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Advanstar Communications is a worldwide business information company that publishes more than 100 business
magazines, directories, and journals, as well as direct marketing, database, and reference products.
In addition, the company produces more than 100 exhibitions and conferences throughout the world. The
company's portfolio serves a variety of markets including: application technology, art, beauty, energy,
healthcare, information technology, landscaping, motor vehicle, paper, pest control, pharmaceuticals,
science, telecommunications, and travel/hospitality. Although Advanstar publishes directories and buyers
guides using the Pathways Database Publisher for offices all over the world, their directory publishing
headquarters is in Duluth, Minnesota.
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Advanstar purchased Pathways Database Publisher in 1997 at the end of a two-year search for software
that would help them move into the future. Steve Hanson, Senior Programmer/Analyst for Advanstar, says
that they began their conversion of 30 publications in February of 1997 and were completed by December
of the same year. Since that time, he reports that they have converted and imported another 15 publications
which were primarily spin-off publications or new publications that the company purchased. According
to Steve, Advanstar currently publishes 45 publications using the Pathways Database Publisher, including
over 85,000 companies and nearly 400,000 products. During the conversion from their previous AREV (R/Basic)
system, Steve worked on Pathways nearly full time designing import templates, screens, tables, and then
converting the data. Steve says that now, aside from new conversions, the system users have taken on
all of the responsibility for production, including problem solving and processing. He says, "there
is definitely a decrease in demand for technical support as the users learn more and more of the system."
Advanstar is now in the second (or greater) production cycle for many of their products. Steve asserts
that, "Once the publications are converted, the questionnaires are created, and the DTP style sheets
are designed, the next time around seems so much easier for the users."
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Mary Moreland, Directory Manager/System Administrator for Advanstar, is responsible for all questionnaire
mailings. She designs the questionnaire templates, generates the files, does the DTP work necessary
to format and print the questionnaires, and manages all follow-up mailings. Prior to purchasing the
Pathways Database Publisher, Advanstar sent blank questionnaires to their directory respondents and generated
labels for addresses. Mary reports that they are now seeing large cost savings on printing because she
is able to print the "personalized" questionnaires herself. Additionally, instead of labels, they now
print the company contact address directly on the questionnaire in such a way that it directly hits a
window envelope. Furthermore, Mary reports that Advanstar is undoubtedly experiencing an increase in
questionnaire response and data integrity. She says, "All of our magazines are showing an increase in
responses with the new questionnaires. It is so much easier for the customer to verify information than
it is to have to re-write all of their information on a blank form." Mary lists quick and thorough support
and user-friendliness as her favorite aspects of the Pathways Database Publisher. She says, "I have
no programming experience whatsoever and I have been able to catch on to this system very quickly. I
am able to write templates now with little or no help from Pathways Unlimited."
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Sandy Ollah, Director Classified/Directory Production, is the overseer of all of Advanstar's directory,
buyers guide, and show guide production. She also develops all of the DTP templates that are used to
produce Advanstar publications and creates style sheets for use in QuarkXPress. She claims that using
the Pathways Database Publisher has allowed her staff to "more than double their workload in one year."
According to Sandy the most powerful aspect of the Pathways system is that whereas they used to rely
solely on their technical department for additions/changes to database structure, output, and formatting,
her staff is now able to customize the system on their own. Additionally, automation of advertisement
placement has cut down on the time it took for book layout. Advanstar uses the Xtags for Quark extension
to automatically draw in-line ad boxes and place ad graphic files into the boxes.
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Sandy also likes the versatility that Pathways offers. Advanstar's products are so diverse that they
used to have separate programs, databases, and output methods for each publication. They are now able
to produce the most diverse products using the same system. Typical output ranges from standard text
output to matrix charts to graphic intensive output that requires unanchored picture boxes to be generated
directly in the text files. They also produce directories that are published simultaneously in multiple
languages. Sandy asserts that Pathways has increased quality control in the area of editorial content.
She says, "we can now accommodate any request received from a Publisher or editor. In the past, we had
to schedule time with our technical department. Depending on the time frame, changes were not made until
the following year. Now they are made immediately."
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Advanstar utilizes Pathways for a variety of ancillary products and services. In the past year, they
have had a significant increase in list rentals. They also use the export module of Pathways to create
a variety of spreadsheets and reports for Publishers and Ad Sales Representatives, as well as export
data files for customers requesting raw data. They use the Pathways Database Publisher to create special
product previews and monthly dot charts for several magazines, as well as pre-show monthly publications
and show guides for their exhibition shows. Sandy asserts, "We have some very complicated directories--there
hasn't been one thing Pathways could not handle." Like Mary and Steve, Sandy believes the support offered
by Pathways Unlimited adds tremendous value to the Pathways Database Publisher product.
For more
information about Advanstar, visit their website at http:\\www.advanstar.com.
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PennWell Publishing Company
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PennWell Publishing Company publishes over 30 diverse industry directories and buyers guides annually,
and is a leading publisher of some 40+ trade magazines and newsletters. PennWell's directories and buyers
guides currently serve such specialized industries and markets as petroleum exploration and development,
laser technology, power generation and distribution, solid state circuitry design, and municipal services.
Even though PennWell had been utilizing extensive computer technology for years in its production
process, the time and expense involved using even the newest available software systems for its directories
was excessive. New title development was also hindered. Not only did every publication require some
outside vendor support; some had to be totally outsourced because they could not be handled internally.
This significantly added to the expense involved.
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In 1994, PennWell completed an extensive search for a new software system and selected the Pathways
Database Publisher (PDP); a system developed exclusively for the development of directories and buyers
guides. Now, all production is handled in-house by the PDP system and costs and time have been reduced
dramatically.
"Our conversion to the Pathways Database Publisher system has been one of PennWell's
most successful re-engineering efforts," state Mike Blake, PennWell's director of information technology.
"Not only were we able to find a system which meets all of our directory and buyers guide publishing
needs, but also existing data was easily imported into the new system. The PDP system gives us the flexibility
to handle all of PennWell's current titles with just one software system."
"We produce several
completely new titles each year, as well as use information from existing titles to produce new hybrid
products. The Pathways system provides us with a tool which allows us to quickly develop those new titles
with very little start up cost" says Blake.
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"We use a variety of desktop publishing software packages, including Ventura, Quark and FrameMaker"
Blake explains. With the Pathways Database Publisher, we are able to continue using all of these systems
without being forced to use a particular product which may not fit a publication's needs or meet our
corporate standards."
According to Linda Wright, PennWell's Publishing Director for Directories
and Buyers Guides, "Each year our publishers want to add more and more information to their databases
to add value to the product. Before the Pathways system was installed, these types of changes required
programming changes that often took days or even weeks. Now, within minutes, my staff can set system
parameters not only to allow us to begin entry of the new data, but also to include the new data in the
final product." In addition, Wright indicates this flexibility has given her much more control of the
data, and allowed her to offer more options to her publishers at no additional cost.
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Wright states that one of the major benefits of the Pathways system is PennWell's ability to significantly
reduce the time and effort to "close" a publication. "As PennWell continues to either purchase or develop
new publications, the demands on our staff continue to increase. In order to handle these new publications
with our current staff and eliminate the need to continually add people, the manual effort required to
produce each publication had to be reduced," says Wright.
Combining Pathways with a desktop publishing
system allowed PennWell to meet its goals. As an example, the manually effort required to correctly
place ads has been reduced by 70 percent. In addition, the manual assignment of reader service numbers
and the manual generation of product and company indices have been completely eliminated.
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With the Pathways Database Publisher, PennWell believes they have found a cost-effective and efficient
software solution that has the ability to handle both its current and future needs. As Mike Blake says,
"Our customers continue to challenge us to provide more and more data in new and innovative formats.
We feel confident that the Pathways software will allow us to continue to meet and exceed their expectations
for years to come."
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Penton's corporate office is located in Cleveland and has sales and editorial offices throughout the
U.S. including Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, and Washington
D.C. Considered a leading Industrial Magazine Publisher, they publish over 30 magazines including "Industry
Week", "Machine Design", "Hydraulics & Pneumatics", "Heating, Piping, and Air Conditioning" and "Air
Transport World".
Karen Hoagland, Director, heads their Directories Department. Her department
is responsible for the production of over 20 Directories and Buyers Guides. Some are companion products
to magazines published by Penton and others are marketed as stand-alone products.
The selection
of the Pathways Database Publisher came at the conclusion of a two year long system study undertaken
by the publishers and directory staff with the assistance of an outside consulting firm, NewMedia, Inc.
of Cleveland. The three main objectives cited in their study were:
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To have greater flexibility in processing data
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To maintain existing page production using
QuarkXPress as the Desktop Publisher.
The new
system had to generate all
required DTP interface files to import into
Quark.
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To provide a comprehensive and easy to use
interface for electronic output of data to be used
to generate ancillary products.
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Unlike many publishers, Penton had already identified and resolved the need to produce all directory
and buyers guide pages using the power of desktop publishing. QuarkXpress had been used quite successfully,
along with several software extensions, to completely automate the layout of pages including display
advertising and in-line graphics. What Penton needed, however, was a single comprehensive system to maintain
all of their data and provide an output filter to generate the "marked up" Quark files in the same
formats as accomplished by their previous systems. Different directories and different sections within
the same directory were being maintained using different systems, causing duplication of information.
Additionally, data was being maintained in formats that were most efficient for the printed products.
These formats caused problems, however, when attempting to use the data for other products such as CD-ROM,
mailing labels and custom electronic files.
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According to Karen, "Even though we found Pathways would meet all of the objectives that we outlined
in our study, we were concerned about the transition using our existing data." She continued, "We checked
with existing Pathways customers and were extremely pleased to find that the Importation Modules made
their transition into the Pathways System extremely efficient and easy."
When asked what features
of the Pathways Database Publisher lead to their choice over other software vendors' offerings, she said,
"We looked at several different packages. Most vendors had packages that could assist a publisher in
marketing printed directories, but very few specialized in the actual production of printed directories.
When we required that any system proposed must produce "marked up" files for Quark, no other system was
found that could provide all of the features and interface capabilities of the Pathways system."
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Discussing other options considered at Penton, Karen said "We knew that we could develop a system in-house
with our own technical staff. We had the technical expertise and desktop publishing experience required.
We decided, however, to look for an outside developer that had expertise in both of these areas, as well
as publishing experience that augmented our own."
Now that Karen and her staff have been using
the software for several years, she believes the most beneficial features of the Pathways System for
Penton are:
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Integration of all publications into one system -
"Using this one system, we are able to
easily
produce hybrid products from information held
for other publications. It also eliminates
the need
to train staff members on several different systems."
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Extraction capabilities of export jobs -
"With the export modules, we can select any subset
of our directory data and output it in any format we want.
This will allow me to stop saying
"no" to customers
who want specific data in a specific format."
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Windows-based data maintenance system -
"Coming from a mainframe system, the users are
thrilled with a Windows based environment. The
system is so easy to learn to use and the
graphics
and icons make even novice computer users
productive in a very short time."
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Complete control of interface files -
"Even though we had been successfully generating
interface files for Quark in the past, now we can
change the presentation order and format
of these
interface files without having to rely on our technical
programming staff. We can
make all of the changes
that our publishers require, by ourselves."
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Simmons Boardman Publishing Corporation has offices in New York, Chicago, Omaha, and England. The
company primarily serves the Banking, Railroad, and Marine industries. They currently publish several
magazines including ABA Banking Journal, International Railway Journal, Railway AGE, Railway Track
& Structures, Railway Track & Structure's Track Buyer's Guide, and Railway Age's Communication and
Signaling Buyer's Guide, as well as the industry reference book Car & Locomotive Cyclopedia. Also
contained within the corporation is the Railway Education Bureau that offers continuing education courses
for the rail industry. Simmons Boardman also hosts several annual conferences.
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Klara Carames, Circulation Director for Simmons Boardman, is in charge of the entire directory project
including data, marketing, design, production, and fulfillment. Klara says Simmons Boardman made the
decision to purchase the Pathways Database Publisher after researching several different software packages.
She says Pathways Database Publisher "was the only database software available on the market that offered
so many different options in maintaining data for a directory." Additionally, Klara wanted to capitalize
on Pathways Unlimited's directory publishing expertise since Simmons Boardman is new to this particular
type of publishing. The first directory that Simmons Boardman will publish is the Marine Log's Maritime
Services Directory. This directory includes information about all aspects of the marine industry (e.g.
vessel owners/operators, shipyards and vessel repair firms, maritime professional services, cargo handling
firms, port operators, government offices, and manufacturers and suppliers). In addition to a printed
directory, Simmons Boardman plans to produce some ancillary products and services such as list rentals,
CD-ROM products, and a publication web site.
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