Jo Ann Mandinach is one of the pioneers of the new media industry, with a strong track record in product development, content acquisition, and market/business development for such industry leaders as The New York Times Information Bank, Dow Jones News/Retrieval Service, Knight-Ridder Information, Apple Online Services, Information Access Company, Verity, Personal Library Software and New Century Network. She is the founder of Need To Know^tm Information Solutions, a consulting company that provides Market, Partnership & Product Development services to the new media industry.

Caught in the recent demise of New Century Network, where she was Director of Affiliate Relations, Jo Ann was responsible for account management and business development among newspapers for NCN's NewsWorks, a Web network of 150 newspapers, some of them owned by the nine largest newspaper publishers. Seeking to leverage the depth of content accessible through the affiliates, Jo Ann also spearheaded and managed a network-wide project to leverage affiliate content, especially Travel & Destinations information for out-of-market visitors. Non-threateningly dubbed "the 'site index' project", it also provided for directories, guides and search engines, and serves as a backend to feed development of MTHM email / agents, content segmentation and ad sales.

Millions of people regularly use the agents, online, CD-ROM and World Wide Web services she helped create. In her role as "rainmaker", she has established strong business relationships with targeted content providers, helping them leverage their brands as new media properties. As a product developer, she has extensive experience with Web and online services that emphasize community building, in-depth searching and convenient agent delivery.

As Director of Information Industry Partnerships, Ms. Mandinach strengthened PLS's position within the industry and acquired many high-quality content partners for @1, a Web-based SuperDirectory service aimed at AltaVista. Recently acquired by AOL, PLS also formed strong partnerships with America Online/GNN, Apple, Associated Press, Baseline, Bertelsmann, Christian Science Monitor, Congressional Quarterly, Dow Jones, Data Times, Editor & Publisher, Electionline, Electronic Newsstand, Financial Times, Footage.Net, Gale, Grolier's, Hewlett-Packard, International Thomson, the Internet Company, Knight-Ridder, Macmillan, McKinley/Webcrawler, MecklerMedia, National Public Radio, NewsNet, Open Market Inc., PBS, Prodigy, Simba, Time-Warner, USA TODAY, US House of Representatives, Washington Post, The Well and Ziff.

At Dow Jones News/Retrieval, she managed product development from the content acquisition and design phases through product launch and enhancement. At The New York Times, she pioneered the development of services for executive decision makers, including Advertising & Marketing Intelligence (AMI), a vertical market service co-branded with J. Walter Thomson, and Key Issues Tracking co-developed with The White House. At Dow Jones and Apple, she was an early champion of agents and personalized newspapers to track automatically information people need to know on a regular basis. She was Editorial Director of Reader's Access Corporation, which was later acquired by Individual Inc., publisher of Heads Up. As Verity's Manager of Information Provider Relations, Jo Ann brought in many new information industry sales prospects and helped partners develop such popular services as The San Jose Mercury News's Newshound® and Jobhound®.

At Information Access Company, she developed www.Cognito.Com, an education service integrating hundreds of carefully selected reference books, news sources and magazines. In the CD-ROM area, she successfully launched Macintosh and PC-based products for Dialog and IAC. In the consumer online area, she developed communications, conferencing and shopping services on Dow Jones, Dialog, The Well, Genie, Apple's eWorld service and America Online. She was co-publisher of America West -- one of the first regional online conferences -- created for visitors and residents alike. She believes users benefit from the "push" of agents, the "pull" of contextual links embedded in Web interactive communities like The Well and Electric Minds, and the in-depth information retrieval capabilities necessary for informed decisions.

A member of Interactive Age's Web Advisory Board, the Interactive Service Association's Online Council, and the Newspaper Association of America's Web Advisory Council, she is also active in the Information Industry Association and CommerceNet. Ms. Mandinach earned her B.A. in English and Psychology from Case Western Reserve University and an M.A. in English from Cleveland State University. She loves email and can be reached at joann@needtoknow.com.