Judith Ellis, International Member Services at eco and heading the editorial team of dotmagazine , which will be launched in February 2017, explains why eco has started this new member-driven format and why it is different to other publications.
Judith, why has eco decided to launch its own international magazine?
dotmagazine gives us a new opportunity to interact with our members. It is designed to be a platform for eco members to share their knowledge with their peers and with the world at large, as well as a platform for eco to share the knowledge and expertise of the Competence Groups and specialist services. As an English-language magazine, it is open to the whole spectrum of eco members from around the world, and it also provides an international platform for our German members to present themselves.
There are many journals on technology topics, what is different about dotmagazine?
dotmagazine will handle the whole gamut of Internet industry topics – just look at the topics for our first few issues: In February, we’re looking at Cyber Security, with special focuses on Company security, the health industry, and DDoS attacks. In March, we’ll be looking at Internet Governance and Self-Regulation, so we’ll be looking in-depth at the Domains industry and the workings of ICANN, for example, but we’ve also got contributions coming up on dealing with illegal Internet content and the work of the Internet Governance Forum. In April, our focus is on Energy, and that could be anything from innovative concepts for power generation for the industry, solutions for energy efficiency in data centers, or even how to protect power stations from cyber attacks. In the May issue, we’re looking at Connectivity – and that could be anything from interconnects within a data center, to intercontinental undersea cabling. We’re leaving the topics as open as possible in each issue, so that members can interpret them in their own way, and present their perspectives and insights.
Why go with the e-magazine format rather than the existing website(s)?
Another thing that makes dotmagazine special are that, like eco as a whole, it is member-driven, with topics that are important to our members. That means that members can suggest topics that they would like to be represented, and we can look at how to work them into the editorial plan. The contributions – be they feature articles by the dotmagazine editorial team, audio and video interviews with internal and external specialists in the areas, or articles contributed by members – provide a wide range of views, very current, real-life insights from practitioners, and offer advice, solutions, and case studies. dotmagazine will offer a platform for the exchange of current research findings, knowledge, and best practices among eco members.
The existing eco International website will still be filled with eco news and views and member content, but we wanted a separate space where we could focus in-depth on a particular topic each month. It gives us a chance to bring together disparate voices on a particular topic in a virtual environment, a bit like our eco events do on location. It also means we can provide different depths of information for different readers, both more technical, and for the lay reader.
How are the issue topics chosen?
There are a range of factors at play here. eco has certain hot topics that we’re focussing on in one way or another. This includes topics from the competence groups – the newest one being Blockchain, which will be a focus in summer 2017- and profound insight in the Internet industry gained, for example, through the eco services, like the eco Complaints Office, the Certified Senders Alliance, and the new eco Data Protection Officer service. But it’s also about the topics that our members want to have heard – and we see this as a way of bringing our international members into a closer relationship with the activities of eco in a virtual space – we are, after all, the Association of the Internet Industry!
We are also including a special rubric on Doing Business in Germany. This is to provide some insight for Internet industry companies that want to move into the German market, which is, as we all know, a difficult market to get a foothold in. Germany being eco’s home ground, this is a topic we can certainly support international companies with.
How will dot magazine be produced?
The e-magazine will be published on the first Wednesday of every month, and it will be sent to all our newsletter subscribers in HTML format. As I mentioned before, we will offer multi-media content – with video and audio contributions. We will also be publishing compilations in print form at regular intervals throughout the year, and we can supply copies of these to our contributing members, as well as distributing them at events when the eco team is underway around the world.
The editorial team is made up of of myself and Cáit Kinsella, from eco International Member Services, and two external colleagues, Mathias Roekel and Marc Schmidt, from Fresh Info. Between us, we produce feature articles, do audio editing, and incorporate the member content, which we publish as “Industry Insights”. Every month we put out a call for the issue to be published in three months’ time – that goes out to our German and international mailing lists. The call is open to all members of eco who are in some way involved in that topic area. Members can opt to contribute an article or do a text or audio interview.
- Understand the drivers of the digital economy
- See how the Internet is changing society and industry
- Find out how enterprises can handle digital transformation
- Read what the industry is doing to make the Internet safer and more secure
- Keep up-to-date on the latest trends and studies
- Stay informed on European policy and regulations
- Get advice on doing business in Germany
