App-titude for Apps

Radhika Nayak and Chris Sanborn at an NYU Center for Publishing moderated conversation.

How do you produce a successful app? And what is a successful app, anyway? These were some of the questions asked recently at the moderated conversation on “The Art of the App” sponsored by students and alumni of the NYU-SCPS Center for Publishing. The event featured Radhika Nayak, Vice President for Product at Simon & Schuster, and Chris Sanborn, Founder and President of Sanborn Media Factory, a 30-person interactive agency that produces digital campaigns and products for companies such as Condé Nast and Hearst. Both panelists were asked to give the publishing industry a grade in terms of their app creation to date. Nayak, who has deep experience in building user-centered product strategies for websites and mobile applications, gave book publishing “about a C,” saying that publishers seem to be stuck on the idea of long-form content, and that they think of apps as nothing more than marketing tools for books, which is not what an app really is. 

Networking? Here’s How With YPG and Ed2010

Young to Publishing’s Sara Sargent and Ed2010′s Chandra Turner

One of the greatest perks of being a student in the M.S. in Publishing: Digital and Print Media program at NYU-SCPS is the industry events we are frequently invited to attend. I was delighted to be able to go to a brown-bag lunch with speakers Chandra Turner, Executive Editor of Parents magazine and founder and president of Ed2010, and Sara Sargent, Assistant Editor, Balzer+Bray (an imprint of HarperCollins Children’s Books) and the chair of the Young to Publishing Group (YPG) Planning Committee. [YPG is part of The Association of American Publishers (AAP), which has more than 300 publishing organizations as its members.] Both speakers offered valuable insights on how to break into the industry, as well as all the opportunities for entry-level publishing professionals to connect with each other. The lunch was informative, interesting, and a great opportunity to listen to the wisdom of people who have gone through exactly what we are going through now as we attempt to get a foot in the door of publishing. And they have come out on top!