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Reinventing Business Publishing: HBR Relaunches

• Posted December 18th 2009
• by Janice

Last night I attended a TweetUp to celebrate the launch of the redesigned Harvard Business Review (HBR) and came away with renewed hope for the future of established publishers. The first decade of the 21st century has not delivered many positive stories about publishers who have dominated in the past, even those with iconic brands, but from what I’ve seen of the changes at the Harvard Business Review Group, there is hope that the next decade will include more stories with positive endings.

On the surface, the redesigned HBR is glossier than the former publication. It resembles other business magazines such as Forbes in other ways, too, including the advertisements (should I mention the unfortunate Accenture ad with Tiger Woods in the Jan-Feb 2010 issue of HBR?).

However, the changes that matter most run deeper and can be found online. The new Harvard Business Review site aggregates content from what used to be two separate sites, which among other things allows for the creation of “Author Pages” that “give … a deeper view of the [authors’] contributions across the magazine, the site and our books”.(1)

One could say that a “digital first” attitude is at the core of the change in direction at HBR. On a fundamental level, HBR has shifted from being organized around the type of publication (book, magazine, case study, etc.) to organizing around the needs of its audience. As obvious as it sounds, most traditional publishers have not yet made this change.

On a lighter note, my spirits were lifted when Eric Hellweg, the editor of HBR.org, greeted me by name at last night’s event. We had never met, but he explained that I was showcased in an internal meeting because of my retweet of their post on Twitter to promote the TweetUp.  Apparently, the marketing folks wanted to emphasize that Twitter can be an effective tool in reaching their target audience. It was fun to know that I played a role in proving the power of Twitter and social media to Eric and the team at HBR!

Follow Harvard Business Review on Twitter @HarvardBiz

Finally, thanks to Siobban Ford of HBR.org for organizing last evening’s event at the Asgard Pub in Cambridge. 

(1) See: The New Harvard Business Review Site.