Editors’ note: Today’s post is by Chef Stephanie Lovegrove Hansen, along with her frenemies: Michael Groth (Director of Marketing at KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd., which owns the KGL PubFactory platform) and Michael Casp (Director, Publishing Solutions Business Development, Wiley Partner Solutions, which delivers the Atypon Experience Platform).

The world of scholarly publishing is small. The world of scholarly publishing platforms is smaller.

Enter the teams supporting those platforms, the continual shuffle of consolidation and job-hopping, and the missions that connect us all, and it’s a recipe for some truly complex relationships.

The three of us first met through the SSP MarCom committee, for which we all served as Chairs during overlapping terms. During that time, we got to know and appreciate one another as people and as amazing marketers. There’s a definite “group therapy” vibe to an assembly of marketers discussing our roles, challenges, and ultra-niche delights, and we’ve stayed in touch at events and elsewhere since that time.

At the same time, in our day jobs, we’re actively working against one another in the saturated market of scholarly platform technology. It’s a precarious position, but one we’re sure others can relate to given the nature of our industry and often interconnected career paths. Below, we discuss these nuanced dynamics and how they play out in our industry experience.

Stephanie: We’re all just fresh back from SSP, where we got to see each other, which was really lovely — catching up in the exhibit hall and attending each other’s sessions. Conferences are a really unique place where these dynamics play out, because we all know each other, we’re all friendly, we’re all catching up with a lot of the same people. At the same time, we all have dueling booths and dueling sessions, and our colleagues sometimes give us looks like, “Why are you talking to them?”

Michael C.: It’s an interesting paradox, because so much of what we’re doing is competing against you guys, but when I see you in person, I’m just like, “My old friends, let’s hang out.” I wish we had more time, honestly, but we’ve all got things we need to do while we’re at the Annual Meeting.

It is funny how tight we are despite the fierce competition — but it’s because we’re all in the same boat, and it’s a very small boat. There aren’t a lot of people who do exactly what we do in this industry. It’s just a handful of people who fully get this job and its requirements, so it’s nice to be able to catch up.

Mike G.: I always steal drinks from the Silverchair cocktail reception. The last couple of times we had drinks on different afternoons at our booths, but in Chicago a couple of years ago, we were directly across from each other — so that was a little awkward, and I do get the sideways glance from my colleagues. But I got my last two jobs from connections through SSP, so I’m not going to let petty competition ruin our collegial relationships.

And actually, I crashed a Silverchair party in 2012. I was with Publishing Technology, which is Ingenta now, and Silverchair had a customer event in Arlington, Virginia. They let us in, and there was a photo booth. I got photos taken with the same customers that I’ve now worked with elsewhere. I spent some time at the bar at that party talking to the founder of Accucoms, and I worked for Ingenta’s Publishers Communication Group — sworn enemies. She said, “You know, we need to give publishers a choice. It’s good that we both exist.” But I caught so much grief for being chatty with our supposed nemesis.

Stephanie: It just makes no sense to burn bridges in this industry, because we’ll all work together at some point. I have many current colleagues who have worked at Wiley, and I actually worked with the ScholarOne team when I was at Clarivate for a stint many years ago (very full circle). The map of our career connections looks like that Charlie Day meme. I think it’s great that in this industry we can all just be humans in addition to being competitors.

And I really appreciate what you said about what the party exchange showed — because I think about that tension a lot. In many ways, I think we genuinely make each other stronger. Every time I see a really good marketing piece from one of you guys, I’m like, “Oh, dangit, that’s so good.” As a marketer working in a very niche space, I can really appreciate the positioning, the careful dynamics, all the things you have to consider. I admire it even while, as a competitor, I’m thinking, “UGH!!”

Michael C.: I know exactly that feeling. Every time you put something good out, I’m like, “She’s so good,” and I’m mad, but also — game recognizes game, you know.

Stephanie: It makes us keep trying new things, to keep up with each other! I feel like it does make us all better, and the people who benefit are the researchers and the industry at large, so it’s really a win-win.

Michael C.: Yeah, it’s fun. A year or two ago, Mike and I were just toward the end of the SSP annual meeting, and we were all fried. We were talking about our booths — lamenting the challenge of trying to combine multiple brands into one cohesive idea. Wiley’s acquired a bunch of orgs, KGL’s acquired a bunch of orgs. And we were saying, “Oh, Silverchair, they’ve only got a couple brands now, that’s not too hard.”

Mike G.: One acquisition. Talk to me when it’s three.

Stephanie: Even that one was enough to give me so much sympathy! We’d never had to do anything like that before, and wow. I talked to several other marketers at SSP this year about branding and M&A challenges. Somebody had just rebranded, and I told them, “You will be chasing down old logos for years. Good luck.” So I appreciate having other marketers who have been through this very specific type of challenge to talk to — even if we’re not helping each other out, at least being able to commiserate after the fact is amazing.

Mike G.: It goes back to my Accucoms example — they were a sworn enemy of who I was working for at that time, and then many years and two jobs later, my current company acquired Accucoms. It’s good that I had established a rapport with one of the founders. It made things easier far into the future in ways I would never have imagined at the time.

Stephanie: Totally. It’s also just so helpful that we all know each other’s organizations so well and know each other for when challenges arise. It makes it so much easier when we just know each other personally so we can just be like, “Hey, so…”

Mike G.: I know you were asking me for tips on exhibiting at the London Book Fair a couple of years ago. And I was happy to give them, while also thinking, “Am I giving the enemy ammunition to outdo us?”

Michael C.: And then there’s the whole dueling cocktail parties. That’s been rough lately. Every year it’s just a race to see who can get their invite out first!

Stephanie: We’re going to start sending them in December.

It was entertaining when we were all MarCom chairs, because as some people may not know, when you’re a MarCom chair for SSP, you approve the press releases that members submit. So we were always in the position of having to approve each other’s press releases, which was always kind of awkward — that thing where it’s like, “Oh, this looks so great, and I’m both happy for you and mad for us.”

Michael C.: Yeah, that was always a tough approval email to have to send. I think another aspect of this dynamic is that we all have colleagues who have bounced around. While we pay close attention to what you guys are doing, there’s only so much we can see from what you publicly share. Every once in a while, we hire each other’s people, and then you get a bit more of the picture, which always sharpens the message you can put out.

Stephanie: And it’s not just colleagues bouncing around — clients bounce around too, and you get information that way. None of us are ever truly separate. We’re all interconnected.

Michael C.: Sometimes I forget where people are even working. I’m like, “I think he’s over here now, but I know him, and I’ll go talk to him and find out.”

Mike G.: I’ve got people I’ve worked with twice. You look through your connections, and it’s like, “We worked together at this place and this place.”

Stephanie: I think part of why that happens is because ultimately we are all people drawn to this industry because of the mission it serves and the purpose it has in the world at large. All of these organizations are ultimately serving that mission. It makes sense that we’re all orbiting around it, continuing to serve it — which is why we and many others in this industry can be fierce competitors in our day jobs but still be friends as humans. I definitely respect you guys as marketers so much, and I love being able to come to you for advice. And I think that will continue long beyond when all of us have different job titles.

Michael C.: Completely agree. It takes a little getting used to, this whole frenemies thing — but there’s just so much mutual respect. I respect the heck out of how you guys operate, what you’re able to achieve. Even when you put something good out there, and I don’t like it — I respect it. And yeah, we’ll all change jobs and probably work together at some company eventually.

Mike G.: Or one of us will get acquired by one of the others.

Stephanie: Or we’ll all be part of Anthropic.