Getting to know you, getting to know me

Have you ever been introduced to someone and you forget their name even before you finish shaking their hand?

Come on now, be honest, sure you have and what’s even more likely is that you probably didn’t remember their job title either or whatever else they do.

Truth of the matter is, most people find meeting new people a bit unnerving. Even hardened CEO’s probably get a twinge when facing their Board of Directors for the first time and more than likely, even worse symptoms when facing shareholders.

Meeting new people in a new environment is often stressful and few things raise one’s stress level higher than starting a new job.

Sure, psychologists say that a certain amount of ‘stress’ is good for us, but what do they know about ‘us’ as individuals?

During my career as a journalist, I’ve had three employers and joining, or leaving, each and every one of them has involved some degree of stress. When I started in journalism almost 40 years ago, I was really nervous because I knew little to nothing about the industry I was going to be writing about. It was the consulting engineering industry and ironically, here I am nearly four decades later sitting in the next office to Canadian Consulting Engineer magazine (my first publication) and even more ironic, back with the same company that hired me in the first place.

Talk about going full circle. For the record, after Canadian Consulting Engineer I spent nearly 20 years as Editor of Heavy Construction News (now called On-Site) magazine, then a brief stint as Editor of three forestry magazines and now, here I am, back editing Canadian Mining Journal.

Other than architecture, I’ve pretty much covered most of the building and resources industries and now that I’m involved with mining, I feel that my life and career in trade publishing has been quite fulfilled. One interesting and common thread between all of the industries I’ve served, however, is again, the people who make up the various industries.

From the consulting engineers, to the construction and forestry workers, to now the miners, all are ‘doers’ who don’t mind getting their hands dirty. And that’s what I like most about the people I’ve met along the way. You may also be surprised to hear that I like the people behind the advertising that supports those various magazines

Unlike many Editors who dislike or don’t understand advertising, I quite like the people behind the ads that appear in magazines. First of all, they pay my salary but moreover, they’re also a good source of information because most of them do their homework when it comes to backing a magazine and they know the buyers of their products. Those buyers are you, my readers, and the fact that you are spending big bucks for most of the products featured in the ads tells me that you’ve got work and it’s that work that I’m interested in hearing more about.

Most of you don’t appreciate the news value of what you’re doing on a day-to-day basis. What seems like a routine job to many is often fascinating and informative work to others and that’s why the pipeline of information from the manufacturer (advertiser) to the buyer (you) to future buyers (also you) is a great way of keeping in touch with what’s happening in the industry.

Like I said earlier, people in mining or any other industry for that matter, don’t spend their hard-earned dollars on machines or other technologies unless they’ve got work at hand and it’s that work that keeps magazines like Canadian Mining Journal in business.

I’ve practiced this ‘news gathering’ approach for many years now and will continue to do so here because I’m convinced that any good magazine is only as good as the support it gets from those who read it so on that note, I welcome your input and I look forward to hearing from and meeting many of you in the near future.