Today marks the end of one the greatest journalistic efforts I have known. After more than 12 years, Linda Kennedy this afternoon wrote her final editorial and shipped the final pages of the last issue of CIO Magazine that she will edit.
Much, much more than my own retirement next month, this will significantly affect the great things our company does. I know I ran an article about her from IT Journo a couple of weeks ago, but today I want to add my own thoughts.
As both her husband and the head of the company, I could not be prouder. She led the magazine she founded to more industry awards than any other Australian business publication has ever won, including the only time a publication has been named Business Magazine of the Year in consecutive years by Publishers Australia.
She herself has been named Editor of the Year by two different groups, and she has personally won three awards for her editorial writing. She stopped nominating for awards five years ago because she saw no benefit in winning more and, to be quite honest, she was tired of the way some lesser colleagues envied her achievements.
Until this morning, she was the longest-serving and most successful editor in Australian IT publishing. In our international company, the chairman and owner asked her to head up the global product support center for CIO magazines around the world, which she has done for six years.
I wanted to write a tribute to her in her final issue, but in typical editor fashion she rejected the idea and refused to give me any space in her magazine. "Too much like log-rolling," she said. That's OK. I have this blog.
I am biased, of course. Not only because I am her husband, but because I know how many weekends and nights she has spent reading and researching in order to keep her magazine ahead of the pack. What seems so effortless upon completion is unbelievably hard work, and her involvement in the most minute details of the process meant that the unbelievably hard work was principally hers.
I doubt if any of her colleagues here in Australia even know it, but one of the most remarkable things about Linda's career is that her success has been achieved in relatively few years. She did not enter the workforce until she was in her early 30's, having stayed home to raise Matt and Jay. She didn't start working in media until 1986. Yet by 1990 my predecessor here in Australia had asked her to become editor of PC World magazine, and by 1996 I had asked her to suspend her own successful business and help me out by coming back to launch CIO.
But probably the best tribute I can make is to repeat here one of the many great columns that she wrote, this one in the middle of the great economic downturn following the crash of the dotcom companies. That downturn severely affected all of us in the Information Technology (IT) business, but with her ability to put every problem into perspective and add a large dose of humor, she brought our dramas back to earth. I think you'll see why LK is such a star.
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WISHING AND HOPING AND PRAYING
February 2002
Well, well, well. A new year and the prognosticators are out in force - even in these pages. Me, I'm a bit more cautious; I like a sure bet. So here's my sole 2002 prediction, and it's a stone-cold winner.
Put two people involved in IT (even if their "involvement" is nothing more than each of them owning a single share of Microsoft stock) together in a room and they'll start conjecturing about when technology spending will resume. Put three IT people in a room and they'll debate when spending will start again. Bring four IT people together and they'll start a PC magazine. But that's okay, because anybody stupid enough to start a PC magazine in the current climate, well, you don't want them working for you. (Joke: put five IT people together and they'll hire Gary Jackson as MD.)
Apparently no one, no where, no how has an iota of an idea as to when the dollars will start flowing once more. Personally I think IT spending will start this year at 2.43pm on July 10, but I've already gone on the record saying I'm making a single prediction here and I'm sticking to my guns. However, I do have an idea that may help kick-start things in its own small way.
Would all of the people, in all of the businesses around Sydney kindly get back to me regarding the quotes I've requested for jobs around my house? If all of you do, I think I'd make quite a decent injection of cash into the economy. Then you all could buy some technology (like a phone, for God's sake!) and that would stimulate more spending, and . . . well, you get the picture.
Look, I know that's a pretty piss-poor concept, but I'm desperate so cut me some slack. My husband's ticked off because after a year in our new house we still don't have curtains in the bedroom. He's tired of getting dressed under the sheets in the morning; it wrinkles his suit.
I'd like to use our spa, but we're waiting (with very sore muscles) for the quote to create a platform and benches for it. We need light fixtures in two remaining rooms, but it appears that every "consultant" coming to the house quits within 24 hours (is it that much of a challenge?). I have a vague memory of traipsing around the yard with someone who looked like a gardener (shorts, boots, dirty fingernails - no, on second thought that was one of the lighting consultants) and discussing grandiose plans (my husband has a thing for running water). Right now, I'd happily rent a goat to clean things up, but doubt if I could get a quote.
You know, maybe this isn't such a bad idea after all - if it's happening to me, it must be happening to some of you. There could be millions of unspent dollars out there, just waiting for a quote. Let's come together and lobby the government for a "Quotation Day". The only problem is that we'd all have to stay home, so there'd be no one to talk to regarding when IT spending will pick up.
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