The AMPA Podcast

As the online director at Popular Science, Amy Schellenbaum oversees all things digital, including editorial, social media, video, ecommerce and emerging platforms. Since joining the team in 2016, she has transformed the popsci.com editorial strategy, relaunched the website, established a growing affiliate revenue program, launched a sub-brand on Facebook and retooled the brand’s presence on every social platform. Before PopSci, Amy overhauled the online editorial at Travel + Leisure and headed up Vox Media’s architecture and design site Curbed.com. In this podcast, she chats with host Omar Mouallem about how under her direction, they've gone from creating as much content as possible to creating fewer, stronger posts per day and why it's paying off. Amy joins the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association at the 2018 Alberta Magazines Conference as a speaker on Friday, March 9. She'll speak about how social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram remain essential for capturing new audiences and building brand authority, especially in tumultuous times for digital media. Learn how 146-year-old brand Popular Science is thriving on new platforms, and hear the latest strategies and tools for creating social posts that get people excited about your editorial.

Walk the streets of downtown London and eventually you'll find yourself on the doorstep of Jeremy Leslie's embodiment of his love for magazines. What started as a blog in 2003, magCulture is now a retail shop and studio where Leslie sells, studies and champions magazines. In any given year, he'll have more than 600 titles from around the world go in and out of the store. In this podcast, he chats with host Omar Mouallem about the content and design trends he's seeing in the modern magazine, the titles that made him fall in love with the medium, and why he sees indie publishing as a young person's game. Jeremy Leslie leads the magCulture studio in London, UK, dividing his time between designing, consulting and writing. He’s a passionate advocate for editorial design, which he sees as an ever-changing discipline that has always adapted to new contexts. Jeremy has written several books about magazine design, and the magCulture Journal is a key source of news and opinion about the subject. He organizes the annual Modern Magazine conference in London and runs the magCulture shop, where he hosts monthly magCulture Meets evenings featuring editors and art directors.

Branded-content strategist Melanie Deziel chats with host Omar Mouallem about how she got started, industry trends, and how to be a worthy competitor for a reader's time and attention. Melanie Deziel is an award-winning branded-content strategist, consultant and speaker who travels the world educating marketing, sales and editorial teams on branded-content best practices. She started The Overlap League native ad newsletter, writes the New Media Navigator column for Inc., teaches social media for Syracuse University’s online Master’s program and is on the board of the Native Advertising Institute. She is the former director of creative strategy for Time Inc. and was the first editor of branded content at The New York Times, where she wrote sponsored content pieces that won the 2014 and 2015 Best Native Advertising Execution OMMA Award, including the acclaimed Women Inmates piece for Netflix. Melanie Deziel is a speaker at the 2018 Alberta Magazines Conference on March 8 & 9 in Calgary, AB. For more information and to register,visit conference.albertamagazines.com.

John Bennet started at the New Yorker’s copy desk in 1975 and retired as a senior editor in late 2016. As a guest of the 2017 Alberta Magazines Conference, he’ll discuss how to be a better editor. In this episode he discusses what he learned from legendary editors like William Shawn, and argues why a writer’s best work happens when they’re on the verge of a meltdown. The Alberta Magazines conference takes place on March 16 & 17 in Calgary, Alberta. To learn more and register, visit http://conference.albertamagazines.com/.

How can magazines embrace media innovations without being seduced by flashes in the pan? Consultant Andrew Rolf, former head of commercial delivery at the Guardian, brings the "Good News" from the Innovative Magazine 2017-18 World Report, and discusses the potential of technologies like augmented reality and in-car media with host Omar Mouallem.

Haley Overland, senior editor of social media for Canada's preeminent women's magazine, Chatelaine, discusses what social media can and can't do for magazines. She joined host Omar Mouallem just days after the Women's March on Washington and reveals how a legacy magazine covered it in real time and pulled off an epic live operation. At the 2017 Alberta Magazines Conference, Overland will speak on how brands can use social media to reach more readers, engage audiences and give stories new life. For more information and to register, visit albertamagazines.com.