WaterShapes 2.0

By Eric Herman & Jim McCloskey

One theme we’ve worked into these pages more often than any other through the past 30 months has to do with the thought that we all need to find ways to respond to the rapidly evolving market conditions in which we find ourselves.

You’ve heard that message from our columnists and many of our feature writers: Across the board, they’ve argued that outlasting the recession – and, more important, coming out on the other side poised for success – is a matter of adapting and actively developing skills that make sense in light of today’s reduced roster of clients.

In considering those same 30 months, we at WaterShapes see a business climate that is much different from the one we left behind in 2008. Just as potential buyers of your products have become fewer and more conscious of how they spend their money, our advertisers have as well.

Indeed, it’s no secret that magazines have taken huge hits in recent years. It’s because of the recession, of course, but it’s also because marketers are shifting away from print and pursuing their electronic options. Making matters even more difficult, WaterShapes is a proud member of the construction-industry media: Of all sectors in publishing, it’s the one that has been hit longest and hardest by virtue of its dependence on the housing and commercial-development markets as well as on conditions in the credit markets.

If ever there was a perfect publishing storm, we’re caught in the middle of it.

In response to all of this, we’re making our move, pushing on to what we see as our next evolutionary step by transferring most of our energy from our printed magazine to our e-mail newsletter and Web site. The most immediate effect? Well, this is the last printed edition of WaterShapes you’ll see for a while. It may eventually come back on an intermittent basis, but we haven’t as yet set any schedule.

In everything we do, our continuing mission will be to fire the imaginations of watershape designers, engineers and builders while providing powerful tools for professionals we’ve come to know, respect, value and appreciate through the past dozen years. Quite simply, our aim is to build our Web site and turn it into the premier digital resource for all things in the watershaping world.

We see this as a step forward in an environment in which solid information, sensibly packaged on the Web, is of superior value because it reaches users quickly with great depth and richness. Furthermore, we see the Web as a democratizing force that makes designers, engineers and builders more accessible to existing and prospective clients; simultaneously, the Web provides clients with information they need to make better, more informed choices about the environments they want you to perfect.

Will we miss publishing the magazine? Hell, yes. We’ve put our hearts and souls into its rhythms for nearly 13 years now and never foresaw a time when we’d move on. But it is time to move on.

If you want to continue being part of our family (and we hope you do), we urge you to go to www.watershapes.com and provide us with your e-mail address. Then we can send you our newsletter, WaterShapes EXTRA! – the key to our new digital world. (If you already receive and read it, you’re all set.)

So now it is time, as our good friend Vance Gillette is fond of saying, to invent our future. Here we go!