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While cleaning up my office the other day, I found a still-serviceable pencil stub that reminded me of Electrical Wholesaling’s pre-computer days.
When I was as a cub reporter with the magazine in 1982, the owner of the magazine at the time, McGraw-Hill, equipped the editors on its 40-plus business magazines with hundreds of #2 pencils to mark up the articles they typed on old IBM and Royal typewriters. The pencils, colored green as a subtle reminder of the McGraw-Hill family’s Irish heritage, all had a simple slogan on them: “Serving the Need for Knowledge.”
Over the past 40 years, those five words still rings true as Electrical Wholesaling’s core editorial mission. Many things have changed with Electrical Wholesaling since I rode the elevator up to the 36th floor of the McGraw-Hill Building in Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center to join Electrical Wholesaling’s team for my first day of work in Nov. 1982. Over the past four decades, the magazine’s editorial team traded in creaky, old and barely electric typewriters for personal computers to write our articles; integrated modems and fax machines into the production process; harnessed the power of the internet to cut down on countless visits to business libraries for article research; and launched www.ewweb.com, email newsletters, social media feeds, podcasts and webinars.
EW’s editorial team is launching a new resource for readers this month that also serves the need for knowledge in the electrical wholesaling industry – Electrical Wholesaling’s Lunchtime Learning Series. The basic idea for this new online training comes from a conversation I had with industry veteran Ned Camuti many years ago. Early in his electrical career, Ned was a branch manager for Maddux Supply and would tear out pages of Electrical Wholesaling and use them for impromptu classes in the Maddux branch’s lunchroom. Like Ned’s classes, EW’s Lunchtime Learning will also be using Electrical Wholesaling content as an educational resource, but with a new twist.
The classes will be available in a YouTube video format, in “bite-sized chunks” of no longer than 10-15 minutes in length so you and your employees can watch them whenever and wherever it’s most convenient. They will include content based on articles such as this issue’s “5 Trends that Will Shake the Electrical Market,” (page 24); EW’s series Electrical Market 101 series on the commercial, industrial and residential markets; and Electrical Wholesaling’s Electrical Pyramid. The Lunchtime Learning series will also include a quarterly review of key economic indicators; pricing activity; mergers and acquisitions; and large construction projects breaking ground or on the drawing boards.
These online classes are intended to help our readers manage their businesses more profitably and sell more electrical products, just as our print magazine has done for more than 100 years. Although the EW Lunchtime Learning classes will be part of a new online learning resource, they serve the same editorial responsibility that editors for Electrical Wholesaling and other business publications have tried to fulfill for more than 100 years. Charlie Mill, former head of the American Business Press, outlined this responsibility many years ago in this quote:
“Unlike their consumer counterparts, business publication editors write for an audience of experts. Their audience can’t be kidded or beguiled with half-baked fact or opinion, or comments that ignore the realities of any situation. No reader can afford to gamble — with the lives, dollars or his company’s future — with the information he or she seeks from their business publications.”
Electrical Wholesaling’s staff believes the Lunchtime Learning series will fulfill this responsibility by helping readers learn more about the key trends driving this industry. We are excited to get started with it and want to hear what you think about this new training resource.