The SSP Top Management Roundtable has ended, and what a great meeting it was. Attendees were uniformly impressed by the knowledge, range, and importance of the speakers, each of whom delivered insights and challenges in abundance.

You can hear interviews and read session notes at the SSP TMR blog site, which was established for the meeting and run from the meeting.

It was interesting to see that a busy meeting could be held while simultaneously and unobtrusively podcasters and bloggers could publish out of the meeting to an audience significantly larger than that at the meeting itself.

The keynote from David Perlmutter, author of “Blog Wars,” is available in full audio. Professor Perlmutter gave a great keynote, which kicked things into high gear from the first minutes of the meeting. Adam Weiss, one of our guest podcasters, also interviewed Perlmutter separately, delving more deeply into some of the concepts and context offered.

Chuck Richard of Outsell, Inc., then gave the audience time to think about two concepts: first, what is the greatest user need in their audience; and second, what is the greatest gap they face in addressing their audience. Each table at the meeting huddled to consider the questions, with some interesting answers emerging, mostly in agreement. Richard then showed how various publishers, using social tools, analytics, and the Web as a platform, are closing these gaps and addressing these user needs. An interview with Chuck Richard, by Adam Weiss, is also available. Chris Kenneally of Beyond the Book conducted this interview, and others.

And the hits keep coming:

Blog entries by Jill O’Neill of NFAIS round out the coverage, with entries on:

Other presenters included Ian Freed from Amazon.com, Joy Moore from Nature Network, and Eric Olson from DFJ Portage Ventures (and formerly of Feedburner).

Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 wrapped up the meeting on Friday with a closing keynote that left the audience with many things to think about — how to use their well-earned authority in the new media (and in clever ways), and whether their missions are thought about correctly when facing the opportunities that have emerged.

(Because the meeting has evolved over the years into a focused meeting about emerging trends, using “top management roundtable” in its name has stopped making sense. Next year, the meeting will be rebranded as SSP’s “In” meeting — Innovate, Interact, Inspire. Look for more from the SSP on this soon.)

Kent Anderson

Kent Anderson

Kent Anderson is the CEO of RedLink and RedLink Network, a past-President of SSP, and the founder of the Scholarly Kitchen. He has worked as Publisher at AAAS/Science, CEO/Publisher of JBJS, Inc., a publishing executive at the Massachusetts Medical Society, Publishing Director of the New England Journal of Medicine, and Director of Medical Journals at the American Academy of Pediatrics. Opinions on social media or blogs are his own.

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