Now's The Right Time for the Right Change

Roger Ynostroza, Editor in Chief -- graphic arts online, 1/1/2001

Historically, the month of January has been an appropriate time to launch products, undertake new directions, or indicate a next phase in a continuum. So this is the right page in the right issue, consistent with the right conditions, to announce the logical, necessary next phase of the evolution of Graphic Arts Monthly in our quest to better serve the needs of our readers.

To be sure, GAM has been regularly evolving in pursuit of that quest. Over many years, the magazine served as the industry's journal of record, an accurate, consistent reporting tool on industry news and developments. Later, our editorial emphasis was on covering emerging technology and defining market trends. More recently, we undertook a major expansion into the business side of the printing industry, complete with the compilation and presentation of management information for graphic arts executives.

Now we begin the next phase, to fully utilize our newly enhanced resources to serve the new business needs of our readers as they hone their management skills to meet new challenges. The new tagline of Graphic Arts Monthly --The Business Magazine of the Printing Industry--sums up this next phase.

Essential business information

Here's how we've enhanced our resources in recent years to create a unique editorial enterprise that can compile essential business information and present it specifically to the readers of GAM and to the printing and communication industries at large.

In 1997, through our parent company, Cahners Business Information, we acquired AF Lewis Information Services and its well-known Graphic Arts Blue Book regional directories and databases, which gave us access to demographic, business, and equipment profiles of 75,000 graphic arts businesses and 125,000 graphic arts professionals.

Early last year, Cahners acquired a company called e-Logic, by which it could gain best-of-breed content-to-Web technology and experience. Later, we signed a marketing agreement with the magazine Graphic Design:usa to gain access to the professionals in the graphic design, ad agency, and corporate creative markets.

Then, two months ago, we acquired the graphic arts, packaging, printing, design, and publishing business of TrendWatch, a market research and strategy firm based in Harrisville, R.I. that surveys business owners and top-level department managers to monitor industry trends and market changes.

So what do all those new and existing resources add up to? In Graphic Arts Monthly, we offer readers a plethora of business information, including macroeconomic views, statistics, and findings; views and findings that are specific to individual industry and market segments; current, accurate reader research and polling; the Washington view; the ongoing Business of Print series; database information and directories; and statistically accurate research about trends, opinions, client needs, and spending and investment plans.

And more is in the pipeline, including even more specific business information, tailored to reader groups by title or function or geographic location. Also, the immediacy, easy use, and nearly limitless capacity of the Internet open an even wider range of business information both to individuals and to e-communities with common interests.

Earning the right

But we're not merely announcing our intent to be a business partner with our readers; rather, with a good part of our basic resources in place, we can now begin to earn the right to be that business partner. We are setting the bar on our expectations pretty high and are committing ourselves to reach for that level at every opportunity.

At the same time, we want readers to tell us from time to time--or all the time--how we're doing against that new measure in fulfilling their business needs and expectations.