New Zealand Engineering 1998 October
Your
thoughts please
| All magazines are not equal. It's pretty obvious when you
think about it but I've noticed a lot of people don't. This magazine, for
example, has one full-time reporter (who is also editor, publisher, eZine
editor, office manager, webmaster, congress programme coordinator and occasional
bottlewasher).
It also has one graphic designer (who is also the de facto IPENZ designer
for everything from cards to flags), one sales manager (who also deals
with sponsorships for other IPENZ activities) and one part-time editorial
assistant (who does everything else).
By comparison there are plenty of other magazines in the New Zealand
market with more resources and a narrower focus. Each one of our six sections
competes with at least two or three
full-scale magazines. But if we drop any one of them to focus on a
specific area people accuse the Institution of being "too civil" or having
nothing to do with them.In short ours is a very thin resource to cover
the entire world of New Zealand engineering.
|
Peter King
Managing Editor |
At the beginning of this year we launched the IPENZ eZine which is now,
more or less, regularly sent to almost a third of the entire membership.
It is not always riveting stuff but then it is easily disposed of and provides
that most basic function of news, "to tell people something they didn't
know already which they might find interesting", on a weekly basis far
cheaper than any other method at our disposal. In my view it is better
than a website in that it doesn't require the reader to seek it out and,
more to the point, it can be read by members who don't have access to the
web.
Given these constraints and the opportunities opened by the eZine, a
few months ago I suggested that consideration be given to scaling back
the number of times this magazine is issued from once a month to once every
two months. This suggestion was taken up by the chief executive and investigation
approved by the board.
My reasoning for making this proposal was simple. If time sensitive
(frequency) matters can be dealt with via electronic information services
then why not take the money we are currently pumping into the coffers of
New Zealand Post (approximately half the printing bill) and use that to
improve the quality of the magazine.
One area I've long known we are weak on is people stories. People like
people and I don't think - from the correspondence I get - engineers are
any exception.Unfortunately, people stories are very subjective and take
quite a while to put together. They require journalism skills which engineers,
in general, do not have.
Another area we have been weak on is coverage of New Zealand innovation
- actually another kind of people story. Once again this requires a journalist
to actively go out and look for innovators, who typically are too busy
to seek media attention for themselves.
I'd like to invite you to write in, either for publication or not, with
your views. To make such a decision on a matter affecting over 8,000 readers
and members is not something done lightly. We genuinely want feedback.
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