NYT and LinkedIn and IHT People LinkedIn

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I finally cracked and signed up under the user name ihtreaders.blogspot.com with LinkedIn, which is a business networking site that works in partnership with the http://www.nytimes.com/ - need to check out exactly what the relationship is and if it extends beyond paid for click-throughs, in which case I have earned the NYT about 1 cent. (No, I'm sure it's more.)

Interesting, good site, good navigation, real practical applications, and no I won't be subcribing to the upgrade service to be able to contact the very many people I know who are on this site.

I even set up a LinkedIn Group called International Herald Tribune Employees, Past and Present which thus far has a membership of ONE. (Me.)

I searched a few past and present IHT names, and found people working for Nokia, other media groups and inter alia (I'll probably get busted for this and LinkedOut but no matter):

Didier Brun
International Director, Meetic
Location
Paris Area, France
Industry
Internet
Current
International Director at MEETIC
Past
Senior Vice President at International Herald Tribune
Senior Vice President at International Herald Tribune, New York Times
Education
INSEAD
Stanford University
New York University
Connections
70 connections

CEMEA Subscription Agents Manager at Financial Times
Past
Advertising Manager at The International Herald Tribune
International Client Supervisor at Le Cordon Bleu
Education
Purdue University & Schiller International University
Recommendations
1 person has recommended this user
Connections
48 connections

Dibble Law Offices
Location
Columbia, South Carolina Area
Industry
Law Practice
Current
Senior Lawyer at Dibble Law Offices
Past
Partner at Cooper, Beard & Dibble
Partner at Cooper, Bowen, Beard & Smoot
Associate at West, Bendorf, Cooper & Bowen
3 more...
Education
University of South Carolina School of Law
Université de Paris à la Sorbonne
Davidson College

After working as a newspaperman with the International Herald Tribune and Agence France-Presse in Paris and with Kayhan International in Tehran in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he returned to South Carolina and obtained his J.D. degree from the School of Law at the University of South Carolina in 1977

Circulation Director, National Review
Location
Greater New York City Area
Industry
Marketing and Advertising
Current
Circulation Director at National Review
Past
Founder and business development director at EZ Marketing and Consulting, Inc.
Sales Expansion Team Manager at The New York Times Co.
Operations Director, The Americas at The International Herald Tribune
2 more...
Education
Saint John's University - Peter J. Tobin College of Business
Recommendations
2 people have recommended this user
Connections
78 connections

Nokia, Director CRM (Andrew, this must be you - the man who dragged me into the IHT back in 1994 in Amsterdam).
Location
Finland
Industry
Telecommunications
Current
Director CRM at Nokia
Past
Head of Portfolio Management at Nokia
Director, Mobile Marketing at Starcut
Management Consultant at Bob Helsinki
5 more...
Education
Helsinki School of Economics
School of Oriental and African Studies, U. of London
West Buckland School
Recommendations
3 people have recommended this user
Connections
113 connections

International Sales Director
Location
London, United Kingdom
Industry
Publishing
Current
International Sales Director at EuroNews
Past
Managing Director - Global Sales at The New York Times Media Company
New York Ad Agency Director at International Herald Tribune
International Account Manager at Initiative Media
2 more...
Education
The Open University
Liverpool Hope University
Gravesend Grammer School fo Boys
Connections
148 connections

I found there were 93 IHT employees on LinkedIn, about half women, half men and with a median age of 35 years, 49 of them in Paris, and 6 in London.

Quite interesting were the numbers of them interested in career opportunities.

International Herald Tribune Employees on LinkedIn
93 total
Media Marketing Manager
London, United Kingdom
Project Manager
Paris Area, France
South Asia Correspondent
India
Senior Editor & General Manager, Newsroom
Paris Area, France
Director of Design & User Experience
Paris Area, France
See more International Herald Tribune employees »

New HiresWhat’s this?
Ciara O'Rourke, Editorial Newsroom Intern
was Editor in Chief at Klipsun Magazine - last month
Alan Flippen, Editor, Newsroom Organization
was Senior Editor, Planning at The New York Times - 2 months ago
Lucy Conticello, Photo Researcher/Editor -Freelance
was Photo Editor -Freelance at Courrier International - 2 months ago
Liz Webber, Web Intern
was Web Intern at Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel - 2 months ago

Recent Promotions and ChangesWhat’s this?
Michael Cosentino, Director of Design & User Experience
was Head of Design & User Experience - last month

Popular ProfilesWhat’s this?
Matthew Saltmarsh, Editor/writer/producer
Barbara Staszewski, Editor
Ciara O'Rourke, Editorial Newsroom Intern
stephanie de Longevialle, Advertising Director
Chuck Jackson, Copy Editor

READ AN ALTERNATIVE IHT DAILY NARRATIVE AT
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
NYT

Vacation /Business Trip Furnished Apartment in Paris

François Desmaisons, former IHT circulation director

OBITUARY
PARIS: François Desmaisons, 82, former circulation director of the International Herald Tribune, died Aug. 7 in Golf-Juan, France. The cause of death was heart failure, his family said.
Desmaisons joined the newspaper in 1953 when it was the European edition of The New York Herald Tribune, the predecessor of the IHT, which is now owned by The New York Times.
He became circulation director in 1960 and oversaw the expansion of the paper from a Paris-based publication directed largely at American tourists and expatriates in France to an international operation with printing sites throughout the world.
Sales grew from 30,000 copies a day to 200,000 following the opening of facsimile sites - at the time an extraordinary innovation - starting with London in 1974, Zurich in 1977 and Hong Kong in 1980. The IHT currently is printed in 35 sites and has a circulation of more than 241,000.
Desmaisons retired in 1991 but remained as a consultant until 1994.
"François was a pioneer in international circulation development, widely respected around the world, a man who profoundly loved the newspaper industry," said Alain Lecour, former associate publisher of the IHT.
During World War II, Desmaisons served as a liaison officer between French forces and the British and U.S. armies in Normandy and Paris. He later saw combat in the south of France and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. After the war, he worked as a translator at the United Nations in New York for several years before returning to France.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/03/europe/desmaisons.php


IW: When I first joined the IHT, as Director for Belgium and Luxembourg, based in Brussels back in 1994, is it Francois that I remember as serving out the last days of his time at the IHT in Paris?

Was he the man Didier Brun, the young Franco-Swiss gun who was to be promoted to take over his job, introduced me too? My memory is perhaps failing me, and I am confusing Francois with another man who was literally in the process of packing his things.

So I'm a little confused.

Richard McClean, the new, ex-FT IHT publisher had wanted young blood, and picked out Didier from advertising (classifieds I think it was) to be the new Circulation Director. I can't remember if it was him, or Francois, who was on the masthead as Circulation Director when I was recruited.

Alain Lecour was also seen as part of the ancien regime, and was given a very nice job in Spain as circulation director for that country, presumably as part of the deal.

1993/1994 really was a watershed in the IHT's history, as much as the overseas print sites introduced by Francois were too. McClean marked the beginning of a more earnest approach to making the IHT more profitable, the end of the extravagant annual global sales conferences, the fun really. I arrived, and represented, amongst another new hires, the end of fun.

Sadly, however, the FT had already stolen a lead in Europe's business heartland, by starting to print in Frankfurt.

IHT management and editorial were way too complacent about this young upstart in international newspaper publishing, and completely failed to anticipate or react to their rapid expansion until it was way, way to late to retake the high ground seized by the FT.

That high ground was the hearts and minds of senior European business decision makers, and although, ostensibly, the IHT had been trying to position itself into this market since it became the IHT, it had failed to do so.

Leading European industrialists might have been readers, but it was the FT that first realised that one had to reach the entirety of these companies 'C-suites' to bring in the ad dollars. The chairman of Europe's largest companies don't buy network computer systems, it's their senior executive in charge of IT.

But neither IHT owner at that time had the ambition or willingness to invest that the FT did. And there went a hell of an opportunity which would have saved the NYTs a great deal of money all these years later.

It was to be another decade before the NYT was ready to activate its global ambitions, and therefore 1993 - 2003 was to be a decade of relentless cost cutting and, de facto, making sure the IHT could not succeed, thus marking an obstacle to the NYT's eventual plans to either buy out the WP at a reasonable price or go on their own with the INYT.

For years we slaved away at a paper that the NYT wanted to keep just above water, until it was ready to strike. Somewhat cynical one might say, as naturally the board certainly didn't tell any of us that.

The FT built of their Frankfurt printing, were instrumental in quickly setting up a reader survey that became the gold standard for European advertisers (EBRS) and which suited their readership, and the rest is history.

The IHT has been trending down every since.

NB: I note that the above obituary doesn't report the IHT's highest circulation figures, some of which were obtained under Francois' career, and which exceed today's circulation. I think IHT circulation was in high 100,000s in 1994 - 14 years later it has seen some spikes (largely caused by local publishing partnerships) but remains more or less static at 241,000.

NB The highest the IHT circulation has ever been was in post WWI France, in excess of 300,000. A similar peak occurred directly after WWII, indeed the IHT was one of the first newspapers to begin reprinting after the liberation of Paris, gaining paper stock from the U.S. army's Stars and Stripes.

By the 1950s however it was on its knees.

Unfortunately the IHT's owners then mistook availability (via the new print sites) and the resulting dramatically increased sales, for sustainable reader loyalty.

Just because it was available didn't make it any good but it sure helped circulation figures. At that time foreign newspapers simply weren't available globally, so for anyone travelling, who couldn't read the local press, the IHT was essentially a distress purchase.

The FT made their newspaper available, and it was a much better product for the audience both newspapers had to compete for.

Much of the IHT's 241,000 circulation remains bulk sales to airlines, which, given fuel costs, is likely to decrease.


A Place in the Auvergne
International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
NYT