I did a couple of blips on the EE Times DesignLine changes
earlier this week and today got my hand slapped, not entirely inappropriately,
by Patrick Mannion and Rich Nass.
I didn't say report anything wrong, per se, but it wasn't the whole
story. After Rich and I made nice
over the phone, I got more detail.
But there is more to consider.
First let's look at how this whole thing is breaking down.
Techinsights has acquired and developed a lot of media
properties in the past decade, but hasn't really done a good job at integrating
them, which I reported in an interview with Paul Miller a couple of months
ago. The move to replace the
contract editors on the DesignLines with staff editors is a step toward that
integration.
Patrick has actually been in charge of the DesignLines for
almost three years, but they were allowed to operate fairly independently. By putting the staffers in charge of
the sites EETimes print and online now becomes the "heads up" (big
picture) view of what's happening in electronics and Techonline and the
DesignLines take the "heads down" view, or looking at the detail and
how-to aspects of the industry.
Here's how the responsibilities break down now.
Nic Mokhoff adds the EDA and Power Management DesignLines to
his responsibilities for the Design+Products Section, Research and Test. Washington DC guru George Leopold takes
the Automotive DesignLine. Dylan
McGrath runs Programmable Logic DesignLine as well as serving as West Coast
Editor. Business editor Bolaji Ojo is managing the EETimes Supply Network and Bill
Schweber doubles up on Planet Analog, RF DesignLine. As reported, Patrick Mannion now handles both DSPDesignLine
and editorial direction of Techonline.
The guys with time on their hands (just kidding) are Allan
Yogasingam for the GreenSupplyLine, Steve Bitton on the Industrial Control
DesignLine, and Bernard Cole at Embedded.com. The rest of the staff can be found at
the EE Times mast head.
The good news is that now you don't have to guess at who
handles what. We have a designated
editor for both the subject and the DesignLine. The bad news is pretty much what I reported earlier this
week. The "EETimers"
didn't know that the PR community got used to the idea that if an EE Times
staff editor didn't have time to take a meeting or write a story on a bit of
news, they could approach the DesignLiners and at least get a meeting with
them. Kenton Williston, for
example met with a ton of people at trade shows he attended and while he may
not have written much, the publicists got credit for a meeting at least.
The changes at EE Times/Techonline/DesignLine means there is
less manpower available for traditional publicity… or what some people call
PR. And that's the point of
everything I have been saying for some time. The way we do things has to change. It's not 1999 anymore. You can't expect EE Times or any other
publication to fall all over themselves to talk to you about your latest
partnership deal. The resources
just are not there. If you still
insist on following the old paradigm of cranking out self-serving news
releases, setting up meetings to talk about incremental improvements to your
products or have your CEO pontificate about his limited view of reality, you're
not going to get much. You have to
do something different.
And I've given you plenty of ideas about what that means.
However, if you really want to talk to the EE Times folks,
make sure you sign up for ESC.
They will all be there and I'm sure they will be interested in talking
to some of you. Just don't waste their time. They are busy people.