With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/309075
Portrait: adam blasberg Magazines have long encouraged reader feedback, and while some of what you get is of the laudatory variety, much of it is not. And that's not really such a bad thing: criticism is often more valuable than praise. As former Vancouver editor Malcolm Parry once told me, during his long reign at the city magazine he tried to enliven debate with readers by publishing "only excoriat- ing" letters to the editor. We encourage a lively debate here at BCBusiness, as you'll see on our monthly Feedback page (p. 12), but sometimes you have to reach beyond the motivated few who write or call in to get the pulse of your audience. That's why we did a readership survey earlier this year, to which many of you responded. While some of the feedback was amusing ("less of the Fox News/Hollywood-style glitz writing" wrote one reader; "need a new editor" said another—ouch!), most of it was illuminating and instructive. Perhaps the biggest takeaway was an overwhelming desire for more stories from outside the Lower Mainland. You said it in several different ways, but the message was clear: there's a lot going on beyond the 604 that we need to do a better job of covering. Three-quarters of our readership may be in the Lower Mainland, but we must occasionally "take the show on the road," as one reader put it. This month we attempt to do just that, in an expansive Special Report on Northern B.C. that starts on page 36. As part of the effort, I sent myself up to Kitimat to experience firsthand the unprecedented economic boom in the community—the result of both a multi- billion-dollar modernization of the Alcan plant and the imminent prospect of sub- stantial LNG development. It's an amazing story of redemption for a community once on the verge of bankruptcy—and with the province now betting its economic future on LNG, it's one that should resonate with many BCBusiness readers. If it doesn't, of course, I expect to hear from you. C O N T R I B U T O R S Matt O'Grady, Editor-in-Chief mogrady@canadawide.com / @bCbusiness editor'sdesk y Marcie Good chronicles the final days of Heenan Blaikie and profiles the small law firms that have risen from its ashes (p. 62). Her favourite part of the assignment was talking with people who are excited about change, and she came away with the sobering lesson that even the most well-established and prestigious businesses can go down. APRIL's Most PoPuLAR stoRIes on bcbusIness.cA 30 Under 30 An Evening with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Urban Land Institute Kickoff Reception B.C.'s New Tourism Marketing CEOs Bitcoin's Big Break /30Under30 / people / people /tourism-culture /tech-science 10 BCBusiness JUNe 2014 Gary Clement illustrates the new back page Lunch With Lucy column (p. 82). When he's not illustrating for BCBusiness, Gary draws editorial cartoons for the National Post as well as writing and illustrating children's books. Gary is also a painter whose works are shown in the Loop and Parts galleries in Toronto. He finds inspiration in such magazines as The New Yorker, Juxtapoz and Cat Fancier. Northern Exposure N e x T M O N T H Our 25th-anniversary ranking of B.C.'s Top 100 companies. Plus: why online reputations matter so much p10-11-EdsNote_june.indd 10 2014-05-01 1:16 PM