Erin Griffith (@eringriffith) writes on PandoDaily (@PandoDaily) about Macmillan Publishing’s resolve to embrace the disruption happening in the world of education publishing and to intentionally change its structure, business model, and processes to succeed in this Internet age.
Macmillan Publishing has taken an entirely different route altogether. It’s one that, until now, has remained relatively under the radar. The company hired Troy Williams, former CEO of early ebook company Questia Media, which sold to Cengage. Macmillan gave him a chunk of money and incredibly unusual mandate: “Build a business that will undermine our own.”
The publishing giant has given Williams a sum greater than $100 million (he won’t say exactly how much) to acquire ed-tech startups that will eventually be the future of Macmillan. The plan is to let them exist autonomously like startups within the organization, as Macmillan transitions out of the content business and into educational software and services. Through the entity, called Macmillan New Ventures, Williams plans to do five deals this year and 10 to 15 over the course of the next five years.
He’s buying companies that will help Macmillan survive as a business once textbooks go away completely.
This includes PrepU (@PrepUQuiz), a quizzing engine for classrooms, i>Clicker (@iclicker), a mobile classroom polling company, and most recently EBI (@EBIandMAPWorks), a data and evaluation startup.
Troy Williams speaks about his objectives in this video (beginning at the 5:00 mark).
Look to Somersault (@smrsault) to help you scout the future of publishing and the continued convergence of technology and writing.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard, especially the Future tab.