered the keynote address, and leading industry figures spoke on a variety of topics. The ever-popular Geoff Bilder of CrossRef covered versioning, stewardship, and the CrossMark initiative, which will enable publishers to identify for researchers the “version of record” of an online article. Amy Brand of Harvard University spoke on institutional repositories; Alan Thornhill, Executive Director of the Society for Conservation Biology (one of our publishing partners), on society sustainability; Wiley-Blackwell’s Iain Craig, spoke on new developments in metrics for measuring quality; and Jane Huber of Oxfam America and Jason Samuels of the National Council on Family Relations, on using Web 2.0 resources to enhance relationships.

Feedback was positive, with attendees rating the seminar 3.58 out of a possible four, and over 95% saying they would attend again themselves and recommend it to others.

The U.K. seminar was co-chaired by Philip Carpenter, Vice President and Managing Director, Social Sciences and the Humanities, and Bob Campbell, Senior Publisher. Michael Jubb of Research Information Network spoke on advances in scholarly publishing, and Simon Juden of the U.K. Publishers’ Association, on copyright in the digital age. Wiley-Blackwell speakers included: Cliff Morgan, Vice President and Planning and Development Director, and Philippa Scoones, Web Publishing Director, on funders, versioning, and attracting users to a site; Gavin Sharrock, Publisher, Medical Journals, on publishing ethics; Iain Craig on metrics again; and Andy Robinson, Vice President and Managing Director, Medicine, on journals publishing in an uncertain market.

• 60 percent of professional and scholarly societies believe that the global economic downturn might be a stimulus to introducing efficiencies within their organizations, while 57 percent think it might provide opportunities for launching new activities or services for their members

• 68 percent see the global economic downturn as moderately negative, while 17 percent believe that it will have minimal negative impact or may even be beneficial

• More than 75 percent of society officers think that there will be a very or slightly negative impact on their membership dues and conference income, with the most concern expressed about endowments and investments.

U.K. feedback on the seminar mirrored that in the U.S. and attendees, most of whom were existing clients, gave the seminar an overall rating of 3.6 out of four.

“We are constantly looking for ways to improve communications with our existing and potential future society partners, whether through large events such as these, or through smaller group meetings, newsletters and, of course, direct contact with their publishing teams, ” says Philip Carpenter, who co-chairs Wiley-Blackwell’s Society Relations Group with Mike Fenton, Vice President and Director of Operations. “We will continue to refine our strategy during FY10 and in the years ahead.”