B2B Executives Moving to Consumer/Niche

This week saw the announcement of David Blansfield’s, SVP at Penton’s design engineering group (Machine Design), appointment as president of magazines at F+W Publishing, the large consumer/niche publisher of I.D., Print, HOW, and many others.  Blansfield replaces Colin Ungaro, another B2B veteran, most recently of Reed’s new products division.  Also, earlier this year, Eric Shanfelt got up off the bench and joined Clay Hall’s Aspire Media, another enthusiast company.

Both Blansfield and Shanfelt come into their new jobs brimming with confidence.  And why not?

When I first started at min’s b2b just over 18 months ago, I spent my first few days on the job in Phoenix at the American Business Media Spring Meeting.  There, there was some concern about B2B media companies doing all they could to monetize their content.  There was further concern that B2B media companies were way behind other media companies in doing.  This worry has paid off, as now B2B media companies are way ahead of their consumer and niche counterparts in monetizing Web opportunities, as well as face-to-face and custom publishing opportunities.

So, in practice, you might assume that a B2B media executive with years of experience squeezing every penny out of every crumb of content would do quite well on the consumer/niche side.  I’d make that assumption.  It didn’t work out with Ungaro, it seems.  Hopefully, Shanfelt and Blansfield will have more luck.  Time will tell and we’ll be watching.

More on this in this week’s issue of min’s b2b.