About this episode

The episode features a conversation with Allison Belan about her career in publishing and strategic innovation at Duke University Press.

Today's episode features guest host Michael Upshall (guest editor, Charleston Briefings) who talks with Allison Belan , Director for Strategic Innovation, Duke University Press. Allison has a background in English and Philosophy. In this conversation, she talks with Michael about her start in type setting, working on school newspapers and school literary magazines and then a school journal in college. She talks about working as a project manager with a very small custom software consultancy that worked with a variety of corporations, like Wrangler Jeans and Blue Cross Blue Shield, to build their first Business to Consumer (B2C) websites during the early days of the World Wide Web. She appreciated the newly acquired technology and business skills of this job, but missed publishing. In 2004, She joined Duke University Press as assistant production manager for journals. She details the evolution of her roles over the years at Duke, to her current role as Director for Strategic Innovation and Services which includes managing the technology operations and business systems of the Press and, as Allison says, keeping an eye on what's going on in the broader industry and when something…

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