An interview with Bob Carrigan of IDG Communications
With a reader audience dominated by information technology professionals, IDG’s publications have a running start when it comes to creating new online content, says Bob Carrigan, president of IDG Communications in Framingham.
WBJ: How is the web changing business-to-business publications?Carrigan: For IDG, the web represents a great opportunity. Most of the people we reach come from the tech space and are very comfortable with digital media and online content. Our advertisers also are bellwether technology firms. The information technology sector that we target is a $2.5 billion annual market and one of the largest advertising categories on the web. After automotive, technology marketers are probably the most experimental of all when it comes to sponsoring new formats like blogs and podcasts.
WBJ: What is your target for ad revenue from electronic media?
Carrigan: It varies from publication to publication, but overall in the U.S. about 28 percent of our revenues this year will come from online. Our company founder, Pat McGovern, has predicted that this percentage will grow to 40 percent or more by 2010.
WBJ: Just how big are IDG’s global operations?
Carrigan: We have some 13,600 employees worldwide, more than 300 magazines and newspapers, 400-plus websites and 100 million readers in 85 countries. Our revenues in 2005 totaled $2.68 billion. Revenues from overseas operations now exceed those in the U.S., with some of the fastest growth coming in China, India and Vietnam.. Among our major titles, PC World, CIO and Macworld are now in more than 70 countries. Computerworld – the company’s first publication, established in 1967 – is in almost 50 countries. Network World is in 17, and CIO is in 23.
WBJ: What role does your Framingham office play in this worldwide operation?
Carrigan: Our businesses around the world operate very independently. But they do get support services from major centers in the U.S., such as the Framingham office and other Massachusetts operations, which in total employ about 950 people. Also, U.S. operations for several publications are based in Framingham and Southboro, such as Computerworld, CIO, Network World, and CSO, a very successful magazine launched in 2002 to reach technology specialists concerned with computer security.
WBJ: What have been some of your most successful launches of recent years?
Carrigan: As you have probably guessed, most have been on the web. All of our established brands are constantly launching new online products. We just redesigned and relaunched PCworld.com and Computerworld.com, both huge undertakings. Games.net is another launch with a tremendous amount of online content for computer game enthusiasts. Still another notable new product is IDG Connect, which delivers White Papers, webcast invitations and other content to a data base of some 6 million people, consisting of subscribers to our magazines and e-mail newsletters, visitors to our websites, or attendees from our shows and conferences. And one of the most successful high-touch launches of the last couple years is CIO’s peer-to-peer executive council, which brings together top-level chief information officers. They do everything from sharing best practices to creating White Papers.
WBJ: How about new IDG-sponsored conferences?
Carrigan: One that has drawn a lot of attention is InfoWorld’s SOA (service-oriented architecture) conferences, which focuses on building flexible IT infrastructures for the web. In September, IDG will sponsor a major conference in Boston called The Security Standard that will deal with computer security. In late September, the Software as a Service conference and show debuts in San Francisco. Events are back in a very big way post 9/11, but the interest now is in targeted conferences, versus the large trade shows of the past.
WBJ: What are the advantages of remaining a privately held company?
Carrigan: There are the usual benefits, such as being able to make decisions based on the long term. But we do have aggressive goals and try to instill public company discipline in hitting quarterly targets. Still, if we believe in a new product, we’re probably willing to ride it out a bit longer and make needed investments. So there is more flexibility. We also have established a reputation of being a company that attracts talented people. In recent years, we’ve been named four times by Fortune magazine as one of the best companies to work for. Not only are we very competitive on compensation, but we give employees a lot of latitude in performing their jobs. It’s a pretty exciting work environment.
This interview was conducted and edited for length by WBJ Chief Editor Larry Maloney.
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