Presenter: Paula Brewer Byron, editor, Harvard Medical Alumni Bulletin
When she started at Harvard, Byron had an esteemed alum call and say “Young lady, don’t change the Bulletin. The Bulletin is like Shakespeare and the Bible.” She followed this for a couple of issues, but soon redesigned, and even kept her job. (So there's hope for the rest of us)
-Refuse to let your magazine be limited by other people’s assumptions and expectations. Example: Portland magazine (Annie Dillard called Portland "the finest spiritual magazine in the United States.")
-Write your slogan. This is NOT your mission statement. Helps define your publication and align with your readers. This doesn’t have to be stated in your magazine – it can just remind you of what your ideal content is. (Real Simple: Life made easier. Men’s Health: Tons of useful stuff.)
- Bulletin’s slogan: Telling doctors’ stories.
- California: Ideas from the leading edge
-Aim for things that point. Special reports that focus a portion of the magazine on a theme. Look for unexpected juxtapositions (eg Bulletin article “The Seven Deadly Sins of Medicine”)
Invite your readers—and writers—to play
Don’t underestimate the value of humor in building loyalty in your readers. The New Yorker says 98% of its readers turn to the cartoons first, and the other 2% lie about it. The Bulletin did a fashion issue. Article “The Proctologist Wears Prada.” Balance it with serious so you don’t lose your job.
-Run quizzes and games (Famous alumni quotations; matching game)
-Celebrate the quirky in people, places and things (campus myths, little known facts, oddities, believe it or not stories)
-Create irresistible departments and features (How to do ______ featuring fun opinions and advice from alumni/faculty; Wired dept. that asks readers to Predict What’s Next, eg. Cubicle of the Future)
-Be cheeky
Become a master of intrigue
-Choose content that allows you to tell a story
-Chip Scanlan, The Poynter Institute (pointer.org): A story…
…features characters other than sources and the intimate voice of a narrator instead of an institution;
…Communicates experience through the five senses and a few others: a sense
of people, sense of place, sense of time, and, most important, a sense of drama;
…Has a beginning that grabs a reader’s attention, a middle that keeps the reader engaged and an ending that leaves reverberations like a gong
-Answer intriguing questions
Collect bits of string
-Gather random bits to form a story (e.g. looking back through archives of Bulletin letters to the editor, they discovered doctors had been offering editorial “prescriptions” for years – turned this into story “Like Shakespeare and the Bible")
Paint yourself into a corner
-Add restrictions to your topic, and then try to imagine your way out
-Brainstorm theme-driven issues even if you don’t plan to run them
-Play “what if?” games – don’t limit your ideas by what you think your administrators would never go for
Spin straw into gold
-Don’t treat pedestrian stories as pedestrian
-Take imaginative approaches to ordinary content (rather than programmatic story about a class, embed a reporter in the course)
-Use creative packaging
-Flatter through imitation. Take inspiration through newsstand magazines and other sources, both within and outside of media
Run the numbers
-Numbered lists (25 Brilliant California ideas)
Draw up your covers
-Avoid the obvious on covers and in all illustrations
-Visit www.magazine.org for inspiration
-Make the magazine IRRESISTABLE. Earnest, predictable and staid go against that.
-Take risks one feature at a time – you’ll get braver as you go along
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