'Anon’ commented on this blog yesterday that the first law of blogging is that ‘all blogs before too long stop addressing the issues for which the blog was established and start talking about the act of blogging.’ Apparently this makes me a ‘true blogger’, a label which I happily accept. And I suppose that like any ‘type’, we bloggers do like to discuss and debate the very activity to which we are so committed. But I hope it doesn’t indicate that this blog has become a navel-gazing exercise in any way. The thing that continues to motivate me to blog is the chance to talk about the issues and challenges of publishing today and to engage with others who are excited and challenged by the same things.
Speaking of which, one of the things challenging most publishers right now is how we continue to provide services and products that ensure we are relevant and useful to the communities we serve. One such initiative is Macmillan Medical Communications (MMC), which launches this month. A strategic medical communications agency, MMC is set up to provide customized products and services for partners in the pharmaceutical, healthcare, and biotechnology industries. It uses the full range of communication and publishing strategies to develop high impact campaigns and services including novel internet-based approaches.
MMC will specialize in the creation and localization of content for target audiences throughout the world, including some of the fastest growing pharmaceutical markets such as Far East Asia, India and Latin America. MMC will offer a broad range of services including local language reprints of Nature Publishing Group (NPG) articles, website development, targeted supplements, seminars, and strategic consultancy on publication and information dissemination strategies.
As the division of the Macmillan Group servicing the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, MMC has exclusive access to some of the world's leading journal content, including journals from our own Nature Publishing Group <http://www.nature.com/> (NPG), publishers of Nature <http://www.nature.com/nature/> the international journal of science, Nature Medicine <http://www.nature.com/nm/> , the Nature Clinical Practice <http://www.nature.com/clinicalpractice/index.html> series of journals, and a large number of major medical society titles.
MMC’s first live service is an experimental collaborative medical news site called Dissect Medicine (www.dissectmedicine.com), developed as a joint initiative with Nature Clinical Practice. MMC’s activities will also include identifying local language sponsorship opportunities for Nature Clinical Practice titles, organizing seminars and conferences in regions where MMC teams are active. MMC will also work with some of NPG’s society journals to help develop special projects outside the regular publication of their journals. These may include training and advocacy related projects. MMC will also run the production of local language editions of existing titles such as Kidney International, which is currently published in Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese.