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Better than Plumb
I'm not the expert
comments (0) May 23rd, 2008 in Blogs
Kevin Ireton, editor-at-large
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A few years ago, our company started a program called Taunton University. Its main goal is to help employees in one part of the company learn what goes on in other parts. You might learn, for instance, what it takes to get 10 copies of the magazine into newsstands at O’Hare Airport, or how our customer-service department handles complaints from subscribers who see the magazine at one of those newsstands before they get their copy in the mail. The courses are usually an hour or two long and are generally pretty well attended.
Last week, I taught a class called “Editorial Roles Outside of the Office.” The idea was suggested by a colleague who had heard me talking on a local radio show. She wondered what that was like and what other kinds of things editors did besides making magazines.
I started with Emerson’s quote about the world beating a path to your door if you build a better mousetrap. That was 125 years ago, I said, and things are different now. If you build a better mousetrap today, the world doesn’t know, and the world doesn’t care. And don’t bother having your people call the world’s people because, believe me, they won’t take the call. There’s only one way the world is going to know about your mousetrap: marketing.
Nearly all my editorial duties outside the office have to do with marketing the magazine. I’m either trying to find people who have never heard of Fine Homebuilding and tell them about it, or I am looking for people who know us and am trying to ingratiate myself and the magazine further into their lives. I give speeches, judge competitions, offer quotes for the dust jacket of someone’s new book, talk to newspaper reporters, answer questions on radio shows, and have even appeared on television a couple of times.
I’m invited to do these things because as the editor of Fine Homebuilding, I’m seen as an expert on anything related to houses and their construction. I’m not, and I don’t like pretending otherwise, but sometimes that’s the job.
Yes, I worked as a carpenter before I came to Fine Homebuilding, and yes, I’ve learned a lot by working here. But I’m still a generalist. The real experts are Mike Guertin, Gary Katz, Joe Lstiburek, Rosemary McMonigal and all the other builders and architects who write for us. These folks have been designing and building houses day in and day out for 20 or 30 years. And on those rare occasions when I manage to sound intelligent in print, on the radio, or on TV, it’s because I successfully remembered something I learned from one of them.
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About this blog
As the editor of Fine Homebuilding, I spend my weekdays trying to produce a magazine that will satisfy 300,000 of the most demanding builders, both professional and amateur. As the owner of a 200-year old Cape in Connecticut’s Litchfield Hills, I spend weekends working on my house.
Each activity invariably informs, and complicates, the other. In this blog, I’ll offer observations from both worlds -- publishing and building -- with the hope of providing some useful or at least entertaining insights.
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