viewpoint

Starting the New Year With a Bang

We begin 2013 by reshaping Optometric Management.

From the Editorial Director Jim Thomas

Editors can get bogged down in all sorts of details beyond content when launching a redesigned magazine. For example, we worry a lot about fonts. We do it regardless of the fact that in 30 years of publishing, I’ve yet to hear, “Thank you for the informative article on contact lens scripts for the staff, but seriously, CB Helvetica Condensed Bold? What were you thinking?” The same goes for color schemes. (“Pantone S 2-9 for a masthead color? Please rethink your color schemes, or cancel my subscription.”)

Overthinking the problem

We also tend to overthink our marketing strategies, often by pitching clever phrases like, “Dr. Jack Schaeffer has really created a scene—just look at page 36.” Or, “Didn’t Dr. Leah Colby write something about underwear? Surely we could use that as an attention grabber.” Throw in all concerns about colored tabs on pages, new approaches for features and columns, etc., and colleagues around the office soon characterize the editors as a few pages short of a full magazine.

While our intentions are good, we can be our own worst enemies. Fortunately, our chief optometric editor, Scot Morris, O.D., has brought us back to earth with his logical approach to recreating Optometric Management. (The recreation begins with this, the January issue.) Through his own experiences as a practice owner, consultant, educator and editor, which includes countless hours of conversations with fellow optometrists, optometry students and industry leaders, Scot mapped out a direction for OM that is based on your feedback. Thankfully, with this detailed how-to approach to content, there’s no need for us — the editors, that is — to overthink. Scot discusses many of the details of this new direction in this month’s “O.D. to O.D.” column, so I won’t repeat them here. But I do want to thank him for his tireless efforts in making the new OM a reality.

I’d also like to thank all the optometrists and the other experts who are reshaping OM with their contributions. And I must note that the support of our internal team, notably editors Jen and Zack, our publisher Roger and our artist Kim, has been indispensable.

A work in progress

Around the office, we view the new OM as a work in progress, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. How else would you approach such a dynamic profession? In fact, I’ll close on that question and let you provide us with the answers.

Go ahead — we’re listening. OM