By definition, cross-media is the connection between the media channels of print, online and mobile. From June 14-15, 2010, ppi Media, a company of manroland AG, discussed with its 160 guests how this positioning can be interpreted for the publishing industry in a meaningful way.

Benjamin Schroeter, Managing Director of XNiP, presented his solution to the participants: the XNiP code, for example for ads or articles, a method that can be used to connect print ads to facebook. Higher coverage and access to viral marketing make this approach the premium offer for publishers' ad customers. "For us, facebook is just as much a part of cross-media as the distribution of inserts," said Norbert Ohl, Managing Director of ppi Media. In his presentation on using AdX for reserving cross-media ad space, Christian Veith, ppi Media, showed just how this was meant. By applying this ppi solution, you can not only clearly display and administer ads on a GUI for publishing houses' print, online and mobile offers, but also select routes for distributing inserts, even to non-subscribing households. Using an interactive route planner, the required distribution areas are simply selected and offered to the ad customer as part of the overall package. AdX is already in use at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Germany. Stephan Puls, its Director of Prepress Production, emphasized the necessity for cross-media solutions, "AdX is for publishing what the iPhone is for telecommunications. Everyone wants to have it."

Distributing advertising products efficiently
Matthias Tietz, Managing Director at the Rheinisch-Bergische Druckerei GmbH & Co. KG (RBD), presented a different perspective. Together with ppi Media, RBD has developed a concept for a Product Management System that bundles all of the publishing house's advertising and distribution products on one portal, providing customers with a central point of contact for all of their advertising requirements. RBD and ppi Media are looking for further partners and interested parties to implement this.

KISS: Keep IT short and simple
Less talking, more listening. This simple and effective guideline brought about enormous changes at Gulf News (Al Nisr Publishing LLC). CIO Edward Capaldi has been working since 2007 to improve customer satisfaction and increase IT's contribution to the company's performance, e.g. by providing speedy solutions for IT problems. Manuel Scheyda presented a new approach to IT management: ppi Media's IT services. From data backups to the installation of patches, customization of interfaces, and system and user support: as an Application Service Provider, ppi Media takes over all the tasks for application administration in production and planning at the publishing house. On request, this service can be extended to include consulting on reorganizing the IT infrastructure, including server systems and VMware. The advantages and new perspectives of outsourcing IT were set out by Kai Rutkowski, Managing Director of Leupold Rutkowski Consulting GmbH, in his presentation on rightsourcing.

Future trends from India
India is a country with immense prospects. Its media companies are well-positioned in the joint media sector; their highly automated planning and production now enable them to make hyperlocal offers, start printing later and offer ads in all editions and media. These possibilities allowed Vineet Kumar Chawla, Head of IT Enterprise Applications at HT Media (Hindustan Times), to take an optimistic view of the future of the publishing industry in his presentation.

Turn 3 into 1
One of the central topics at ppi's Open Days was process optimization. Patric Schäfer, Head of Production Management at Saarbrücker Zeitung Verlag und Druckerei GmbH, gave a convincing description of his company's experiences from its consolidation project in his presentation, Turn 3 into 1. Completed in just a few months, significant savings were achieved in the fields of IT and production by centralizing the system environments of the three daily newspapers, Trierischer Volksfreund, Lausitzer Rundschau and Saarbrücker Zeitung.

Keeping sight of the goal
A course has been set: our goal must be to continue to follow new paths. iPad, facebook, Google and paid content will mold the publishing industry in future and force it to change. Martin Ruhle, Managing Director of ppi Media, was optimistic in his presentation on "What will ppi do?". He introduced the new ppi Newsreader App for the iPad and put up various paid content strategies for discussion. A survey among the participants of ppi's Open Days showed a clear trend: after all, half of those questioned are of the opinion that publishing houses will profit from tablet PCs and almost 75 percent regard paid content as a business model for the future. "The positive response from the participants and the many topics that have not yet been conclusively discussed have encouraged us to plan the 11th ppi Open Days in Hamburg on June 27-28, 2011," Norbert Ohl revealed at the end of the event.