Fran Heuser - Time Inc. Digital
11/10/10
Fran Heuser: President of Digital for the Time Inc. Style and Entertainment Group, overseeing
all business, sales, product development and production functions for the digital products of the
PEOPLE brand, Entertainment Weekly, InStyle and Essence.
The event was scheduled as a question and answer session with Fran. The discussion started off
with advice for getting ahead in your career.
Advice:
-be self-aware; know what you are good at and what you are not good at
-be low-maintenance but contribute the most
-keep thing simple, make information digestible & easy for others
The next topic was the challenges with digital media:
-PRICE: right now People is on the iPad at a price of $4.99, yet is a challenge because
consumers are trained to expect digital content to be free
-DESIGN: the level of design available in print takes a lot longer to download on the iPad
-CONTENT: digital platforms require more real-time, more social elements
-ADAPTABILITY: you now have to be able to adapt your content to each device and each
different platform
Future for Print Media?
Yes. You cannot re-create the feeling of flipping through a fashion magazine and looking at big,
glossy ads. Depends on the industry though; traditional news will face more challenges because
they are dealing with real time content.
Advice for those who want to go into digital media:
-Know your stuff; read websites (paid content is a good website resource) and know what are
new websites, new applications
-Internships; assistant experience
-Positive attitude, goal-oriented, team-player
-Work for a start-up: ability to have several different roles, decision-making ability, ability to
move up the ranks
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