As the News Media Evolves, Print Still Shows Signs of Life

Last week, Apple and News Corporation launched the iPad-only news app: The Daily. Its mission: “to provide the best news experience by combining world-class storytelling with the unique interactive capabilities of the iPad.”

As an owner of an iPad, I have enjoyed seeing how traditional outlets have adapted their product to this revolutionary device. Naturally, the arrival of The Daily comes with great curiosity and excitement, especially as many traditional media outlets – particularly print – are in survival mode.

But while many print publications are seeing a decline in readership, one is experiencing remarkable growth.

Long-time Lilja client Game Informer magazine reported a six-month average paid circulation of 5,073,003 in the December 2010 Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) Fas-Fax Report released Feb. 7, 2011.

Of the top 25 consumer titles by total paid and verified circulation listed in the report, Game Informer saw the largest increase of 33 percent since December 2009. Game Informer now ranks as the fifth largest consumer magazine in the United States.

As Game Informer publisher Cathy Preston explained: “Our growth exceeds industry expectations for a print magazine – especially when you consider that 62 percent of our subscribers are from the hard-to-reach 18 to 34-year-old male demographic.”

Congratulations, Game Informer.

-- Alex Cook

The Wall

I learned to ski when I was seven. It wasn’t a question of whether or not I would ski, or even if I liked to ski. It was a given; everyone skied in our family, including my mother, who gamely learned to ski after she started dating my father in college.
 

So when my father took me to the top of Mt. Normandale (now Hyland Hills) and showed me approximately how to get down, I followed him, scared all the way. 

After conquering my early fears, I learned to love skiing. I mean REALLY LOVE IT. I married a good skier and between us, we raised three good skiers. Year after year, we returned to our favorite family ski area, Snowmass at Aspen. But there was one part of the mountain I avoided: the dreaded Wall and Hanging Valley Glades, all of it double black territory.

So let me tell you why, after 48 years of skiing, I decided to ski that part of the mountain. One could say it took me that long to build up my courage. But I was not confident; I was scared. My husband told me that I would have at least one moment of oh sh**, I can’t do this, and I did. It hit me while standing at the very top of the steepest slope I have ever skied. The moguls were the size of my VW Beetle. The hill was vertical. Literally straight down. 

Scared, I “hacked” my way down it. I did not fall. As I strung together more imperfect turns, my confidence grew. And when we made our way down steep chutes filled with trees, I started to have fun.

Life is like that: we face many obstacles, some of them planned, others unknown. But in that moment of facing our fear, we realize we can do it. We’re not in charge, but we can make a turn, and then another, and soon, we realize we have made it down the mountain. 

I may not ski those slopes again, but now I know I can. It is good to know.

23^rd Anniversary--Time flies!

Today marks the 23^rd anniversary of Lilja Inc. I founded the company when I was 32, mother of three young children under the age of six. Now I’m 55, mother of three young adults. Thanks to everyone I’ve met along the way – those who have been our clients, and those who have worked here – you have made our success and longevity possible. 

 -- Mary Lilja

Audience, Audience, Audience!

Real estate agents have always had the motto, “Location, location, location.” Today, I’m giving communication professionals a motto of our own: “Audience, audience, audience.”
Audience selection guides a number of decisions as we assemble and execute a communication plan:

• What key messages do we want those audiences to hear? Even when announcing the same thing, two different audiences may want or need to hear different messages.
• What is the best way to reach my audience? Maybe your audience should be targeted through the news media or a blog. Maybe you can reach them directly through an e-newsletter.
• What will get the audience’s attention? A well-crafted plan takes its audiences’ needs into consideration. And remember that reporters keep the audience in mind; they want material that is of interest to their readers.

Just like buying the beautiful condo that’s right next to the hog fat rendering plant, filling the air with its aroma, can you imagine sending a release about the new Grand Theft Auto video game to American Bee Journal?

Remember: audience, audience, audience.

-- Alicia DeMatteo

Remember, Silence

I will admit it - I can be a loud person.

My voice carries. I’m not shy when I laugh. And I have been known to break the tension in group settings. But as the father of two young daughters, I also understand that value of quiet reflection.

On Jan. 10, President Obama requested a moment of silence in honor of the Tucson shooting victims. We at Lilja decided to observe that moment of silence, and at 10 a.m., time stopped.

Now I choose to keep my thoughts from this experience private, but I will describe what I learned from this period of silence.

For the first few moments, the mind starts to panic: “Why is it so quiet? Is something wrong? What should I be thinking about?” It’s in this mental drowning phase that you realize just how much you carry inside everyday. But as the seconds drip away, peace and quiet emerge once again, and you feel the return of something we often forget in this highly-connected, on-demand world: solitude.

To put it plainly, it’s a feeling we could afford to become reacquainted with, and I challenge you to do so. What you’ll discover once you find solitude again may surprise you.

I know I was.

-- Alex Cook

Singing bowls bring people in and out of silence in some traditions.

Meet the newest Lilja staffer

Since Vlad (short for Vladimir Dracule) seems to have become a more permanent fixture around our office, we thought we'd give him a formal introduction.

 Vlad first came to us on Sept. 13 when he chose to make the area to the right of our main office entrance his new home. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to ask him why because he sleeps all day.

On the second day, Vlad moved up from his original sport a few inches, still sleeping like a baby.

Vlad seems to like this slightly higher spot, as he returned there on Day 3. We're thinking of hiring him as our receptionist/bouncer, but we're concerned he'd sleep on the job.

One wonders why Vlad has chosen to make Lilja Inc.'s exterior façade as his new home - perhaps it is because of the overall batty environment inside its doors lately.

-- Alicia DeMatteo

Reflecting on my father’s lessons

I wrote an article for Minnesota Business Magazine under my own byline, a rare thing for a PR person who is most often behind-the-scenes!

Here’s a link to the digital edition of the magazine (scroll through to page 12):

http://minnesotabusiness.imirus.com/Mpowered/imirus.jsp?volume=minnb10&issue=2&page=1

And here’s what I wrote:

My father’s business was like the fifth sibling around the dinner table each evening while I was growing up. Its successes and failures were discussed and made evident by my father’s moods: a good day and Dad was cheerful, complimenting my mother on “the best meal he’d ever had” or a bad day, he was impatient if we hadn’t done our very best in school.

While I was in elementary school Dad bought a manufacturing company that had lost $46,000 on sales of $25,000 the year before. He turned that company around, and one summer while I was away at camp, he purchased two more failing companies. He turned those around, too, starting another small company and acquiring others along the way.

All of us worked summer stints in the business, either in the shop, stamping out expanded metal or assembling cash drawers, or in the office, typing invoices and paychecks and handling basic filing. Though I thought it boring at the time, I used the same basic filing and bookkeeping system to set up my own small business when the entrepreneurial bug bit me at age 32.

I know my father was proud of me, even though he never exactly understood what I did: he manufactured products; I consulted using my public relations expertise, often to family owned businesses. I was fiercely independent and he kept a respectful distance. I did ask him for advice a couple of times, and he gave it: little gems of wisdom that I followed to solve what seemed to be at the time insurmountable problems.

He died before I could absorb more of his accumulated wisdom, and I regret that I didn’t spend more time with him on business than I did. I asked him several years ago to write up the secrets of his success. His advice seems quaint in today’s terms, but with business ethics at an all-time low, Dad’s old-fashioned advice is still germane.

Run your business with honesty and integrity. I remember all of the times Dad would praise a businessperson he knew, saying, “His word is as good as gold!” I thought: so what? Now I know better: if you really want to know someone’s true character, do business with him or her.

Plan your work and work your plan. Dad was a master at this, including staying in close touch with his banker, which he considered his most important business relationship.

Apply “financial common sense.” This innate quality means you can see the story your numbers are telling you today, and you have the ability to project forward what an investment in machinery or people will yield. It also means managing your business conservatively and meeting your obligations.

Do your own thing and you will be successful. Dad didn’t think it was productive to pay attention to his competitors. Instead, he chose to focus on his own product and do his best, and he encouraged his people to do the same.

Good business is nothing more than good people. He told me more than once to hire good people and let them do their best. At age 19, I was opposed to a proposed change in his office one summer, and Dad listened as I made my case. “But you are missing the point,” he said. “I gave this assignment to ‘Joe’ and he is making the decision; I’m not going to undermine him.” Lesson learned.

Balance business, family and community commitments. My father had strong feelings that business was one part of life; family and community were important, too. There was no honor in building a business if a marriage suffered, or the entrepreneur became selfish and didn’t give back to the community. Dad was admirably present throughout our childhoods – not only to us, but also to our mother, and to the community at large.

He was an unabashed booster of small business, telling me on more than one occasion, “Running your own business is the way that people were intended to live. …Sure, you will have lots of problems such as sales, personnel and finance; but the results of building a successful business greatly outweigh any of the negatives.”

Thanks, Dad, for the lessons you’ve shared. Maybe they will inspire another young entrepreneur in our family. Or it may motivate others who not only want to do their own thing, but recognize how old-fashioned business values still matter -- now more than ever.

-Mary Lilja

Business, the Earth Wizards Way

At Lilja Inc. we are passionate about environmental topics. So imagine our excitement when one of our clients operates a successful business based on a “green” business model.

This month, Todd Nelson at the Star Tribune wrote a profile on Twin Cities-based Earth Wizards – a Lilja client that transforms urban landscapes with a wise, Earth-friendly, and sensible approach.

The company was started in 2000 by Stacy Anderson, who got her start working in her father’s paving company. After a college chemistry class sparked her interest in environmental and water quality issues, Stacy took the paving company one step further and became committed to low-impact development and “greening” of urban spaces.

Now, 10 years later, Stacy and her team of landscape architects, biologists and contractors design projects that effectively balance urban development and water conservation, from permeable pavement to rain gardens and stormwater management systems.

From her start paving the Earth, Stacy is now saving the Earth… one project at a time!

http://www.earthwizards.com/

-- Alex Cook