Speakers on a panel of industry leaders at Friday's annual meeting of the Book Industry Study Group agreed that the publishing industry is in for much more change. "I expect there to be more dramatic, disruptive change ahead," said Sourcebooks CEO Dominique Raccah. Tom Turvey, director of strategic partnerships for Google, said he believes the industry "is not close to what it will look like five years from now."

But Turvey said that with the right adjustments, publishers are in a good position to take advantage of the opportunities that change will bring. Publishers need to hire less business people "and hire more people like we hire," he said, noting that publishers need to bring into their organizations people who understand where technology is going. Publishers on the panel said they have all made extensive changes to their staff with Raccah noting that there is not one job at her company that hasn't been touched by digital. Maureen McMahon, president and publisher of Kaplan Publishing, said the one characteristic that her company's always screens applicants for now is whether they can "learn and teach."

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