Each December, I share my predictions for print alumni magazines in the coming year. To say these past couple years have been more unpredictable than most is an understatement! Still, over the past 12 months, I’ve spent countless hours studying your magazines. I’ve talked to dozens of you about what you’re thinking about and worried […]
Over the past couple years, print magazines have gone through the wringer. Many schools have trimmed pages from their publications, decreased their frequency, or put them on hiatus. (You can see the report I published on this trend here.) But that wasn’t the case for Barry University, a private Catholic institution in Miami. Recently, they […]
Today, I’m excited to share some really cool anniversary issues — including some of the behind-the-scenes stories about their development and what makes them tick. I hope you can adapt some of these ideas for your own anniversary projects, whatever the size. 1. Find a flexible, meaningful concept to organize your storytelling. Last year, I […]
When I was a junior, I applied for an internship at my college’s alumni magazine. I was one of exactly two candidates — and I didn’t get the job. Four years later, I was on the Sibley-winning team for an alumni magazine. It was a pretty good trajectory. For years, I told myself my alma […]
Over the years, I’ve talked a lot about how to craft stories that are valuable for your institution. I’ve shared details on writing stories for your publication on strategic plans, on campaigns, and on new leadership. I’ve talked about some of the ways to make those big-deal profiles — even the ones that you’re dreading — compelling. These stories […]
Without exception, the winners of CASE’s Robert Sibley Magazine of the Year are gorgeous and well written. But this year’s winner was something I’ve never seen before: short! In a tight 28 pages, SF State Magazine is as ambitious as any magazine out there, and it accomplishes as much as many publications twice that length. To find […]
In the spring of 2020, many print alumni mags came to a screeching halt. Colleges cut and combined issues. Some moved their publications exclusively to digital platforms. What was the impact? Recently, I talked to Lindsay Sherman, senior editor and writer at McDaniel College, a small private liberal arts college in Westminster, Md. She and her […]
In a recent newsletter, I linked to a summary from the CASE Alumni Magazine Reader Survey, which shared lots of data from the 192 institutions that had used the tool. Among the numbers that caught my attention: 87 percent of alumni magazines have an online version of the magazine as well as a print magazine. (No word […]
If you’ve read my work for awhile, you know that I love story packaging: quizzes and Q&As, infographics and annotations, timelines and lists. But do you know what storytelling format to use when? Sure, you know that your 100th anniversary package should probably include a timeline. But should that profile be a Q&A, an as-told-to, or a straight […]
Is it time for your publication to hire a sensitivity reader? MAYBE! Today, I want to share what this experience looked like for Shay Moser, managing editor of W. P. Carey magazine, In this interview, she shares what prompted her decision, how she integrated the work into her process, pricing and timing details, and the larger lessons […]