Business magazines need to find their reason for existence

Alan Webber, one of the co-founders of Fast Company magazine, writes on Folio Monday that the remaining business magazines need to reinvent themselves for readers rather than just trying to survive.

Webber writes, “They want authenticity, integrity, and real dialog — and instead they feel they’ve been getting a steady diet of status-quo thinking, round-up-the-usual-suspects journalism, and convenient excuses for why things can’t change.

“The exciting truth is we are at the threshold of a new era in business. All over the world we’re witnessing massive discontinuities in how work gets done, who does it, how value is created, where it gets created — one epoch is ending, another is just being born. What business magazines need to do is to embrace the changes and challenges that are rocking the world of business — get in front of the evolving story line; engage readers in a conversation; challenge the status quo instead of offering bland reassurances that the status quo will prevail; generate useful, provocative debate; discover new voices who champion new ideas and unconventional practices.

“It’s not just a matter of finding a way to stay in business; it’s a matter of having a purpose for being in business in the first place. Entrepreneurship is the answer to the companies business magazines cover; it’s also the answer to the future of the magazines themselves.”

Read more here.