It’s fitting that former magazine editor Lucy Sykes and journalist Jo Piazza’s new book, “The Knockoff,” tackles a plotline about fashion and magazines in the digital age. If you’ve seen the classic movie “All About Eve” or read the satire “The Devil Wears Prada,” you’ll notice some similarities—only this time, the tables have been turned.

 

In the book, the protagonist is 42-year-old editor-in-chief Imogen Tate who is resuming her work at Glossy magazine after a six-month, health-related leave. Her former assistant, 20-something Eve Morton, fresh out of Harvard Business School, plots to knock Imogen off her pedestal, take over her position and reduce the magazine, legendary for its 768-page September issue, into an app.

 

Sykes and Piazza, both media industry veterans, give the novel a funny, escapist plot filled with thinly veiled fashion personalities—it’s an insider’s look at fashion and publishing in our Internet-addicted age.

 

Regardless of your industry, however, you will relate to Imogen’s predicament of trying to stay current in a constantly evolving digital world. In this world, the magazine’s website is flooded 24/7 with lists and analytics. The boss, who still uses a Filofax and has to have her e-mail printed out, must now adapt to Google Glass and OOTDs, attend tech conferences, and reluctantly learn Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat.

 

On top of that, she has to deal with assistants who speak in the language of hyperboles and ellipses like, “I mean. I can’t even.” Though Imogen may initially bomb at tweeting, you get the sense early on that she doesn’t give up so easily.

 

If anything, this book is a how-to for staying relevant without giving up one’s integrity—a cautionary tale for adapting in this rapidly changing world of technology. Some things we can learn from the character of Imogen Tate:

 

1. It’s who you know, more than what you know, that gets you ahead in business. Imogen explains to her impatient millennial counterpart how relationships “take patience, time and schmoozing.” Knowing a huge smattering of contacts superficially just won’t cut it. Time must be invested in developing such relationships.

 

2. Social media is not a career. With the fast pace of technology, we don’t know what will or won’t be around in five years. Throughout the novel, the protagonist talks a lot about branding. Social media is a means to get more awareness, more users or more revenue. It’s not an end in itself. Needless to say, it’s probably unwise to peg your career trajectory solely on becoming an Instagram star.

 

3. Stop hiding behind your computer. Business gets done on the phone and in person. It should be your first instinct, not last, to talk to a real person and seal the deal.

 

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