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American Magazine Conference Preview
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Steve Cohn

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Magazine Publishers of America president (since 1999) Nina Link and Dwell president (since 2002)/conference chairman Michela O'Connor Abrams are confident of a successful and rewarding October 5-7 conference in spite of (1) the lousy economy; (2) the distance (most of the attending editors/publishers are New York-based); and (3) the Westin St. Francis being the first "non-resort" American Magazine Conference venue (though golf/tennis competitions were dropped two years ago). "Registration was soft for much of the summer, but lately it has been picking up," says Link. "We are not going to match the (circa 500) who went to Boca Raton last year, but the fact that Michela and her committee have produced a strong program, and publishers combining the AMC with sales calls to San Francisco/Silicon Valley advertisers/agencies, are huge incentives."

AMC 2008 theme is Unleash the Power, which builds upon last year's David Zinczenko (Men's Health)-chaired Maga-Brand. "We executives have much to be proud of, but--with exceptions--we are generally weak in leveraging our brands to make us less dependent on advertising/circulation alone" says Abrams. Thus, plenty of emphasis on digital (8020 Publishing president/ceo and Condé Nast alumnus Mitch Fox is on two panels) and event marketing (Working Mother Media ceo Carol Evans, as mentioned above in the WMM sale to Bonnier Corp., is highly respected for her Women of Color program.) Attendees will hear from futurist Paul Saffo, innovator Gary Kawasaki (helped launch Apple Computer three decades ago in Steve Jobs' garage), and TiVo ceo Tom Rogers, who as 1999-2003 Primedia president brought the company into the digital age with plenty of financial bumps and bruises.

Link tells min that her AMC speech on Monday morning (October 6) will, of course, acknowledge the tough times that go well beyond magazines. "But I am going to remind the audience that magazine market share is growing [versus other media] and we remain a powerful industry with titles that are among the most respected names in the world. We've recovered from down cycles before [1991/2001], and we will now."

Political power at the AMC comes from House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents San Francisco, and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (still Muscle & Fitness' cover champ), who will be interviewed by Time managing editor Rick Stengel. Jeffrey Katzenberg, who showed up at AMC 13 years ago when DreamWorks was founded, will be there (interviewed by Fortune managing editor Andy Serwer), as will Facebook coo Sheryl Sandberg (interviewed by Business Week editor-in-chief Steve Adler). There will be a ferry ride on San Francisco Bay, and the AMC will wrap October 7 with an afternoon "field trip" to Google headquarters in nearby Mountain View, Calif. Log on to MAGAZINE.ORG for the complete conference schedule, and look for min's AMC recap in two weeks.