|
So are you ready for a new adventure? As agents for change, we need to step back periodically and reexamine our focus and mission. As part of that, I see a need to reevaluate the name of this publication. The New Times is a well-known name in many circles, and our readers and advertisers count on us for delivering inspiration and how-to information. Here are some of the reasons that I see a need to consider this change: First, there is confusion with other similarly named publications. For one thing, the word “Times” in a title seems to carry the fairly universal connotation of a daily news publication, and we’re neither. Worse, a chain of publications called New Times (not The New Times) has a high-profile presence in several major markets, including Los Angeles and Phoenix. These publications are weekly arts and entertainment tabloids similar to The Seattle Weekly or The Stranger. They also have the newtimes.com Web domain (ours is newtimes.org), and I have received feedback from readers looking for us but, finding them instead, thinking that we are no longer a spiritually oriented publication. As if all this weren’t bad enough, in Oregon we are distributed alongside another publication called The News Times! We get several calls a week (that we pay for) on our toll-free number from misdirected New York Times subscribers wanting to make changes to their subscriptions. This is literally a waste of time for both the caller and us, since we often search through client records trying to locate the subscriber before discovering that she or he is not a subscriber to The New Times. Alternatively, I am not willing to grill all of our callers to make sure they really want to be talking with The New Times before we discuss their inquiries. In addition, most Internet searches for “the new times” produce pages of links to The New York Times and New Times (Los Angeles) before a link to our Web site can be found. I’d like to move away from this confusion. Secondly, our name may not support us as well in the future as it has in the past. Twice this year, I have been introduced by people who have known of The New Times for years as the publisher of the New Age Times. Clearly, many people think of us as a New Age publication. While there is plenty of information in our pages that could be characterized as New Age, we are not just a New Age publication. One of my goals is to put the information we provide into the hands of a greater percentage of the general population. One of the ways to do that is to package it in a more grounded, practical way. Earlier in its history, I believe that this publication served the important function of validating and connecting a group of people that did not have a collective voice or a highly visible platform. I believe that that work has been successful in our market area, and that the role of this publication needs to shift from creating a solid and respected forum to bringing people from a broader cross-section of the general population to that forum. For these reasons, I am looking for a new name for this publication: one that rolls off the tongue easily, one conducive to an easy-to-find Web address, and one that supports my vision of the future of this publication. Here’s that vision: First, I want to deepen the material we already have. By “deepen,” I mean that I want to maintain the from-the-heart, personal-story, and inspirational aspects of our articles, and I want to blend more practical, how-to information into them — solutions to problems that the average person on the street can relate to. Secondly, since the WTO riots in Seattle, I have thought that the real solution would be better-informed consumers. Corporate America is very responsive to buyer demands. For example, when you or I choose a bank, we empower the bank’s values. How well do your bank’s political and charitable donations match your values? Are their lending and employee policies consistent with your values? You can see how a similar set of questions could be applied to every arena where you and I exchange our energy with others. I would like to add features that would help tackle this and other similar issues. In our 2000 reader survey, we learned that nearly seventy percent of our readers were interested in socially responsible investing. I would like to respond to that interest area. With these topics in mind, a name that is viewed by many to be “just New Age” seems inconsistent with the type reader and advertiser that we’d need to attract in order to make this component of the publication viable. Such a change is one of the most significant ones any publication can make. That’s where you can help. Drop me a note or e-mail me with your suggestion for a name (see the staff box on page xx for my contact information). I also welcome your suggestions regarding the process surrounding this change. I will give a four-month subscription (or subscription extension) to every reader who submits one or more suggestions, so have fun, be creative, and get ready for new and exciting things to come. Won’t you join me on this adventure? |
First,
let me offer my thanks to readers who shared their thoughts in
our recent reader survey and are helping to shape my vision for
the future of this publication. At the time of this writing,
the survey results are still coming in and I have yet to prepare
a summary of the results. The New Times has been an important
part of the Pacific Northwest landscape every month for 17 years
and has helped pave the way for an openness toward a variety
of spiritual paths that is far more widespread today than in
the mid-1980s.