By Gigi Wood, editor
The first edition of the Corridor Business Journal published on July 26, 2004.
Since then, we’ve printed an issue every week, 52 weeks a year and added a number of additional publications, such as custom magazines and our Book of Lists. Our online offerings have increased, too, as we’ve grown our website and added twice-daily e-mail updates. It’s been an impressive feat, considering our small staff and the challenges that come with a small business.
This week, we’re introducing the first redesign of our newspaper. We decided that after eight-and-a-half years, it was time for a fresh look. Readers will find a more colorful newspaper, with more photos and new content.
Many of our changes come at the request of our readers. We understand that with several newspapers available to read daily and weekly in the Corridor, many of our busiest professionals don’t always have time to read each story in each issue. So we decided to add a table of contents, which will offer summaries of our bylined stories and page reference for our most popular sections, such as Movers & Shakers.
Likely our most notable change is the addition of our Business of Life section (starting on page 19). While we were planning our redesign, we decided to stop producing our CBJ Quarterly magazine, which included many arts and entertainment stories. While successful, the Quarterly was simply too time-intensive for our small organization. Meanwhile, our afternoon e-mail updates, especially the ones focused on arts and entertainment and nonprofits have increased in popularity. I receive many e-mails from our contacts telling us they received record attendance at their events that appeared in the updates.
Adding the Business of Life section, which will feature arts and entertainment, wellness and a number of other topics, seemed like a logical step. We plan to include the types of stories that would have appeared in the CBJ Quarterly, stories that offer a fresh perspective on people, events, programs and venues throughout the Corridor.
We will also be publishing various events calendars in the Business of Life section, calendars that include events Corridor-wide, something that is rarely offered by media outlets.
CBJ content has always been designed to benefit our readers, whether it’s by profiling a successful company so small business owners can learn some new best practices, by explaining how property tax dollars are spent or explaining new projects in the area that will need the services of our readers and will ultimately affect the community.
That vision continues with our Business of Life section, where we will share some of the best places to spend time once the work day ends. On one hand, we hope the section will be a tool for workforce development and will aid in professionals’ ability to find a sense of belonging in the community. On the other hand, arts and entertainment venues are businesses, too, and are worthy of coverage in the CBJ.
That said, to make room for the new section, we’ve done away with a few items that ran every week in the CBJ, such as our stocks page. We offer stock prices for Corridor publicly-traded companies each day in our afternoon e-mail update, so we hope our readers continue to find all the information they need in our publications. If not, let us know. And tell us what you think about our redesign by e-mailing us at news@corridorbusiness.com.
Learn more about another new addition to the CBJ – augmented reality – here.
