Content = King

Can magazines, the good old fashioned print dinosaurs turn a profit?  A spotlight by David Carr at NYT on the owner of Atlantic Media seems to indicate tough times for the print world.  David G. Bradley apparently lost “$8 to 10 million a year” getting The Atlantic seaworthy, to no avail.

Blogging for the firm exitcreative, two bright spots appear:

“The Economist” is a trite answer to a separate question – “Who’s killing it with content?” – but it’s worth noting that their $130 annual subscription ends up in the hands of only around 1.5 million people. In spite of that relatively small number, the magazine makes money. £60MM every year. And that figure is growing.

Cook’s Illustrated is a less-cited example, but they continue to impress. They’re private, so they’re not quite as easy to assess as a business, but they seem to be growing, making money off a model that doesn’t include advertising, and experimenting effectively in the digital space. They publish 6 issues each year, do not discount their subscription rates, and charge for the digital version even if you get the magazine in the mail. And remarkably, somewhere near 80% of their one million subscribers re-up annually. Gangster.

via exitcreative | exitcreative is a blog about digital things, brand things, and real things..

 

‘How Children Succeed,’ by Paul Tough – NYTimes.com

Rethinking what children learn from school and how we teach it. (Listen to Ira Glass’s interview on TAL).

“Psychologists and neuroscientists have learned a lot in the past few decades about where these skills come from and how they are developed,” Tough writes, and what they’ve discovered can be summed up in a sentence: Character is created by encountering and overcoming failure. In this absorbing and important book, Tough explains why American children from both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum are missing out on these essential experiences. The offspring of affluent parents are insulated from adversity, beginning with their baby-proofed nurseries and continuing well into their parentally financed young adulthoods.

via ‘How Children Succeed,’ by Paul Tough – NYTimes.com.

 

College: ‘The Best Rehearsal Spaces We Have for Democracy’ | PBS NewsHour | May 22, 2012 | PBS

Welcome back to fall semester.  A time to reflect about what is college for and no better guide than Andrew Delbanco.  (Hint: Its more than preprofessional training.)

 

Watch College: ‘The Best Rehearsal Spaces We Have for Democracy’ on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic | The Economist

 

System fail? Not only is the academic job market a brutalizing experience–the smartest kids in the class may be better off w/o that advanced degree:

PhD graduates do at least earn more than those with a bachelors degree. A study in the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management by Bernard Casey shows that British men with a bachelors degree earn 14% more than those who could have gone to university but chose not to. The earnings premium for a PhD is 26%.But the premium for a masters degree, which can be accomplished in as little as one year, is almost as high, at 23%. In some subjects the premium for a PhD vanishes entirely. PhDs in maths and computing, social sciences and languages earn no more than those with masters degrees.

The premium for a PhD is actually smaller than for a masters degree in engineering and technology, architecture and education. Only in medicine, other sciences, and business and financial studies is it high enough to be worthwhile. Over all subjects, a PhD commands only a 3% premium over a masters degree.

via Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic | The Economist.