08 July, 2008

Alphabet 2.0






We've come a long way in the last five years, and in a sense we've celebrated our birthday early with the relaunch of 'Public Sector Technology & Management', our original magazine, as 'FutureGov'.

Oliver Bell at Microsoft rather kindly donated the name at the end of last year's Government Technology Summit (which has also been renamed to 'FutureGov Summit'), and then our new bearded Marketing Director, Patrick, developed the magazine's new look, and Captain did the lion's share of the layout. J2 and Chris did a terrific job filling the magazine with advertising (it was our biggest earning issue ever), and then most importantly of all, my editorial team raised their game to create some really rather great content.

Looking at this thing of beauty, and at the lovely people who helped make it happen, it's hard to imagine that it was possible to come so far. 

So now we're finishing work on the new web site to accompany the magazine. The content of the old PSTM.net is being ported over to FutureGov.net - which by the end of this month will be the gold standard of B2B magazine web sites, not just in Asia, but further afield too. 

I think that the print magazine will remain the flagship platform, because our most senior readers still prefer to engage with the printed word. Nonetheless the web site plays an essential role in refreshing and expanding the community; you can't Google (or LiveSearch) the content of our print magazine - but information hungry public sector officials can search for the wealth of unique content that FutureGov presents online. The web also allows us to strengthen and enlarge our communities of public sector officials, as our friends in the public sector introduce their peers to the expanding network.

In a sense the coming relaunch of the web site takes the business full circle. It was actually the original PSTM.net site which kicked things off for the company, building awareness, attracting the first government end-users to contribute their experience and time. All of this from an upstairs flat above my Nana's place in an English seaside town. 

She's gone, the flat has gone, in fact a lot of things have changed since then. But even as the quality of the web site takes a leap forward just like everything else we do here at Alphabet, it's important for me to remember where it all came from, as well as why.