THURSDAY'S LETTERS: Mohr and 'Winning Online,' On Torture

By: E&P Staff In today's letters, a reader responds to Greg Mitchell's column about torture, and an executive from Monster.com gives his take on Tom Mohr's "Winning Online" manifesto.

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On Mitchell's Torture Analysis

Excellent summary of this situation. Hopefully someone will lead us "back from the desert"?

Don MacAlpine
Nipigon, Ontario

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Monster Exec on Internet 'Winning'

I read Tom Mohr's September 4 column, and September 12 follow-up, with much interest. Several of his points deserve clarification and challenge.

As someone who spent 18 years of my career at The Boston Globe, I very much would like to see newspapers thrive. I applaud the newspaper industry for more openly contemplating strategic alliances to both protect and grow its franchise. Partnering where both parties contribute complementary assets, with a shared vision for success, allows companies to create value and grow faster than they otherwise would.

Key to that success, I believe, is choosing best-in-class partners, and structuring favorable deal terms for both sides, with a commitment to grow the relationship over time.

When Monster partnered with The Philadelphia Inquirer, we "sharpened the pencil" considerably on both wholesale rates and sales channel conflict language, contrary to Mohr's suggestions. In fact, much of our agreement and relationship was developed to allow the Inquirer to capitalize upon what it had learned in its prior partnership, and sales channel management was one area where we together achieved a significantly improved model. And we are looking to extend similar arrangements to numerous other papers, with whom we are in conversation.

I was part of an enterprise called BostonWorks during my days at The Boston Globe, and we prided ourselves on innovation, including partnering with entities who in some ways were our competitors. We approached these partnerships keenly focused on building win-win relationships. And we succeeded. Monster is now bringing that same collaborative approach to working with leading local newspapers.

Yes, Philadelphia is very much a strategic move, both for us and for the Inquirer . At Monster, we are very interested in deeply penetrating local markets, as aligning with strong local newspaper franchises can be a great way to get the word out about the merits of Monster and online recruitment. In the process, our preference is to establish a long-term partnership with newspapers, with the primary objective of jointly growing the industry and our combined market share. We welcome the opportunity for other newspapers to join in with the Inquirer.

The Philadelphia Inquirer chose the best-in-class partner in the recruitment space, the choice that they knew would help them monetize their local audience better than any other partner. With Monster's brand strength, resume database, world-class customer service and recruitment industry know-how, Monster converts online job seeker traffic into fully-paid revenue dollars at a rate two or three times higher than that of the competition.

In looking for partners, you want a proven leader -- someone who has succeeded in the past and succeeds today. When the partner is one who promises to do in the future what they have failed to do in the past, one has to ask, "Can it truly be a win-win?"

Peter Newton
Senior Vice President/GM -- Small, Mid-Sized Business
Monster