It’s why I’m constantly pushing deadlines and why I’ll never become rich as a writer (the rates most pay nowadays often mean that speed is the essence of survival…)

So what of the average professional writer? I know some who would expect to produce 1,000 words of good quality, clean copy a day. Others either have less exacting standards or are much more nimble fingered.

An aborted recent commission would have meant me producing more than 3,000 words in a day to meet their expectations and justify the rate they were willing to pay. And this was one of the largest companies in the world.

I don’t have the answer and, as always, it depends on the commission, the scale of hangover and a thousand other influencing factors.

But one things for sure – I’m much, much closer to 1,000 words than I am to 3,000.

It’s a pretty cool interview and I’m quite proud that we got it, but it struck me that it’s also a good illustration of BP’s relative openness – relative, that is, to the generally secretive and intensely conservative oil and gas sector. We have good relations with a number of BP executives, they attend and speak at events and are far more open to sharing than, say, Exxon – which is the exact opposite.

Looking back at the darkest days of the crisis, however, there were obvious mistakes in its approach to corporate communications and its approach to crisis management. CEO Tony Hayward would have benefitted from some basic media training and Carl-Henric Svanberg, its chairman, should have been pulled off the golf course a little sooner.

In fact, depending on who you believe, the PR management of the crisis rated somewhere between cack-handed and incompetent.

PR Week has, as you would expect, penned a few articles – editor Danny Rogers offers his own take on BP’s handling of the crisis and this article gathers the views of a few others of BP and the success of its PR approach. Both, it’s probably fair to say, are scathing of the oil company’s efforts.

But I’m of a different opinion. Taking into account the scale of the disaster and the intense pressure being applied by president Obama, I believe BP actually did quite well. Sure, it wasn’t always perfectly well-oiled (I couldn’t resist that one) but this isn’t always a bad thing. After all, too slick a response (there I go again) can sometimes have the opposite effect than originally intended.

So, did its approach work? Well, that’s still open to debate but a quick analysis of Factiva provides some pretty interesting insight.

Searching major US and UK titles for mentions of BP and negative words – such as anger, boycott, disastrous – appearing in the same paragraph; reveals some pretty interesting, if not completely robust, results. And here they are:

• May: 401
• June: 1,007
• July: 389
• August: 183

So, there you have it – by July, negative BP stories had dipped below the level immediately post crisis; and in August this dipped to a level of less than half what it was during May.

And, when we consider that the well wasn’t plugged until the beginning of August, it appears that BP managed to get control of the crisis from a public perception point of view before it got control of the leak itself – even if June 2010 won’t go down in history as BP’s favourite month…

It’s a throwback to the good old days, when editorial budgets were something that journalists spent down the pub and editors were far more worried about the quality of words than their cost. Alas, times move on, as indeed they should.

But sitting on the bus reading The Economist today I came across the statement above – one that suggests the importance of content, and how not over-spending is something to worry about. The unfortunate thing is that it didn’t come from a traditional publisher, but from the head of knowledge development at McKinsey, Lenny Mendonca.

Mendonca was quoted in an article on why consultancy firms continue to give away high-value content and research for free, a development which has grown over the last few years in direct contradiction to the publishing world. Consultants, it appears, are investing in content.

The article also quotes Sourceforconsulting.com’s Fiona Czerniawska, who says that the number of free reports from the top 25 consulting firms has increased more than five-fold since 2004 – an investment which another expert in the article claims costs those same consultancies as much as 5% of gross revenues.

Now, 5% of gross revenues is not to be sniffed at, even for an organisation such as McKinsey, which must be seen as being intellectually heavyweight and leading the way in new thinking. I wonder, for example, what the average cost of content as a proportion of revenue is at your average publishing company (I’m sure somebody would be able to tell me this… Possibly, even, McKinsey…)

But it raises the issue of how far B2B publications are competing with consultancies on a content level. I know we regularly come up against the likes of A.T Kearney and Accenture when it comes to roundtable events; and we also fight for desk space with reports, research studies, whitepapers and executive briefings from a huge variety of non-publishing organisations (mostly consultancies).

And if they’re investing heavily in content, publishers should take note.

After a decade of hearing about the death of quality journalism (yes, I’m guilty of stirring the pot), the end of print publishing and the dumbing down of popular media, I have a genuine belief that we’re turning a corner. We’ve reached the bottom. The only way is up…

Leaving aside the sad Yazz-like cliche, the evidence is glaring – consumers are stumbling around in an unnavigable melting pot of content porridge. And they’ve had enough. Search on Google for information on your chosen subject and you’re served with an seemingly endless list of content. Most of which is, how should I put this, crap.

Even Wired magazine says as much in its recent article on the death of the web. Here’s what contributing editor Michael Wolff has to say:

Web audiences have grown ever larger even as the quality of those audiences has shriveled, leading advertisers to pay less and less to reach them. That, in turn, has meant the rise of junk-shop content providers — like Demand Media — which have determined that the only way to make money online is to spend even less on content than advertisers are willing to pay to advertise against it.

And Wolff isn’t the only one. There’s a pretty cool post over on Foliomag.com by Joe Pulizzi who lays out seven reasons why print will make a comeback in 2011. Now whether Pulizzi can claim credit for his “It’s lean back versus lean forward” analogy for why print beats Google-returned randomness, I don’t know. But I like his thinking. And while his predictions relate to print, I think it applies to good-quality writing. Consumers are beginning to take notice of an investment in content again. Free is no longer the main consideration.

As a writer who has felt a little lost in a world where words are not particularly valued, I can’t help but feel a glimmer of hope. I now talk to people who want to differentiate themselves from the crowd. They see beyond basic search engine optimisation (SEO) and the long-held belief that if you write enough copy with the right proportion of keywords, the job is done.

They are striving for quality. And that’s music to my ears…

“When publishers can maximise their returns, everyone benefits from more vibrant online content and websites,” its director of product management Jonathan Bellack says in the latest post on Google’s official blog.

Bellack is predicting that new technology Google is working on will help to grow the advertising pie for “all publishers” by “orders of magnitude”, claiming that the industry can double or triple in size.

How? By focusing on five key areas: efficiency; total revenue management; improved insight and control; increased competitiveness and openness; and the ubiquity of display advertising.

The efficiency drive seems obvious – automate as much as possible to reduce the estimated 28% of ad revenues that gets swallowed up by administrative costs; total revenue management is Google’s effort to manage direct advertising spend as well as it currently does with indirect and focusing on insight and control argues that publishers can squeeze far more from what they already have with appropriate analysis.

So far, so predictable.

But, it’s in Bellack’s claims that opening up the API of DoubleClick for Publishers will provide huge potential for third-party development of innovative “advertising apps” for publishers that things start to get interesting. “This will help drive the next generation of better, more valuable ad innovations,” he writes.

Similarly, his claims that display advertising will mean covering every form of media, whether that’s online, video, radio or digital TV and that Google’s role is to automatically deliver ad copy to the most appropriate platform, is a bold vision of the future.

“We’ve designed our platform, and are continuing to invest in it, to give publishers a single base that can deliver ads into this expanding world—including streaming video, mobile ad delivery and more,” he says.

“Imagine if that single platform could optimize the campaign, automatically delivering the best-performing ads, best returns and best mix, across all those platforms. That’s the future we envisage.”

So, Google is on our side and this is great news. It recognises that professional publishers have a hugely loyal base of readers and maximising the return of those is a massive opportunity.

But I’ll leave the final words to Bellack , as he does a better job than I ever could of enthusing over future prospects…

“We’re unapologetically optimistic about the future of display advertising for online publishers.”

Whether every online publisher would agree is another matter entirely…

Computing was the first one to go back in May, and, if what I’m hearing is right, Accountancy Age is to follow. (I can only speculate what might happen when it gets round to Legal Week…)

It’s another sign of the challenging times our industry’s going through, but it could also be an indication of how models have to change.

In it’s defense, Incisive has been good at tapping into new media revenues such as webinars and video, and VNU (which was acquired by Incisive) made significant and early investments in this area which gave it a lead.

But, incisive continues to chase the advertising and sponsorship pound with these titles, ignoring the potential for subscription or membership revenues.

To be fair, this takes significant up-front investment in content, which Incisive may not be comfortable with right now. But in a world where information is easily reached, B2B publishers have to differentiate themselves from the crowd – other than by way of their databases.

It’s also interesting that while all this is going on, another publisher (IDG) is launching in this space, with a web-only title for finance directors.

Obviously the up-front commitment is much lower for CFO World than for print, but it shows that some publishers are bullish about the future.

Even IDG, however, sees advertising and sponsorship as the right – or should that be less risky – path to take.

However, the news today that Computing is redesigning and relaunching as a fortnightly publication spurred me on to gather my thoughts.

The rationale behind the move is almost certainly to cut costs, despite the spin applied in liberal quantities by Incisive Media, publishers of Computing. According to the DWPub JournAlert service, Incisive is revamping what remains one of its flagship – if not highest-earning – titles to provide an “informed, analytical view on the industry news and developments that impact a senior IT audience”.

Quite why they couldn’t do this weekly, is probably a bit childish to point out, but one can’t help but wonder whether this is the beginning of the end for Computing rather than the start of a new era…

I remember a competitor title of a magazine I used to work for going fortnightly, before it went digital only, before it was sold. Cheaply. And while I would hate to see Computing go the same way, it’s certainly worrying times for those involved.

On the other side of the pond, RBI recently closed a whole stable of publications (23, if we’re counting) including Purchasing - a publication that had existed for the best part of 100 years. No buyer could be found for seven of those publications and RBI has decided to hold on to the “remaining brands” in order to drive qualified leads.

It’s a shame that RBI, nor anyone else who conducted due diligence on those unlucky seven, could work out a way to make them profitable without resorting to monetising a database through lead-generation activities.

But the further down the line we go, the more obvious it is that advertisers are looking for far more than brand awareness from their marketing budgets. They want leads, and they want highly qualified leads. (Just this week I was speaking to a sponsor who not only wanted new C-level leads at  Global-2000 companies whom they didn’t know, but they wanted them to be either new in their roles or leading-edge in their approach.)

So, while the lead-generation revolution is a bitter pill to swallow for a magazine that regularly published issues of up to 180 pages just a decade ago, Incisive is doing the right thing by following the money. It has recognised that costs can be cut significantly without sacrificing its lead-generation activities.

And the combination of a (less) regular publication, the continued development of its online offering and a focus on face-t0-face activities will put Computing in a stronger position going forward to meet the demands of its increasingly demanding client base.

But with that comes more than the odd challenge. While the sheer quantity of content is certainly one, as an editor of a magazine which has been actively tapping into social media, I’m more concerned with issues such as copyright and intellectual property.

Consider LinkedIn, a membership-based community for professionals. First, content lies behind a membership wall, so is not generally for public consumption, despite the bar for membership being set purposefully low – i.e, anyone can become a member. And second, that content is contained within discussions and debates which take place within groups, which themselves are owned by individual LinkedIn members and which membership must be granted to.

Already, it seems, we’re in an IP minefield.

Our magazine regularly publishes a Big  Debate on the Procurement Leaders Blog. Our marketing team (and, to an extent, the editorial team too) push this content out to various forums, including LinkedIn groups, to drive discussion and interactivity. But who then has the rights to that content? Is it the user who wrote the content? The LinkedIn group owner, who at least has gone some way to providing the platform upon which the content is posted? Or LinkedIn itself? And what, if any, rights do we, as the instigator of the content, have? Are we able to reproduce it?

All of these questions have created a fair amount of head scratching on my part, so I thought I’d investigate by looking in detail at LinkedIn’s user agreement. Not surprisingly, it’s hardly Shakespearean in its nature, but despite the legal sludge, there are pointers to what content can and can’t be used for. Here’s a few nuggets:

You own the information you provide LinkedIn under this agreement.

Not much to be confused about there, it seems that LinkedIn respects intellectual property.

Ideas you post and information you share may be seen and used by other users, and LinkedIn cannot guarantee that other users will not use the ideas and information that you share on LinkedIn.

Ah. So, users own their own information, but anyone is allowed to use or distribute it further (or at least, LinkedIn will make no efforts to stop this happening).

But are they?

Don’t undertake the following: Duplicate, license, sublicense, publish, broadcast, transmit, distribute, perform, display, sell, rebrand, or otherwise transfer information found on LinkedIn (excluding content posted by you)…

So, while individual LinkedIn users own their own content, LinkedIn is pretty certain that other users will reproduce it elsewhere, despite outlawing the practice in its terms and conditions. LinkedIn also has rights to use any content on its platforms for any purpose it sees fit.

The only conclusion I can reach is that while, strictly speaking, reproducing content posted on LinkedIn is not best practice and is contrary to its user agreement, it’s also an accepted part of the web 2.0 world and, as such, is not something that confused editors need worry about.

I await that legal letter with baited breath…

(There’s a great blog – and debate – about the intricacies of last year’s Facebook terms of service alterations on Amanda French’s blog, here.)

Traditionally, I would have taken notes; perhaps written the piece up after the day had finished and, at best, had the article filed by the morning. It could have made the next issue, or, more recently, been posted online.

But today’s interview was recorded with Audio Boo, an iPhone application I was first made aware of by freelance journalist Patrick Smith.

The result? The interview was recorded on my iPhone, uploaded to Audio Boo and then embedded in a Procurement Leaders Blog post – all within half an hour. Apart from the background noise and the poor editing at the end, happy days.

Maybe I’m late to the party, but this is pretty powerful stuff…

The aim was to try and consolidate my numerous online presences into something even vaguely approaching useful by following three broad strategies: nail Twitter, sort out LinkedIn and launch a personal blog.

The ultimate aim, I’m reliably told, is to maximize my authenticity so that I gain the trust of potential readers – at both professional and personal levels. (Authenticity, by the way, is revealing enough about yourself to prove that you’re a genuine good egg, out to engage and inform rather than clutter up people’s lives with yet more drivel but not too much to make people feel a little queezy. There’s a decent enough post here.)

This is going better than one might expect - almost 250 Twitter followers and a handful of responses on my blog aren’t to be sniffed at…

But the key, as with everything in life, is to build on this solid, if unspectacular, start.

That’s not impossible. For a start, I’ve come to realise that my tiny mind is actually pretty well suited to Twitter. And while attracting 239 followers doesn’t put me in @lancearmstrong leagues, soundbites I can do. It’s also helpful that I have a journalist’s instinct to share things.

However, you’ll note from the length of time between posts that I’ve hit that stage when momentum wavers, motivation drops and the prospect of a fine ale greatly outweighs that of writing something thought-provoking, inspiring and witty.

In fact, it’s probably no coincidence that Fine Ale and Cheap Wine was launched by an article I wrote on a plane – they seem to be one of the few remaining places where time is freely available.

Oh the irony – the only place I can find the time to develop my online personality to stratospheric heights is the only place left in the world where I can’t get an internet connection.

You couldn’t make it up…