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Discover Mid-America — October 2008
Did Oprah call back?
 |
by Bruce Rodgers
I have to wonder if I belong on Oprah’s couch given my laments lately about the challenges of running Discovery Publications. Oprah is better suited for me to relate our small business journey, more so than Dr. Phil. We don’t have the dysfunctional prerequisite to be picked for a sit-down with Dr. Phil and besides, with him, I would be too mesmerized by his bald head to hear a word he was saying about how I should get my act together. Also, I like it when Oprah, after listening to a guest recount the challenges he or she has overcome, turns to the studio audience and asks, “What do you think?”
Does any of this give you an indication that I don’t have cable?
Last month in this space I gave readers a heads-up about how newsprint prices are eating publishers’ rear ends and speculated that our quarter-fold presentation with Discover Mid-America could be coming to an end. Included was some praise for our “then” printer in Lee’s Summit, MO. Well, how things can change.
About a week out from deadline for this issue, I gave our printer’s rep a friendly “We-all-set-for-the-next-issue?” call. Not a minute into the conversation, he said I soon would get notification that the printing company was ending its commercial printing operations. I was stunned — by more than anything Dr. Phil could say to me. Nothing hammers home the reality of a tough economy like when your printer stops printing.
We had to scramble, going back to a previous printing company. Still in the mix, however, was the future of the quarter-fold. Though plans outlined last month about going to two sections are dead. We’re now considering a magazine format and totally new design, but that’s still being discussed with the DMA cabinet of advisors — Oprah and Dr. Phil notwithstanding.
Outside of my office world, I felt bad about our printing rep losing his job along with some pressmen. Hopefully, they all land on their economic feet.
Thankfully distracting me from all this was the interviewing and editing I did for this month’s cover feature on old oil and gas signs, and other automobile memorabilia. Nothing distracts a male babyboomer from the grind of the workaday world like thoughts of fast, loud, shiny cars and images of shapely women wanting a ride in your convertible.
I spent a good part of one day in Harrisonville and Pleasant Hill, MO talking with antiquers wearing their motor-heads’ hats. I had to mention my first car — all guys do that — a 1957 Ford, and stumbled through my memory banks when recalling engine sizes and various models of American-made cars.
Viewing collections of gas pumps, gas globes, oilcans, old oil company promotional giveaways and signs of every brand and configuration raises the retro excitement factor much more than say ... a new laser printer. Not even close, as in talking about a 1960 Chevy Bel Air with a 283 V8, dual exhausts and a Hurst shifter — my second car, my high school chick magnet, or so I dreamed.
Bruce Rodgers can be contacted at publisher@discoverypub.com.
> Refurnished Thoughts Archive — past columns
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