The companion web site, positivelygreen.com is smartly done. I like this launch because it is different and speaks to an audience of women that have been left ignored until now; women who like a bit a glamour, but who have conscience. 

Let’s just hope the business plan is as good as the product. Selling four issues a year for $14 with a promise to donate $2 to charity means advertising better “be there”. The inaugural issue carried 15.3 advertising pages (out of 114 total).

Who launches at a time like this? As Rex Hammock of Hammock Publishing recently noted, it can and has worked for the right idea at the right time.

 Positively Green is a good concept at the right time. Let’s just hope the business plan is as good as the product and the timing.

Calls revealed that sales are brisk; most stores are down to one “dog-eared” (their words) copy. Clerks described the special edition as “the fun thing that sparkles” or “the blinking thing”, etc.

Out of curiosity she checked E-Bay and you bet, it’s there. The current auction closed with 18 bids and the winner paying $18.50 plus $5 shipping versus the $5.99 cover price. Printing only 100,000 copies for sale on the newsstand feeds the passion of collectors.

As reported in the New York Times, Esquire’s publisher states that he fully expects to see this cover featured in a museum. Gotta go. My copy is on hold somewhere in Virgina.

This year, as in years past, I was one of many judges across North America that received a large box of magazines and single article entries to evaluate. There is no real promotional advantage to being a judge, but there is a great advantage for someone like me who spends hours each week working with publishers of every ilk. Serving as a judge allows me to pause and read great writing that I might otherwise not read or even be aware of.

Maybe I was particularly lucky to get the assignments I did; the writing in my categories and entries was good… really good. As I wrapped up reading entry number 56 I was reminded how proud I am to be associated with an industry that brings information, entertainment and creative genius (at times) to the public (whether consumer, trade, or non-profit).

Thanks to the Editors and Designers who strive for excellence. For many, mission accomplished.

“There’s no time for anything any more says more than we realize. We march in double, even triple time. We eat, pay attention, converse, even read on the run. Despite all the talk of quality time, there is no more children’s hour. The line between school and play has blurred for youngsters, as the line between work and recreation has blurred for adults.

Consider how often people do two or more things at once. Sony Walkman enables them to listen as they walk. Computers encourage work with travel. We have cordless phones, car radios and tv sets that allow us to watch two channels at once.

Not only have the times of day become blurred, but so have the stages of life. Today it is difficult to recognize when childhood ends and adulthood begins, when people are in their prime or really old.

There are good reasons to argue that most of this rush is due less to the pressure of life and labor than to our sources of information. The media are life’s metronome. It is the information flood that keeps us running -not to escape it, but to keep up with the many choices it offers.

The way readers read has been changed by much more than accelerated time, but rather by changes in the media, which constantly transform how our audience reads, watches and listens. The walls between the senses have melted. Reading, watching and listening used to be distinct functions. Modern technology has so improved and amplified communication that people have facts and ideas coming at them from all directions. It is as if all the containers were overfilled, and knowledge is spilling out of its compartments  and merging into a great pool of information and theory from which everybody can drink.”

Musings from someone ahead of his time. We miss you Jim Mann. RIP

media management monograph, nov/dec 1990