One of the challenges of leading a business in 2009 is how to juggle two very important but sometimes contradictory balls in the air at once.

On the one hand, the economic environment continues to be perilous and we need to remain focused on our day-to-day business. That means looking for revenue opportunities where we can find them while relentlessly exploring ways to reduce our costs. Our representatives in DC may talk about "green shoots" and signs of recovery, but we're not seeing them in our business yet. And until we do, we'll continue on the path we have been on since we first saw signs of the economic downturn last year, with tightened belts and cautious investments.

On the other hand, we are not in this business just for the short-term. We are long-term players and, as such, must also focus on building value over the next 3-5 years. That means asking ourselves what products we will want to have in the marketplace when the economy recovers? And how do we restructure and rethink our business as the inexorable move from print to the digital distribution of information continues?

It was for that latter reason that a group of us locked ourselves in a conference room yesterday for our first "New Product Day", and I hope there will be many more. My intention was to explore as many of our new products as possible, to ensure that senior management from around the company could see all that was being worked on, and so that we could identify the most promising new ideas for further investment and development. And I think it was extremely successful. We reviewed approximately 20 new products--from new research services to various executions of the web video concept , from new directories to virtual conferences. A few themes emerged:

1. There's a lot of creativity out there. No surprise--we have an extremely entrepreneurial culture, so I would expect lots of new concepts to be floating around. It makes sense for us to learn from one another, and build on what others are doing.

2. We need to think bigger. I understand the temptation, particularly based on the short-term economic condition, to be cautious and careful, and there certainly is a time for that. But there's also a time to be asking, what would it take to turn this $200,000 idea into a $2 million business? To build value for our shareholders over the next several years, we're going to need to find a few new businesses that are more than just incremental extensions of our current product offerings.

3. We need to move faster. Our good ideas can sometimes (not always) be copied by others. So there's an advantage to speed--to getting out into the market before someone else captures what should be our slice of the pie. That may mean taking a few chances and adding a little risk, but I think we have to do that if we are to achieve our growth goals for the future.

Of the 20 or so projects we reviewed yesterday, more than three-quarters were digitally-based in one form or another. We're still developing a few new print products--particularly in the custom publishing sphere--but increasingly we are looking to exploit our investment in new technology through the development of electronic products. That's a very positive trend for us and will undoubtedly continue into the future.

My thanks to those who made presentations to the group yesterday--you can be proud of your creativity and the progress that we are making.

Now, back to juggling those two balls...