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MBA INSIDER: SAMPLE APPLICATION ESSAYS Cambridge (Judge): Essay 1 QUESTION: Which recent development, world event, or book has most influenced your thinking and why?
Without a doubt, the world event that has had the greatest effect on me personally and professionally over the last seven years is the popularization and commercialization of the Internet and its contribution to information globalization. The Internet has changed nearly everything I had once thought was correct and true about publishing and, more generally, the distribution of information.
Historically, publishers have controlled the means of production and dissemination of printed material and the ideas expressed within them. Publication was a relatively slow and expensive process that required considerable resources and development time. Naturally, only those works that were considered best for a company's reputation and finances would be published. In other words, the entry cost for publication was often high enough so that only a few firms could afford it. The publisher held both the financial and intellectual control of information. The Internet has had a significant effect on this power balance. The entry costs for publication are now much lower. An author can digitally print a few hundred copies of a book for very little upfront capital, upload a web site from his own home, and begin to sell his books worldwide. The entry barriers have nearly disappeared. Now the problem is not the access to information. Now the problem is what the Nobel economist Herb Simon refers to as an "attention deficit" in Western society. Perhaps there is too much information available because the delivery mechanisms have become so economical. The subsequent need for vetting and quality control creates a niche, once again, to be filled by the media enterprise. The Internet has forced publishers to completely rethink their accepted business models. The essential role of a publisher in the information age is tied neither to its capital nor its plant investments nor its physical wealth. It is tied to its intellectual wealth. A publisher's essential role is to aggregate and filter information, to choose what is highest quality, add value to that information through the publication process, and use all methods of delivery at its disposal to reach the target audience. Most importantly, publishers should no longer see themselves as book or journal publishers but more generally as information providers. Publishers no longer deliver books and journals to their readers. They deliver information, in whatever format the reader prefers: electronic books, printed books, pay-per-view articles, electronic or print subscriptions, site licenses, and so on. And new forms of information delivery continue to be developed, such as customized books and multimedia and interactive packages. Every person can indeed publish via the Internet and related new technologies, but they might not necessarily do it well. Publishers must be especially sensitive to the importance of branding and goodwill. They must also develop innovative pricing and access models and visionary ways of capturing the attention of viewers whose time is fought over more and more. What the Internet has done is to significantly reduce or even destroy the barriers to publication. Well-publicized incidents, such as Stephen King serializing his book online without a publisher, suggest the possibility of disintermediation. It is my judgment that this will not happen in general. Publishers are necessary to collect and develop the best content and to effectively deliver that content to those who want it and need it. There may be a few Kings out there who can do this themselves, but for the vast majority, the Internet world is a chaotic and frustrating mess. It is one of the roles of publishers—information providers—to order the mess. 
BW MALL
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