Filling In

The photo below isn’t me, but the column is still his. I’m just pinch-hitting. Publisher Jeff Irish this issue wasn’t able to devote enough quality time to writing another cogent Publisher’s Column because of his father passing away in February. So this issue you get to read the Editor—twice. 

Unbeknownst to him, I’m using this “Publisher’s Column” to comment on Jeff and his influence on my life.

Our relationship began in 1996. Jeff and I have a mutual friend, Bob Williams, a long-time commercial art instructor at South Central College, who has mentored hundreds of students over his career. One of our graphic designers, J.R. Smith, was a student of Bob’s 25 years ago. In early 1996, Bob invited Jeff and me, and perhaps fifteen others, to attend an organizational meeting of an upstart company trying to ride the Internet wave. Seems strange saying it today, but thirteen years ago the Internet was in diapers and few understood its awesome potential. Bob understood, and was trying to assemble a competent team of freelancers to help his nascent multi-media company piggyback his Internet dreams.

At this organizational meeting, Jeff and I became acquainted. I was in the middle of changing careers from sales to writing. He needed a freelance writer, and I, having recently arrived from Baltimore, needed income. As for writing, I didn’t have much to show to justify being his editor. Until then, I had been published for hire only a dozen times—nothing for more than $300. Yet I had more than a decade of professional sales experience, which he needed as much or more as my writing. To me, at least, Connect Business Magazine and I seemed to be a perfect fit, but the decision wasn’t mine. It was Jeff’s. After two issues, I became his sales manager and editor.

What words can I say to a man who gave me the opportunity to begin living out my dream?

Like most businesspeople, Jeff’s greatest strength often is his great weakness. He has a hands-off management style and trusts his employees will do right. If you need constant supervision, lack self-motivation, or regularly show poor judgment, Concept and Design Inc. (his Nicollet-based graphic design house) and Connect Business Magazine aren’t for you. I believe his management style over the years has worked well because of his hiring self-motivated people who achieve even when he’s away.

He began Connect Business Magazine in March 1994. Like many business startups, he lost a mountain of mullah those first few years and wouldn’t begin tasting profitability until well into year three. Yet he clung to his dream of publishing a business magazine—probably from sheer stubbornness. If not for his taking a risk, and persistence, I very likely wouldn’t be a freelance writer today.

Jeff, thanks for starting your magazine. You certainly changed the course of my life—and would later the lives of hundreds of people featured in Connect Business Magazine.

 

Have a profitable day,

Daniel J .Vance

(for Jeff Irish)