Peter Drucker, widely described as the founder of modern management thinking, is credited with the following quote: "Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation."

As we look ahead to the coming year, I would like to take a few minutes to introduce a few innovations we are bringing to the market over the next few months.

As digital delivery of information continues to transform publishing, we are pushing to stay ahead of the curve. We’re not doing it because we believe print is going away any time soon. We certainly expect that the printed magazine you’re holding will continue to be one of the main channels through which we deliver information to you.

However, unlike years ago, it won’t be the only channel. Websites, e-newsletters and digital editions will also be a part of the mix. And soon, we’ll be able to keep you up-to-date on what I believe will be the most important new channel of all, the mobile phone.

I’ve touched on it before in this space, but I feel very strongly that the handheld "smartphone" is going to become the leading delivery device for content apart from the printed page. In fact, I fully expect it to eclipse the printed page as the most frequently accessed source of news and information.

To fully understand and embrace the potential of handheld content delivery, we have been working to make our magazine titles readable on new generation phones and handhelds, and it looks like we’re getting pretty close.

The image you see here is the iPhone home page for Green Business magazine, one of Canadian auto dealer’s sister magazines. This is the beta version of a smartphone magazine application we expect to be launching shortly across all our titles, including Canadian auto dealer.

I’ve had a chance to play with it, and it’s pretty exciting. It’s easy to read, easy to navigate, and loads very quickly. It has built-in search functionality that quickly scans the full text of the magazine, and gives users a choice between searching the current issue or the full archive of digital editions of Canadian auto dealer.

Photos are clear and crisp and, most importantly, reading the text is easy and pleasant (we’re testing on a wide range of eyes, of all different age groups, just to be sure).

Working with our development partners, we’ve followed the lead of some heavy hitters in configuring our smartphone application. The New York Times, the Associated Press and the BBC all have similar applications that I read every day on my iPhone. Through that, I have really come to see the utility and advantages of phone-based media, particularly when compared to websites.

Phone-based media is always on, so I don’t have to wait to boot up my computer. My phone is obviously easier to take with me than a laptop computer, and it can choose between a wireless hotspot or cell phone network for connectivity, so connecting and getting updates is much easier than with a computer. Perhaps most importantly, since my phone is always with me anyway, now my media is too. I don’t have to remember to pack the latest issue when I’m heading out the door.

Finally, the appeal of increasing our publishing output without using more paper and ink is becoming too strong to ignore. It’s a reflection of the age we live in, as it should be.

We’ll be launching our phone application on a test basis early in the New Year, so stay tuned. We’re eager to hear your feedback. I think Peter Drucker would approve.

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