Lou Rosenfeld: An Infrastructure for Quality Content

When I saw that there was a publisher interviewed on the Michigan Innovators website, I had to check it out. I’m really interested in the industry and how it will change as media and the marketplace evolve. I enjoyed learning about Rosenfeld’s creative business model. Rosenfeld Media is a publisher in the multidisciplinary field of user experience design. The company is using its expertise in the field to create an extremely positive user experience of the media it creates. This is the drive behind its business and marketing models. Rosenfeld is building a new approach to publishing. Initially, books will be published in a small print run (with another company handling distribution) and will be available for direct PDF download. Sales will be internet based, directly through the company’s website as well as through Amazon Marketplace. Using the web, authors are nurturing relationships with their readers before the books are even published. The dialogue with readers helps to shape the content of the book and gives the reader a personal connection with the project. This web content is evolving into much more, with interactive dynamic content on each topic. And this will grow even further into podcasts and webinars, opening up new channels for revenue and marketing. I really like the idea of developing the marketing plan with the author. Each party knows what their responsibilities are and both are working to promote the book in a coordinated effort. I also found the network mapping very interesting. This enables the company and the authors to discern what marketing campaigns have been fruitful, and where connections lie within the different communities that are interested in each topic. Rosenfeld really has the best of both worlds here. They are making full use of the established networks in the different disciplines. At the same time, having rejected the old business model of publishing, they are reinventing how to work within those established networks using new media. Rachel Ouillette EMU Student