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Shift to 2010

By Jan Nesset

We hit a milestone with this issue. Not only is this the 50th issue of Inside/Outside Southwest that I've had the honor of both designing and editing, a year ago we as a magazine shifted gears hopeful that our wheels would be turning in 2010. We're there, cruising into 2010 where we'd like to speed up and put more milestones in our rearview mirror.

If any of you can recall our tabloid years - from fall of 1998 when we backed out of the garage through 2006 - you know that we've come a good distance in both design and content. We were newsprint front to back then, and the inside pages were mostly black and white. The newsprint did have a kind of gritty charm to it, but we wanted to show off our region in color pages.

With so much to show off, we switched to glossy paper front to back with the January/February 2007 issue when we also went to a magazine format. That gave us a nice body shine, an enduring wax job - an expensive one! But at 56 pages strong, we had a good thing going, moving slowly forward. Then, in 2008, to maneuver through a worsening economy we had to take a hard look at the numbers and react accordingly - or park. It made sense for us to limit the number of pages we printed each issue but to publish monthly rather than fewer times a year. That, along with augmenting our Web site to provide all and more of the coverage that you've come to expect from us but without the high cost of printing, appears to be working. We're still humming right along, having in the year grown from 20 pages to 32.

Going into 2010 and our 12th year of publication, we're reviewing new plans that we hope will allow us to shift into another gear. It won't be easy but we're doing our best to remain part of your Southwest experience.

All this to say thank you for sharing the ride. It's you and your loyalty to Inside/Outside Southwest magazine that keeps our motor running. I sure do enjoy the driving, bumps and all.

Stay tuned!

Happy Holidays!