Some publications are no longer (or never have) allowing vendors to contribute articles focused on industry trends, subject matter expertise or technology direction. The question is should you deprive readers from useful content based on an author’s company affiliation? As one recent ILTA media panelist mentioned, “We give our readers credit in assuming they can differentiate between quality content and advertorials.” There are of course two sides to every issue, so several summit participants argued that the publication and its staff ultimately are able to dictate editorial guidelines. And, overall, the industry provides many outlets for content – print, online, blogs, whitepapers, case studies, editorials, etc. so vendors can find opportunities to contribute elsewhere.

Unfortunately, this trend has come about due to the misuse of these opportunities in the past – i.e., vendors providing submissions that are more sales than informational even when warned not to. It is a shame that our vendor community – the very people that are integral in the determining the direction of our industry – aren’t able to contribute as experts in some of its publications, but it seems that this is definitely due to a case of a few bad apples ruining it for everyone.

Food-for-thought: What if contributions were evaluated solely based on content and substance instead of who submitted them? Again, it would go a long way for vendors to realize that when given an opportunity to provide editorial content (or speak for that matter), not to ruin those chances and turn in sales pieces. Besides, you will get a lot more out of an impartial educational piece than one that the readers can smell as an advertorial. If vendors can change that perception through quality submissions, this rule might change as well.