Forward Motions
Eric Herman
It’s been almost a year since we announced that WaterShapes would be moving to a bimonthly publishing schedule. Ever since, we’ve been gratified by the number of people who have stepped up to express their appreciation for the magazine – and their hope that it would soon return to its familiar monthly appearances.
Unfortunately, the economy hasn’t improved sufficiently to make that possible. We’re confident things will eventually turn around and that marketers will once again have the resources to lift us to a point where we can fulfill our readers’ desire for more issues, but until then, we’ll keep on publishing the industry’s favorite magazine every other month and keep upgrading our digital offerings.
On that latter point, if you haven’t partaken of our twice-monthly e-newsletter WaterShapes EXTRA!, I urge you to go online at your earliest convenience (http://watershapes.com/newsletter-subscribe.html) and sign up. In the best spirit of the magazine, we’ve taken an open-ended, even experimental approach with our online content, treating recipients to a broad range of opinion pieces, Q&A sessions, technical pieces and more – basically anything we find interesting and would like to share. It’s not as much a substitute for our rescheduled print products as it is an oddly creative extension of our mission.
We have, for example, taken advantage of this new forum to stir things up from time to time in ways we never would in print. Last fall, for example, our newsletter carried an opinion piece by Vance Gillette in which he urged everyone in the industry to cast off conventional thinking and look at the marketing of watershapes in all-new ways. Vance’s piece drew a rich set of responses and set forth themes picked up in part in Brian Van Bower’s January column on industry leadership – which by itself drew spirited responses.
In another newsletter feature, Mark Holden raised more than a few eyebrows (and occasional flashes of anger) when he dared to point out that Hearst Castle is an agglomeration of beautiful design vignettes but lacks appeal with respect to overall aesthetic continuity. What seemed like a fairly straightforward observation turned into a minor tempest, with responses both praising him and taking him to task.
As is true with most publications these days, we’re contending with the challenge of bringing print and digital media together in ways that more fully serve readers’ professional needs. The magazine is our flagship and as always demands our best, but I have to say we’re having some fun in balancing it with lighter touches on the digital side. (All it takes is a quick look at the newsletter’s Ripples section to see what I mean.) As we see it, the whole of our output is much greater than the sum of the various parts, and if you want the best we have to offer, it’s time to sign up and start reading our digital output as faithfully as you follow us in print.
And the best thing about the digital world is that you can immediately tell us what you think – a responsiveness we want to encourage while our newsletter is still in its formative stages.
So even though we’re not planning on returning to a monthly schedule anytime soon, we’re making the most of these peculiarly lean times by having some fun and following a variety of unusual paths online. So by all means, please come along for the ride and count on us to keep pushing for excellence, no matter what form we might take.