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Platform Strategies 2023: Stable but Unsustainable: Leadership Roundtable
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Platform Strategies 2023: Stable but Unsustainable: Leadership Roundtable
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Segment:0 .
WILL: I hope everybody enjoyed the breakout sessions and had a good networking break. We're into the home stretch for the afternoon. We have this roundtable discussion I'll introduce in just a minute and then our closing keynote, and a few brief closing remarks before cocktails. So one of the things we like to do at Platform Strategies is gather groups of business and technology leaders together to talk about various issues in the market with publishing technology within their houses.
WILL: And joining me today is Lauren Kane, the CEO of BioOne, and Tanya Laplante, the head of product platforms at OUP. And our theme today actually comes from another Silverchair client, and I didn't ask if I could attribute anything to them, so I hope they're not upset. I won't identify them, which was earlier this year they defined their business as being in a state of stable but unsustainable, that in the next, say, 18 to 24 months there are businesses were more certain and controllable.
WILL: However, when you look beyond that horizon and out past, say, three years, things were more uncertain. And they were uncertain because of economic conditions, because of generational change, or for membership organization, the lack of generational change, of open access, and the need to create new products. And this phrase stable but unsustainable stuck with me. It kind of has been in my head for the past nine months because I felt very much that same way my 15 years as a publisher.
WILL: So a lot of the Silverchair clients are talking about ways of reducing long-term costs, to reallocate dollars towards innovation, towards bringing new talent into the organization, looking to diversify their products, their revenues, and finding new ways of fulfilling their mission. So I'm really glad we have Lauren and Tanya from two very different organizations to help us talk through what this may mean to their organizations today.
WILL: So my first question to you guys is from your seat within your organization, what would you characterize as being stable but unsustainable?
TANYA LAPLANTE: Yeah, so I think, at OUP, one of the things we're thinking a lot about in terms of sustainability is our business model in the face of a changing funder landscape. So really looking at how do we communicate the value that we bring to the research ecosystem as a nonprofit publisher working with society presses. And the way in which we're looking at doing that is really working with Sensus Impact on data and going to funders and educating them on the really critical role we play between submission and acceptance.
TANYA LAPLANTE: So overseeing peer review history, distribution, maximizing discoverability on our platforms, working with our partners to really ensure reach and impact of research. And how do we educate our stakeholders, which the stress is now more and more on authors and funders, whereas in the past, it might have been on users and customers, and how we can do in that space. And then in the book space, looking at our online research books and, we have a lot of products that have been stable over the years.
TANYA LAPLANTE: But we're looking to the future, and where does the growth come in that space for products that have been evergreen and in the market for some time? And looking at capabilities and services, we can add to those spaces but also looking at new spaces that we might explore given the strength of our IP and our reputation in that space.
LAUREN KANE: Yeah, I think the thing that really strikes me is that you mentioned, Will, that Tanya and I are from very different organizations, which is true. But I think the theme of this panel is such a dominant thing in the market, whether you're at a big commercial or whether you're at a small society. And it's this idea that what we're doing today, even if we're very successful today, will likely not be what makes us successful or what makes us sustainable in 10 years, in 20 years.
LAUREN KANE: And so the time to plan for future pivots, future pilots is actually today when things are still kind of going really well. And that certainly has been the case at BioOne. We have a flagship product, BioOne Complete, which is a subscription based product that for 20 years has been extremely stable, extremely successful. We're incredibly fortunate to have the support of our community.
LAUREN KANE: And so I think it's been somewhat kind of jarring sometimes for our board of directors, when I'm giving a report that sounds like everything's amazing, we have to change it all. [LAUGHS] And I mean that's a little bit of an oversimplification. But my point is that we are very, very lucky with how things are now. But I'm also incredibly aware as I think we all in this audience are that will not over the long-term.
LAUREN KANE: That we all have to be prepared for the new models, the new products, the new services that are going to be the dominant coins of the realm in 5 or 10 years. And again, the time to make those changes, or to, at least, be thinking about those changes for the future is now.
WILL: I mean, thank you both. I mean, one of my favorite questions to ask publishing leaders is what's on your radar? I mean, obviously we've talked a lot about AI today. But what are you viewing as potential opportunities or potential disruptors to your products?
TANYA LAPLANTE: I think sticking with the AI space, which clearly is on the forefront of everyone's mind, is really looking at how you optimize the benefits that it can bring because there are a lot of them that you can bring to the publication experience. But also to our users on our platforms and how do we optimize that while minimizing the risks, whether it's to our IP, or to the usage that we get for the versions of record on our platforms and that then translates into subscriptions and purchases.
TANYA LAPLANTE: And how do we set our policy at an organization level because I think the first thing that we have to do is decide, and this is what we're doing within OUP, is forming a task force to look at what is our umbrella policy. And then taking that policy to form governance and guidelines and establish guardrails within the various departments that are unique to those departments because there's going to be different challenges and different opportunities within each area of the business, whether it's marketing, or editorial, or platform.
TANYA LAPLANTE: And the first thing we really have to do is just kind of get our thinking together and figure out what our policy is going to be in that space.
LAUREN KANE: Yeah, I think that's really important to not be reactionary to these things. I mean, I think there's a certain number of organizations in our space that have the privilege to say we're going to be a first mover and we're ultra competitive with one another. So we need to be out there first. I think certainly for BioOne and for many organizations, it's a better path to sit back, educate oneself about what's going on, look at what people are doing, but understand that the time, it doesn't need to be immediate action.
LAUREN KANE: So kind of same as what you were saying, I think what we're looking at right now is really trying to focus on the positive, not that there's not lots of fear around AI. But I tend to like to look at it as one of enablement of what will this allow us to do more efficiently, how might this be an equalizer. For instance, things that were previously available only to very wealthy organizations that were small societies, like the ones that are in BioOne, that might make things more achievable.
LAUREN KANE: For instance, things we've wanted to do for a long time with accessibility, with captioning, with automated lay summaries. Things that before might have been incredibly cost prohibitive, but with AI may become something that's really the norm. So in terms of our community, it's really, I think, when they hear AI or they hear LLMs. It's like, well, this doesn't sound like it's for us.
LAUREN KANE: And I feel like one of our roles as a convener in BioOne is to say there is a place for you. There needs to be a place for you there. And here's how to make this a little more accessible for you.
WILL: Well, thank you. So you guys have both kind of very unique views into the publishing industry. You've been in this meeting all morning. I mean, are there things that you have been thinking a lot about that haven't come up, or that you think are peers here should be talking more about?
TANYA LAPLANTE: I think it's coming up, and I think others are thinking about this. But something we're looking at a lot is disintermediation. So kind of how do we drive users to the version of record on the publishing platform, but what we're starting to also hear is from customers seeking permission to locally host content, and kind of really talking to them about that. And again, illustrating the benefit that-- the platform expertise that we've developed as publishers working with technology partners, and also the not insignificant investment that we've made in our publishing platforms to maximize the user experience, to maximize discoverability of content.
TANYA LAPLANTE: And therefore, ensure our reach and impact of research and how that is so central to that publishing experience and kind of that local hosting, or consuming the version of record elsewhere. In many ways, does a disbenefit to the user and the consumer of that research?
LAUREN KANE: I think, for me, a fantastic meeting. Thank you so much for having us.
WILL: Shameless plug. [LAUGHS]
LAUREN KANE: Phew. But I think one thing that, it's such a buzzword but it will always be my answer, is more collaboration, please. And I was actually thinking about this in the last fantastic panel on co-opetition and great to see fellow nonprofit aggregators. I'd love to hear that perspective. But even the use of the word co-opetition, we talked about in the great question at the end about, well, how do you kind of, you know, sometimes be at odds with each other.
LAUREN KANE: And for me, the reality is all of us compete on some level. We compete for users, for resources, for staff, for attention, engagement, all of these things. I think that that's the wrong question. I still think how are we effectively collaborating with one another, especially for nonprofits, in order to do more with less and stopping to not look at it as competition, but again, with our theme of one of survival, of one of sustainability, this central idea that we are going to be able to do more together.
LAUREN KANE: We are going to achieve more economies of scale. We're going to achieve more efficiencies. We're going as mission driven organizations to have a greater impact, if we work together. And I think it's something that we all talk about to a certain degree, but yet we still have this innate urge to put our logo on things, or to say, this is great but this is this journal, or this society, or this-- and this is what we're doing, and we've invested in this.
LAUREN KANE: And it's really hard. And this is what I think is very unique about the aggregator experience. It's because we're freed from that a bit in that we have from the very beginning worked as-- and OUP, of course, does this with your societies as well as we know what it means to the benefits and drawbacks of working together. So long answer to say, I would love to see more actual practical collaboration when we talk about the challenges and opportunities of the future.
WILL: Yes, and certainly it's going to take more than one publisher to deal with OpenAI or Anthropic. Let's get tactical for just a minute. I mean, again you're coming from organizations of very different scale, very different resource sets. And as you think about something like AI and LLMs, how do you guys make resourcing decisions? How do you prioritize? How do you figure out where to ask your teams to focus, or where to allocate your budget dollars?
TANYA LAPLANTE: Yeah, I think it's always a question of prioritization because you-- and someone talked earlier about data driven decision making and really looking at where the return on investment is going to come from. So talking to your stakeholders and having really clear prioritization across the business so that everyone knows kind of where you're going as a business and everyone can get on board, I think, that can be really tricky, especially at larger organizations where there's lots of special interests and lots of competing priorities.
TANYA LAPLANTE: But given the challenges that we're facing, even internally at our own companies, we have to be on the same page. And that's so central to succeeding in the face of all of these challenges. So that's what we're thinking a lot about in that space.
LAUREN KANE: And I think you're absolutely right because I think it is not necessarily easier when you are at a large organization or a resource rich organization. I've worked in those environments. I've worked with those environments. And there's the political challenges. There's the, as you say, getting people on the same page. And so this is one of the things that I actually like working with a smaller organization is that you do have, I think, a little more agility, a little more nimbleness.
LAUREN KANE: But we have to, as I said at the onset, not be a first mover. We're hanging back a bit. So kind of as you said on a more practical or tactical level, for me, it's that innovation isn't something that happens on command, right. So it's about creating a culture within our organizations to say how are we educating ourselves? How are we watching this space? What are the systems that we have in place to make sure that people are learning, listening, consuming what other people are doing?
LAUREN KANE: How are we, again, collaborating to find out, hey, you know, I hear you have this pilot on this, what have you practically found? How can we share the data and findings from this? Again, that's something that I think could happen a lot more. We talk about best practices and doing these kind of pilots, but the results of those pilots and experiments are often siloed within single organizations. So information sharing of all kinds, I think, especially for small teams like ours, is absolutely critical.
WILL: Great. And then one more thing before-- we'll see if there's any questions from the audience, which is I imagine to be in both of your positions you have to be experts at stakeholder management, whether it's OUP's partners, societies, organizations you collaborate with, BioOne, of course, all of your publishers, how do you guys go about that?
TANYA LAPLANTE: Yeah, so being an aggregator and working with our societies is really central to our strategy, especially in the journal space, but also in the book space where we publish on behalf of some university presses in one of our products. And two-thirds of our journals list is actually society-- academic society published, and really what we're looking for in that space are societies and partners who want a mutually beneficial relationship where we're each bringing expertise to the table and working toward the same objective and goals.
TANYA LAPLANTE: And where we see that coming out a lot is working with the platform and the platform roadmap. And again, we have societies coming to us with problems that they want to solve. And we work really closely with them to really define what those problems are. And we bring those in-house, and we work with our strategy analyst team and our business analysts to propose solutions, not just to that specific problem for that society but how can we come up with a solution that's going to benefit all of the societies on the platform and our book products as well.
TANYA LAPLANTE: And we kind of work transparently with them and come to solutions. But again, it's looking at data driven. It's looking at the priorities to ensure that you're not giving the attention to the squeakiest wheel. But you're really looking at what is a universal problem, not just for that society, but for all the societies that you're working with.
LAUREN KANE: And I think this is an area where despite the much larger size of OUP we have the exact same kind of limitations, so to speak, if it is that. And that what we are really interested in doing is what it's going to do the most good. What is going to benefit the most amount of community members. And so I mean BioOne exists for community. So nothing that we do, other than making sure we will continue to be sustainable as an organization and continue to be around, is really for us.
LAUREN KANE: Everything, we're doing is for our society publishers, for our accessing libraries, and for our millions of users worldwide. So I think again that's an easy talking point, but practically, within your goal setting, within what you're doing in terms of your long-term strategy, making sure that everything you're doing, when you're judging ROI, when you're looking at impacts saying who is benefiting from these?
LAUREN KANE: And are the most people possible benefiting from this decision? Even if it is something as small as licensing data for an LLM or if it's doing some sort of pilot, I think, we get into these echo chambers where we're thinking, well, this is something that we want to do for us. We on staff or in leadership think this is the right thing to do, which may be true but really kind of testing yourself of is this the right thing for as many members of our community as possible.
WILL: I'm going to go off script for just one second because another question came to me while you were talking. I think both of you find yourselves probably having to explain things to your partners and your societies. Do you have any practical tips? I mean, there's a lot of people in this room probably who have to go explain AI and LLMs to their journal editors or their publication committee, to their board.
TANYA LAPLANTE: Yeah, I think we try to be as transparent as we can with our priorities and what's informing those priorities, in general, is on our strategic plans and roadmaps and informing them kind of what we're learning in the industry and what the role that we're playing in advocacy and kind of education, and what we're taking in, and how that's informing that roadmap. So really being transparent and having those ongoing conversations where it's a continual sharing of knowledge is really critical.
LAUREN KANE: Yeah, I mean, I think for One too, I am not a technologist. So if I'm explaining something to someone, there's the immediate benefit of I'm explaining it like a layperson would to begin with. But I also think there's something about taking the ego out of it too. Just because I might have a better sense of dominant business models or technologies in our space, oftentimes, who I'm speaking to is preeminent PhD researcher in their space.
LAUREN KANE: And so also understanding that they might have a better perspective as it relates to this about what this is going to mean within their community. So I also think a big part is really being open and not just speaking at people but ensuring that it's a dialogue.
WILL: Really good advice. So I think we have time for a question or two. If anyone-- if anyone wants to offer a thought, we'll welcome that. [LAUGHS] It's the post lunch.
TANYA LAPLANTE: Hint of the day.
WILL: Everyone needs sugar or caffeine.
TANYA LAPLANTE: Yeah.
WILL: Do-- going back to this notion of disintermediation, I mean, both of you have obviously made substantial investments in your platform, and your platform having a lot of content and a lot of traffic. And of course, publishers have always distributed their content into a variety of other places. I mean, how are you thinking about the platform as a hub rather than as a destination?
TANYA LAPLANTE: I think part of it goes back to authors and community, and creating community, and services and capabilities so not just having a platform as a way to get content out but as a way to create community and other services for our stakeholders, especially in that author space. So whether it's sharing information with them, making it a compelling user journey, and giving them something on the platform that they're not going to get from an AI generated summary in a browser, or from other another place where they can find that content.
TANYA LAPLANTE: I think it's more about community building within that space that is growing in importance.
LAUREN KANE: I think you're absolutely right. And this is a place that not that it's not an enormous challenge, it is. But I feel that BioOne and other aggregators in some ways are better positioned to answer this call because for OEs, we have not been a content hub, or not and exclusive content hub. We have 150 different societies that call BioOne their complete home, and only about half of them are exclusive to the platform, meaning they use us solely. Everyone else are on different places, including OUP.
LAUREN KANE: And so for-- so one of the challenges that we've had ongoing is this idea that what do you do when what you are offering is not an exclusive product, doesn't have that special value, and how do you get away from having that be the only thing that's exciting about you. And you're absolutely right that how we've always looked at it as, well, what do we do that is our unique attribute as an organization.
LAUREN KANE: And we really feel like we are a convener. We provide community. Yes, we provide excellent content, but I think what is going to be more important, especially over time and as the version of record gets more distributed, or there's this disintermediation is this idea of, how do we work in a service economy, what other additional services or benefits, let's say, can we provide to our user community, to our societies, to all those that are consuming this content.
LAUREN KANE: I don't think there's an easy answer to that question, but I do think that's going to be the dominant theme going forward.
WILL: Well, thank you both very much. So please join me in thanking Tanya and Lauren for joining us on the stage this afternoon. [APPLAUSE]
Segment:0 .
WILL: I hope everybody enjoyed the breakout sessions and had a good networking break. We're into the home stretch for the afternoon. We have this roundtable discussion I'll introduce in just a minute and then our closing keynote, and a few brief closing remarks before cocktails. So one of the things we like to do at Platform Strategies is gather groups of business and technology leaders together to talk about various issues in the market with publishing technology within their houses.
WILL: And joining me today is Lauren Kane, the CEO of BioOne, and Tanya Laplante, the head of product platforms at OUP. And our theme today actually comes from another Silverchair client, and I didn't ask if I could attribute anything to them, so I hope they're not upset. I won't identify them, which was earlier this year they defined their business as being in a state of stable but unsustainable, that in the next, say, 18 to 24 months there are businesses were more certain and controllable.
WILL: However, when you look beyond that horizon and out past, say, three years, things were more uncertain. And they were uncertain because of economic conditions, because of generational change, or for membership organization, the lack of generational change, of open access, and the need to create new products. And this phrase stable but unsustainable stuck with me. It kind of has been in my head for the past nine months because I felt very much that same way my 15 years as a publisher.
WILL: So a lot of the Silverchair clients are talking about ways of reducing long-term costs, to reallocate dollars towards innovation, towards bringing new talent into the organization, looking to diversify their products, their revenues, and finding new ways of fulfilling their mission. So I'm really glad we have Lauren and Tanya from two very different organizations to help us talk through what this may mean to their organizations today.
WILL: So my first question to you guys is from your seat within your organization, what would you characterize as being stable but unsustainable?
TANYA LAPLANTE: Yeah, so I think, at OUP, one of the things we're thinking a lot about in terms of sustainability is our business model in the face of a changing funder landscape. So really looking at how do we communicate the value that we bring to the research ecosystem as a nonprofit publisher working with society presses. And the way in which we're looking at doing that is really working with Sensus Impact on data and going to funders and educating them on the really critical role we play between submission and acceptance.
TANYA LAPLANTE: So overseeing peer review history, distribution, maximizing discoverability on our platforms, working with our partners to really ensure reach and impact of research. And how do we educate our stakeholders, which the stress is now more and more on authors and funders, whereas in the past, it might have been on users and customers, and how we can do in that space. And then in the book space, looking at our online research books and, we have a lot of products that have been stable over the years.
TANYA LAPLANTE: But we're looking to the future, and where does the growth come in that space for products that have been evergreen and in the market for some time? And looking at capabilities and services, we can add to those spaces but also looking at new spaces that we might explore given the strength of our IP and our reputation in that space.
LAUREN KANE: Yeah, I think the thing that really strikes me is that you mentioned, Will, that Tanya and I are from very different organizations, which is true. But I think the theme of this panel is such a dominant thing in the market, whether you're at a big commercial or whether you're at a small society. And it's this idea that what we're doing today, even if we're very successful today, will likely not be what makes us successful or what makes us sustainable in 10 years, in 20 years.
LAUREN KANE: And so the time to plan for future pivots, future pilots is actually today when things are still kind of going really well. And that certainly has been the case at BioOne. We have a flagship product, BioOne Complete, which is a subscription based product that for 20 years has been extremely stable, extremely successful. We're incredibly fortunate to have the support of our community.
LAUREN KANE: And so I think it's been somewhat kind of jarring sometimes for our board of directors, when I'm giving a report that sounds like everything's amazing, we have to change it all. [LAUGHS] And I mean that's a little bit of an oversimplification. But my point is that we are very, very lucky with how things are now. But I'm also incredibly aware as I think we all in this audience are that will not over the long-term.
LAUREN KANE: That we all have to be prepared for the new models, the new products, the new services that are going to be the dominant coins of the realm in 5 or 10 years. And again, the time to make those changes, or to, at least, be thinking about those changes for the future is now.
WILL: I mean, thank you both. I mean, one of my favorite questions to ask publishing leaders is what's on your radar? I mean, obviously we've talked a lot about AI today. But what are you viewing as potential opportunities or potential disruptors to your products?
TANYA LAPLANTE: I think sticking with the AI space, which clearly is on the forefront of everyone's mind, is really looking at how you optimize the benefits that it can bring because there are a lot of them that you can bring to the publication experience. But also to our users on our platforms and how do we optimize that while minimizing the risks, whether it's to our IP, or to the usage that we get for the versions of record on our platforms and that then translates into subscriptions and purchases.
TANYA LAPLANTE: And how do we set our policy at an organization level because I think the first thing that we have to do is decide, and this is what we're doing within OUP, is forming a task force to look at what is our umbrella policy. And then taking that policy to form governance and guidelines and establish guardrails within the various departments that are unique to those departments because there's going to be different challenges and different opportunities within each area of the business, whether it's marketing, or editorial, or platform.
TANYA LAPLANTE: And the first thing we really have to do is just kind of get our thinking together and figure out what our policy is going to be in that space.
LAUREN KANE: Yeah, I think that's really important to not be reactionary to these things. I mean, I think there's a certain number of organizations in our space that have the privilege to say we're going to be a first mover and we're ultra competitive with one another. So we need to be out there first. I think certainly for BioOne and for many organizations, it's a better path to sit back, educate oneself about what's going on, look at what people are doing, but understand that the time, it doesn't need to be immediate action.
LAUREN KANE: So kind of same as what you were saying, I think what we're looking at right now is really trying to focus on the positive, not that there's not lots of fear around AI. But I tend to like to look at it as one of enablement of what will this allow us to do more efficiently, how might this be an equalizer. For instance, things that were previously available only to very wealthy organizations that were small societies, like the ones that are in BioOne, that might make things more achievable.
LAUREN KANE: For instance, things we've wanted to do for a long time with accessibility, with captioning, with automated lay summaries. Things that before might have been incredibly cost prohibitive, but with AI may become something that's really the norm. So in terms of our community, it's really, I think, when they hear AI or they hear LLMs. It's like, well, this doesn't sound like it's for us.
LAUREN KANE: And I feel like one of our roles as a convener in BioOne is to say there is a place for you. There needs to be a place for you there. And here's how to make this a little more accessible for you.
WILL: Well, thank you. So you guys have both kind of very unique views into the publishing industry. You've been in this meeting all morning. I mean, are there things that you have been thinking a lot about that haven't come up, or that you think are peers here should be talking more about?
TANYA LAPLANTE: I think it's coming up, and I think others are thinking about this. But something we're looking at a lot is disintermediation. So kind of how do we drive users to the version of record on the publishing platform, but what we're starting to also hear is from customers seeking permission to locally host content, and kind of really talking to them about that. And again, illustrating the benefit that-- the platform expertise that we've developed as publishers working with technology partners, and also the not insignificant investment that we've made in our publishing platforms to maximize the user experience, to maximize discoverability of content.
TANYA LAPLANTE: And therefore, ensure our reach and impact of research and how that is so central to that publishing experience and kind of that local hosting, or consuming the version of record elsewhere. In many ways, does a disbenefit to the user and the consumer of that research?
LAUREN KANE: I think, for me, a fantastic meeting. Thank you so much for having us.
WILL: Shameless plug. [LAUGHS]
LAUREN KANE: Phew. But I think one thing that, it's such a buzzword but it will always be my answer, is more collaboration, please. And I was actually thinking about this in the last fantastic panel on co-opetition and great to see fellow nonprofit aggregators. I'd love to hear that perspective. But even the use of the word co-opetition, we talked about in the great question at the end about, well, how do you kind of, you know, sometimes be at odds with each other.
LAUREN KANE: And for me, the reality is all of us compete on some level. We compete for users, for resources, for staff, for attention, engagement, all of these things. I think that that's the wrong question. I still think how are we effectively collaborating with one another, especially for nonprofits, in order to do more with less and stopping to not look at it as competition, but again, with our theme of one of survival, of one of sustainability, this central idea that we are going to be able to do more together.
LAUREN KANE: We are going to achieve more economies of scale. We're going to achieve more efficiencies. We're going as mission driven organizations to have a greater impact, if we work together. And I think it's something that we all talk about to a certain degree, but yet we still have this innate urge to put our logo on things, or to say, this is great but this is this journal, or this society, or this-- and this is what we're doing, and we've invested in this.
LAUREN KANE: And it's really hard. And this is what I think is very unique about the aggregator experience. It's because we're freed from that a bit in that we have from the very beginning worked as-- and OUP, of course, does this with your societies as well as we know what it means to the benefits and drawbacks of working together. So long answer to say, I would love to see more actual practical collaboration when we talk about the challenges and opportunities of the future.
WILL: Yes, and certainly it's going to take more than one publisher to deal with OpenAI or Anthropic. Let's get tactical for just a minute. I mean, again you're coming from organizations of very different scale, very different resource sets. And as you think about something like AI and LLMs, how do you guys make resourcing decisions? How do you prioritize? How do you figure out where to ask your teams to focus, or where to allocate your budget dollars?
TANYA LAPLANTE: Yeah, I think it's always a question of prioritization because you-- and someone talked earlier about data driven decision making and really looking at where the return on investment is going to come from. So talking to your stakeholders and having really clear prioritization across the business so that everyone knows kind of where you're going as a business and everyone can get on board, I think, that can be really tricky, especially at larger organizations where there's lots of special interests and lots of competing priorities.
TANYA LAPLANTE: But given the challenges that we're facing, even internally at our own companies, we have to be on the same page. And that's so central to succeeding in the face of all of these challenges. So that's what we're thinking a lot about in that space.
LAUREN KANE: And I think you're absolutely right because I think it is not necessarily easier when you are at a large organization or a resource rich organization. I've worked in those environments. I've worked with those environments. And there's the political challenges. There's the, as you say, getting people on the same page. And so this is one of the things that I actually like working with a smaller organization is that you do have, I think, a little more agility, a little more nimbleness.
LAUREN KANE: But we have to, as I said at the onset, not be a first mover. We're hanging back a bit. So kind of as you said on a more practical or tactical level, for me, it's that innovation isn't something that happens on command, right. So it's about creating a culture within our organizations to say how are we educating ourselves? How are we watching this space? What are the systems that we have in place to make sure that people are learning, listening, consuming what other people are doing?
LAUREN KANE: How are we, again, collaborating to find out, hey, you know, I hear you have this pilot on this, what have you practically found? How can we share the data and findings from this? Again, that's something that I think could happen a lot more. We talk about best practices and doing these kind of pilots, but the results of those pilots and experiments are often siloed within single organizations. So information sharing of all kinds, I think, especially for small teams like ours, is absolutely critical.
WILL: Great. And then one more thing before-- we'll see if there's any questions from the audience, which is I imagine to be in both of your positions you have to be experts at stakeholder management, whether it's OUP's partners, societies, organizations you collaborate with, BioOne, of course, all of your publishers, how do you guys go about that?
TANYA LAPLANTE: Yeah, so being an aggregator and working with our societies is really central to our strategy, especially in the journal space, but also in the book space where we publish on behalf of some university presses in one of our products. And two-thirds of our journals list is actually society-- academic society published, and really what we're looking for in that space are societies and partners who want a mutually beneficial relationship where we're each bringing expertise to the table and working toward the same objective and goals.
TANYA LAPLANTE: And where we see that coming out a lot is working with the platform and the platform roadmap. And again, we have societies coming to us with problems that they want to solve. And we work really closely with them to really define what those problems are. And we bring those in-house, and we work with our strategy analyst team and our business analysts to propose solutions, not just to that specific problem for that society but how can we come up with a solution that's going to benefit all of the societies on the platform and our book products as well.
TANYA LAPLANTE: And we kind of work transparently with them and come to solutions. But again, it's looking at data driven. It's looking at the priorities to ensure that you're not giving the attention to the squeakiest wheel. But you're really looking at what is a universal problem, not just for that society, but for all the societies that you're working with.
LAUREN KANE: And I think this is an area where despite the much larger size of OUP we have the exact same kind of limitations, so to speak, if it is that. And that what we are really interested in doing is what it's going to do the most good. What is going to benefit the most amount of community members. And so I mean BioOne exists for community. So nothing that we do, other than making sure we will continue to be sustainable as an organization and continue to be around, is really for us.
LAUREN KANE: Everything, we're doing is for our society publishers, for our accessing libraries, and for our millions of users worldwide. So I think again that's an easy talking point, but practically, within your goal setting, within what you're doing in terms of your long-term strategy, making sure that everything you're doing, when you're judging ROI, when you're looking at impacts saying who is benefiting from these?
LAUREN KANE: And are the most people possible benefiting from this decision? Even if it is something as small as licensing data for an LLM or if it's doing some sort of pilot, I think, we get into these echo chambers where we're thinking, well, this is something that we want to do for us. We on staff or in leadership think this is the right thing to do, which may be true but really kind of testing yourself of is this the right thing for as many members of our community as possible.
WILL: I'm going to go off script for just one second because another question came to me while you were talking. I think both of you find yourselves probably having to explain things to your partners and your societies. Do you have any practical tips? I mean, there's a lot of people in this room probably who have to go explain AI and LLMs to their journal editors or their publication committee, to their board.
TANYA LAPLANTE: Yeah, I think we try to be as transparent as we can with our priorities and what's informing those priorities, in general, is on our strategic plans and roadmaps and informing them kind of what we're learning in the industry and what the role that we're playing in advocacy and kind of education, and what we're taking in, and how that's informing that roadmap. So really being transparent and having those ongoing conversations where it's a continual sharing of knowledge is really critical.
LAUREN KANE: Yeah, I mean, I think for One too, I am not a technologist. So if I'm explaining something to someone, there's the immediate benefit of I'm explaining it like a layperson would to begin with. But I also think there's something about taking the ego out of it too. Just because I might have a better sense of dominant business models or technologies in our space, oftentimes, who I'm speaking to is preeminent PhD researcher in their space.
LAUREN KANE: And so also understanding that they might have a better perspective as it relates to this about what this is going to mean within their community. So I also think a big part is really being open and not just speaking at people but ensuring that it's a dialogue.
WILL: Really good advice. So I think we have time for a question or two. If anyone-- if anyone wants to offer a thought, we'll welcome that. [LAUGHS] It's the post lunch.
TANYA LAPLANTE: Hint of the day.
WILL: Everyone needs sugar or caffeine.
TANYA LAPLANTE: Yeah.
WILL: Do-- going back to this notion of disintermediation, I mean, both of you have obviously made substantial investments in your platform, and your platform having a lot of content and a lot of traffic. And of course, publishers have always distributed their content into a variety of other places. I mean, how are you thinking about the platform as a hub rather than as a destination?
TANYA LAPLANTE: I think part of it goes back to authors and community, and creating community, and services and capabilities so not just having a platform as a way to get content out but as a way to create community and other services for our stakeholders, especially in that author space. So whether it's sharing information with them, making it a compelling user journey, and giving them something on the platform that they're not going to get from an AI generated summary in a browser, or from other another place where they can find that content.
TANYA LAPLANTE: I think it's more about community building within that space that is growing in importance.
LAUREN KANE: I think you're absolutely right. And this is a place that not that it's not an enormous challenge, it is. But I feel that BioOne and other aggregators in some ways are better positioned to answer this call because for OEs, we have not been a content hub, or not and exclusive content hub. We have 150 different societies that call BioOne their complete home, and only about half of them are exclusive to the platform, meaning they use us solely. Everyone else are on different places, including OUP.
LAUREN KANE: And so for-- so one of the challenges that we've had ongoing is this idea that what do you do when what you are offering is not an exclusive product, doesn't have that special value, and how do you get away from having that be the only thing that's exciting about you. And you're absolutely right that how we've always looked at it as, well, what do we do that is our unique attribute as an organization.
LAUREN KANE: And we really feel like we are a convener. We provide community. Yes, we provide excellent content, but I think what is going to be more important, especially over time and as the version of record gets more distributed, or there's this disintermediation is this idea of, how do we work in a service economy, what other additional services or benefits, let's say, can we provide to our user community, to our societies, to all those that are consuming this content.
LAUREN KANE: I don't think there's an easy answer to that question, but I do think that's going to be the dominant theme going forward.
WILL: Well, thank you both very much. So please join me in thanking Tanya and Lauren for joining us on the stage this afternoon. [APPLAUSE]
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