Validation

I came into this job (almost ten months ago!) and immediately started wondering thoughts like what do the alumni want in this journal? and why don't they write us more—how can we get them to write more!? I recently came to the conclusion that these are valuable and relevant questions, but not necessarily for this particular publication. But today, as I was looking up first-editorials by beginning editors of the past it was a comfort and relief to come across this page with some first impressions by an esteemed editor and alumnus:

The parts he writes that were meaningful to me included:

"Your new editor [him] has some ideas about what to publish, and many of them depend on your responses as alumni. Jerre and I wish to know: what do you want to know? Are you curious, or frustrated, or happy, or just plain 'sore' about [whatever] ... What information would you like to have that you don't have?

"Please write and tell us. If it takes asbestos content paper, OK. If you choose to write on perfumed note sheets, of course we'll appreciate that. But communicate, and we'll try to communicate right back..." 

Ahhh... Validation by a great alumnus and previous editor of my own questions and concerns about what kind of content to include in the journal: Tell us what you want and do it however you want! Just tell us!

And also a little bit of a challenge and sense of curiosity on my part: Is my new belief that these questions are not as relevant as I first thought actually valid? Will I find validation of that later on? We'll see. But I suspect that everyone in the position of working for this journal has realized at one point or another that you just have to get stuff out. Readers aren't going to tell you what to include, they're just going to tell you what you messed up on. So in a way, no news is good news. But also, one of the tidbits I came across today mentioned something about the journal being an "award-winning" one and one that consistently ranked among top alumni journals. That's news to me, all of it. I opened up a Google search tab before leaving the office about "alumni publication awards" that I will explore tomorrow. Are there really awards for alumni publications? And if so, when can we get one? That's a fun goal. Here's to interesting journalism.