I started this year by laying out a step-by-step strategy for how to transform publishing in the age of the iPad. My January article "iDiots' Guide to Publishing on the iPad" was a hit on Twitter. Boy, was I wrong. I dished out a ton of advice, offered specific suggestions about how publishers should cross the chasm to digital publishing, how to engage their readers, and how they should productize it. For all my good ideas, I fell short by missing the most important element: the hardest thing in the world to change is human nature.

How many of you find yourself competing with the "big guys" on a smaller budget? Billy Beane, the Oakland A's general manager, was determined to find a way for a low-revenue professional baseball team to compete successfully with teams spending two or three times as much on top player salaries. He found a way, with strategies vividly described in the book "Moneyball" -- and now the much more widely consumed movie.

Question from an agency person: "I'm new to the digital world and sometimes I can't understand anything you people are talking about. What's with all the foreign language and acronyms?"