Trend? HarperCollins adds post of director of digital dev—in the wake of similar action at S&S

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By David Rothman

Simon & Schuster recently picked up an executive from a sports network to be its first digital officer and “develop new businesses, partnerships and publishing paradigms.”

Now  HarperCollins has announced that Charlie Redmayne will be the company’s first director of digital development, and judging from the news release, his duties will be very much like Elinor Hirschhorn’s over at S&S. He is now head of commercial partnerships for Sky‘s Online Business Unit and head of strategy at Sky Digital Media.

Here’s the question I have. What’s the most important word—”book” or “digital”? Will traditional editorial concerns suffer amid the infusion of talent from outside publishing? Of course, the other side is this—the fact that publishers badly need to catch up, and in-house talent might not be enough.

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