I’ve been reading them my entire career to keep up with what’s going on the markets I need to follow.

As a category I know that they are a battered and beleaguered bunch. Many of the once valuable sources of all information about an industry or trade no longer exist. Those that still do are often vilified. Not by those that still find them valuable and read them but by those that seek to use them to reach the audience.

I know that the move to digital media technology has caused the B2B marcom landscape to shift over the past few years. I’ve been living it and adapting to it -- setting up google alerts, taking news feeds and alerts, subscribing to e-newsletters and getting lots of information from on-line media sources by using search.  But I still enjoy sitting and paging through the trade magazines when they arrive on my desk. I have seen audience research from a variety of markets indicating that I am not alone. There are a lot of others like me, blending the immediate need for information that on-line media allows with the more in-depth coverage of a subject that the traditional trade magazine has always provided

I choose not to vilify business publishers. To the contrary, I would like to take a stand on behalf of those business press publishers that have weathered the storm of the changing landscape. I admire the embattled survivors that recognized the shifts and have adapted. I salute those that had the foresight to say that they were not in the business of printing a magazine. I support the ones that in the true spirit of Norman Cahners, realized that they were publishers and editors of information, content in the current lingo, to a targeted group of people that were looking for news and information to solve problems.  They recognized that the shifts in how and where their audiences got their information represented new opportunities for them to deliver on that mission. They reexamined and rethought how they did things. They sorted out the editorial purpose of their publications and made enlightened decisions such as; on-line is about news, commentary and resources, print is where the editors dig deeper into a subject, and in an on-line community they could enable a conversation to take place 24/7. The end result is they are developing content rich resources and they are better serving their audience and those that want to speak to that audience.

Thank you enlightened business publishers for continuing to provide a valuable resource to your audiences and the marketers that want to reach them.