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ne of the challenges businesses face in the New Economy is adapting to changing times without losing their core values – those character qualities that define who they are. The task is no less real for Site Selection magazine as we enter our 48th year of publishing.Launched by McKinley Conway in January 1954 as Industrial Development and Site Selection, the publication has come a long way since its early days as a regional journal supporting the work of the Southern Association of Science and Industry. Today, Site Selection remains the official publication of the International Development Research Council but has broadened its editorial scope to become the global magazine of business strategy and the journal of corporate workspace management.
But it’s not labels that we care about. It’s service to our readers, advertisers and friends who make up the leadership elite of the corporate real estate and economic development professions. Without them, there is no Site Selection.
That is why we want to make Site Selection even more relevant to the needs of our supporters. As you can tell just from the look of this edition, some things about our magazine have changed.
First of all, Site Selection debuts a bolder, brighter, more contemporary graphic design. Conceived and implemented by Art Director John Cernak and his assistants, Jurga Colson and Scott Larsen, the purpose of this redesign is to present our unique, highlevel content in a format that is more engaging visually, better organized and, therefore, easier to read. Many changes you will notice right away:
more color, more graphic elements and a bolder, more contemporary style. Other changes are subtler, but the purpose of all of them is to make this product better able to suit your needs.
Secondly, Site Selection explores a hot topic – the New
Economy and its impact on corporate real estate executives – in a more comprehensive way. Our package of in-depth articles not only reports on how information technology is changing the way corporate real estate professionals do business; it seeks to provide the kind of interpretation and analysis seldom found in a “real estate book.”
Thirdly, Site Selection takes one of our strengths – state and regional profiles of economic development initiatives – and makes them better by answering the two critical questions of “why” and “how.”
Of course, you will also find some familiar pieces inside these pages. Our annual ranking of the Top 10 State Economic Development Web Sites and the Top Service Providers continue Site Selection‘s reputation for providing independent, objective evaluations of the best practices in the industry. Site Selection will continue this theme of change throughout 2001 by devoting even more time and space to the topics you told us you wanted to learn more about: changing labor markets, globalization and new developments in research and technology.
What we won’t change is our promise to deliver to you an insightful, information-packed issue of Site Selection six times a year. We have not undertaken change for the sake of change itself. As Elizabeth Clarke Dunn once said, “Change is an easy panacea. It takes character to stay in one place and be happy there.”
The character of Site Selection is what defines this magazine, and that character is contained in our unchanging mission: delivering unique, relevant content in every issue to more than 45,000 high-level decision-makers.
What you’re holding in your hands right now may reflect a new style of presentation, but the spark that ignited the vision of McKinley Conway half a century ago still shapes and refines the core of what we do.
