Meet the Keynotes meet this year’s keynotes


Tim Hely Hutchinson Chief executive, Hachette UK


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N A PRE-RECORDED interview with Future- Book associate editor Molly Flat and The Bookseller editor Philip Jones, Tim talks about the acquisition of mobile games company Neon Play and how it will inform Hachete UK’s book apps strategy and feed into its book publishing ambitions. In a frank assessement of the current publishing market, Tim talks about how Hachete’s publishing divisions and Neon Play will work with authors to explore the “possibilities” for new tpes of content. But, he adds, there will be no mandate from him for either side of the business to work together. “We have authors who are very keen to have their work turned into games, but I don’t want Neon Play to do things to please me and my colleagues here in London. I want it to produce games it thinks the market will enjoy. I want another successful division of the company: if there is connectivit between the book publishing division and Neon Play, that’s neat, but it is not compulsory.”


But he doesn’t dismiss the impact Neon Play could have on Hachete UK, either in terms of product innovation or cultural meshing. And there is growth up for grabs. “Games could be as important a part of our business as children’s books,” he reckons.


Hachette’s Play: books, apps and other media is at 10.00 in the Broadgate Suite


Andrew Keen Author


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FTEN BILLED AS “the anti-Christ of Silicon Valley”, Andrew is the author of a number of seminal texts on the


internet and its impact on societ, from The Cult of the Amateur, to Digital Vertigo and 2015’s The Internet is Not the Answer. Borrowing from his upcoming book How to Fix the Future (Atlantic, 2017), Andrew will address the political, economic and cultural solutions to the crisis of reading and of traditional media. Issues to be solved include problems pertaining to monopo- lies, distraction and the failure to monetise online content.


A compelling speaker, Andrew will take


to the stage to close the conference, provid- ing his unique perspective on the issues debated during the day. Keen believes the publishing business has a moral imperative to roar back. He says: “As smart machines and super intelligent algorithms change the world, The New Renaissance offers enor- mous opportunities for publishers to once again become relevant.


“What we will need in this new world of super intelligence is human talent, human ingenuit, human instinct. The demand for publishers, and their abilit to package this humanit into textual form will never be higher.”


How to fix the future of the book is at 17.05 in the Broadgate Suite


James Whatley Planning partner, innovation, Ogilvy & Mather


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AMES IS PLANNING partner, innova- tion for the advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather, and the author of a hugely influential annual trends report that looks at how social media is shaping our world. In the past he (and his colleague Marshall Manson) have foreseen “Disposable Content”, “Brand Banter”, and the rise of “Facebook as a Paid Media Channel”. Forecast trends for 2015 were the growth in brands’ use of algorithmic content, the batle for video ad dominance, and the ‘youth internet”: i.e. what it means now that there is a generation of teens that have never known a world without the internet. For his FutureBook keynote, James anticipates how the way people consume and interact with online platforms will evolve and what this means for content businesses. He says: “As a result, the brands and services that use [social media] platforms to market their wares will have no choice but to evolve with them.” His particu- lar focus is on video: “Whether we like it or not, we are moving ever closer to a video- first world. By 2019, 80% of internet traffic is going to be video. Are you ready for it?”


What’s that coming over the hill? A video-first world, a year of new realities and the personality designers of the future is at 09.20 in the Broadgate Suite


www.thebookseller.com 07


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