Noon-1 p.m.
Registration

1-1:30
Welcome and Opening Remarks
Join conference chairs Laura Demanski and Lori Oliwenstein to kick off the 2019 Editors Forum.

1:30-2:45
Opening Keynote: Writing Home
As a features writer and essayist, much of Lynell George's writing has focused on fixing a place on the page. She is a native of Los Angeles with deep ancestral roots in New Orleans: two very different "homes;" two cities that live large in the world's imagination—and because of it, are often hard to "get right" on the page. She'll be speaking about the challenges of creating evocative long-form nonfiction that deeply reflects sense of place. It starts with the research and the reporting, but sharpening your other senses prove just as essential.
Lynell George, Journalist and Essayist

Sponsored by: LanePress

2:45-3:15
Networking Break
Visit the Magazine Exchange, chat with exhibitors, and network with your Editors Forum colleagues. Snacks and coffee will be provided.

3:15-4:30
Exploring Tough Challenges
What are the things keeping you up at night? Moderators Tina Hay and Dale Keiger lead an interactive discussion of concerns and obstacles facing magazine editors and explore solutions for how to succeed in this exciting field. Bring your most pressing challenges.
Tina Hay, Editor-at-Large, The Penn Stater Magazine, Pennsylvania State University; and Dale Keiger, Editor Emeritus, Johns Hopkins Magazine, Johns Hopkins University

4:30-4:45
Day One Wrap Up

5:00-6:00
Networking Reception
Join conference speakers and your colleagues to network and celebrate the first day of the Editors Forum. Drinks and hors d'oeuvres will be provided. Don't forget your business cards!

6:00
Conference Adjourns for the Day
Dinner on your own. Enjoy your evening in New Orleans!
Optional dine-arounds in small groups, online sign up required.

8-9 a.m.
Continental Breakfast

9-10:15

Keynote Session: Are Your Blocking Your Own View?
When you broaden the ways diversity is expressed in your publication, you increase the reach and impact of your work. NPR’s Keith Woods will push editors to look beyond the most common notions of diversity to see the deeper, more complex and authentic stories that can engage, expand, and activate your audience. Bring questions and ideas.
Keith Woods, Vice President, Newsroom Training and Diversity, NPR

10:30-11:30
Morning Elective Sessions (choose one; repeated at 11:45 AM)

• But My Boss Won’t Buy It: How to Help Your Ideas Get Heard
  How do you navigate internal politics to create a magazine that is truly for your readers? Join UofT Med's reader-centered revolution and banish the banal, safe content that's dragging your magazine down! In this session, Linda Quattrin, publisher of the Sibley-winning University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine magazine, will offer practical advice on how to get buy-in from your bosses and other stakeholders, and streamline the approvals process so that you can publish articles that people will want to read. 
  Linda Quattrin, Executive Director, Office of Communications, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto

• Five Ways to Make Your Digital Magazine Work Harder For You
  If the digital version of your publication is something you just "deal with" or "get out of the way," you may be missing opportunities for your school. Explore five steps you can take to use the web to get more value out of the stories and images you've created for your print publication, whatever your publication frequency, institution size, or budget. You'll be able to return to your institution and ask fundamental questions that will help you define success—and then create a plan to get you there. Come ready for some myth-busting and lively conversation!
  Alicia Di Rado, Editorial Director, University of Southern California

• Putting the Fun in Fundamental Research
  How can you present academic research in a way that is not only comprehensible but entertaining to lay readers—while staying true to the ideas of the faculty you cover? As editors of publications focused on the humanities and the physical sciences, respectively, we’ve developed some narrative and visual strategies to share. We’ll talk about jargon, subject review, and how far down the rabbit hole to go when explaining a concept.
  Jeanie Chung, Senior Development Writer, and Editor, Tableau; and Maureen Searcy, Science Writer and Editor of Inquiry, University of Chicago

• The Long-Tail Strategy of Magazine Storytelling
  This session demonstrates how TCU Magazine’s editors compiled, reported, and used digital analytics and quantitative content analysis to showcase the impact and relevance of the team’s editorial strategy to connect and engage with its audience. Using a one-year time frame, the presentation breaks down the long-tail strategy behind the magazine’s work in print, on social media, and on its website. While the long-tail and editorial strategies are designed to advance the magazine’s primary mandate of developing and producing compelling stories for the TCU community, both strategies helped to achieve the university’s strategic mission as well as assisted with the growth of the magazine’s financial budget.
  Norma Martin, Senior Director of Editorial Services; Caroline Collier, Assistant Director of Editorial Services; and Trisha Spence, Assistant Director of Editorial Services, Texas Christian University

• Analytics for Good
  Analytics: It's a word that makes some word folks tune out. BUT DON'T. Data from Google analytics, social media, and more can help your content reach more people—if you know how to read it. Learn how these tools are used in the news world to tell what works and when it works, informing editorial decision making about storytelling and impressing bosses.
  Leslie Griffy, Managing Editor; and Matt Morgan, Director of Storytelling, Santa Clara University Magazine

11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m.
Morning Elective Sessions (choose one; repeated from 10:15 AM)

12:45-2
Lunch on your own

2-3
Afternoon Elective Sessions (choose one; repeated at 3:15 p.m.)

• So You Want to Start a Podcast
  It's understandable why everyone seems to be starting a podcast these days: About 73 million Americans listen to podcasts today, up from 32 million in 2013. That sort of audience growth has naturally attracted the attention and interest of college communicators (and their bosses). But where to start? What works? And can we really do this? Hear from two institutions, West Virginia University (Sparked) and Harvard Business School (Skydeck), as they explore the success and challenges of launching a podcast. This presentation offers both practical steps and management advice, while also making the case that magazine editors make for perfect podcasters.
  Diana Mazzella, Editor; Raymond Thompson Jr., Multimedia Producer, West Virginia University; and Dan Morrell, Senior Associate Director, Content Manager, Harvard Business School

• Epic Art Within Your Reach
  Struggling to depict research stories without repeating the same old professor in a lab shot? Not sure how to successfully convey abstract topics with photos? Looking to elevate run-of-the-mill portraits? Reinvent your feature well with concept-driven still life and carefully curated environments. Get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of how scrappy editorial teams pull off staged vignettes and photo illustrations that are thought provoking, inventive, and fun.
  Kat Braz, Senior Director, Creative Communications, Purdue Alumni Association

• Redesigning the Alumni Magazine for A New Generation
  What happens when an alumni magazine no longer appeals to the university's newest graduates—and next generation of donors? How do we incorporate messages designed to involve this generation in alumni and giving initiatives? And how do we make the most of channels for computer-mediated communication to work alongside the traditional print magazine? Learn what demographic changes impact new magazine readers, and how to accommodate for their preferences while not alienating traditional readers. Discover the importance of incorporating outside voices into the magazine, as well as involving nontraditional writers and topics. Finally, find out how one well-established alumni magazine made changes in design, photography, themes, and execution in order to engage alumni in a new way.
  Tonya Oaks Smith, Executive Director – University Communications and Marketing, Louisiana Tech University

• Why Brand Is Not a Four-Letter Word
  The words "brand" and "marketing" shouldn't make alumni magazine editors cringe. Yes, we want to be top writers and designers. Yes, we want to be objective. Yes, we want to be creative. But that doesn't mean that a college's brand should be tossed out the window with every issue. This session shows the ways that brand can work for your magazine—even make it stronger—and we'll take our cues from newsstand publications and the alumni magazines that incorporate the school's brand best (while still being objective, creative writers and designers). We'll also take a look at a Sibley-winning publication, how it lost its identity in striving for edge, and the ways it ultimately failed its readers.
  Maureen Harmon, Denison Magazine & Director of Editorial and Creative Content, Denison University

• The Vexing Front of the Book: Storytelling Beyond the Feature Wall
  The front of the alumni magazine—the pages before the feature wall—presents a complex problem. Graphical factoids? Briefs? Profiles? Whatever the format, it's also where a factual presentation of university news belongs. The result is commonly an inconsistent mess. In general, Duke Magazine focuses on storytelling, so last fall we addressed our wayward front of the book to emphasize that. We distilled the news into a pithy single-page section called DR/TL* ("Didn't Read? Too Long? Well, we did ....") that cleverly summarizes the news. This change freed up pages to run longer, single-spread stories more satisfying to readers, writers, subjects, and designers. And more than a year after adoption, the strategy remains. Find out how we corralled and controlled the front of the book.
  Scott Huler, Senior Writer; and Adrienne Martin, Managing Editor; Duke Magazine, Duke University

3:15-4:15
Afternoon Elective Sessions (choose one; repeated at 2 p.m.)

4:30-5:45
Keynote Session: Going from Design to Direct
Think of a memorable cover or stand-out spread you have seen in a magazine. A closer look at the development of that memorable piece will more than likely tell a story of collaboration and direction. Shaping visual direction is a key role for an art director or creative director, and also one of the things that distinguishes the role from that of a designer. Art directors are part of the story development early on, sometimes shaping the story assignment. They are working with the editor to define content direction and bring the story to life on the page.

We will take a behind-the-scenes journey through the development of award-winning magazines to gain insight on how the visual direction helped define the final publication.
Kelly McMurray, Creative Director, 2 COMMUNIQUĖ

5:45
Conference Adjourns for the Day
Dinner on your own. Enjoy your evening in New Orleans!
Optional dine-arounds in small groups, online sign up required.

8-9 a.m.
Ask the Expert: Breakfast Roundtables
Join optional roundtables for small group discussions during breakfast. Share your biggest challenges and discuss solutions with your peers.

9:15-10:30

Morning Keynote
Faith Under Fire: Covering Religion and Race in Divided Times
Journalist Hannah Allam will discuss the pitfalls and opportunities involved in reporting, in-depth, nuanced stories about race and religion in these divided times, as well as share a list of practical tips journalists can use in approaching thorny topics. The focus of her talk will be on covering Islam (her specialty) but most points also apply to covering broader issues of race religion, and the so-called culture wars. 
Hannah Allam, Journalist

10:45-11:45 

Closing Keynote
Hitting The Road; Yearning For Home: Telling American Stories
Novelist Ralph Ellison wrote that “the search for identity is the American theme.” In the United States, which is practically defined by its geographical breadth and diversity, identity is intimately related to place, whether a place one tries to leave behind, a place one dreams of attaining, or a place to which one longs to return. A profound sense of place helped shape the narratives that brought New Orleans back to life after Hurricane Katrina. Tom Piazza’s keynote talk will focus on some ways in which American stories use a sense of place to summon memory, desire, and identity, with a special emphasis on New Orleans.    
Tom Piazza, Novelist

11:45 a.m.-Noon
Conference Wrap Up

Noon
Conference Adjourns

8:30-11:30 a.m.
Pre-registration is required.

• Magazines 101
  Designed for editors who are looking for a comprehensive overview of alumni and university magazines, this fast-paced and very visual workshop explores the basics of magazine planning, writing, editing, design, and production. You'll see lots of examples of magazines that are doing it right (and wrong), learn where to find inspiration, and leave with solid ideas for making strategic tweaks that will take your magazine to new heights. The session is ideal for those new to magazines, or higher education, or both—but there'll also be plenty of information that will prove useful to those who've been in their role a few years.
  Tina Hay, Editor-at-Large, The Penn Stater Magazine, Pennsylvania State University; and Dale Keiger, Editor Emeritus, Johns Hopkins Magazine, Johns Hopkins University

• An Inside Job: Redesigning—Or Just Refreshing—Your Magazine In House 
  Is your magazine due for a makeover? Are you wondering how to begin, and where the budget will come from? Good news: you can refresh your publication’s design—or overhaul it completely—without the services of a pricey outside firm. The editors and art directors of Caltech and UChicago’s magazines did it, and lived to tell the tale. At Caltech, the result was a brand-new book from trim size to title. UChicago’s refresh was more targeted, revamping some sections and tweaking others while preserving the fundamental look of the magazine. The presenters relay their experiences in detail, offering before—and-after—comparisons, tips for everything from the first brainstorm to the last leadership review, interactive exercises, and answers to all of your questions. Participants are asked to bring recent examples of their publication and a wish list for improving it.
  Laura Demanski, Editor, University of Chicago Magazine, University of Chicago; Guido Mendez, Art Director, University of Chicago; Lori Oliwenstein, Editorial Director, California Institute of Technology; and Jenny K. Somerville,  Art Director, California Institute of Technology; 

• The Magazine Evolution
  A printed magazine remains an invaluable tool in our editorial—and—design arsenal. But a magazine can no longer be solely defined as words and images printed on paper that is sequenced and bound. Our world is evolving to include digital storytelling and video shorts and podcasts; feature documentaries and social media campaigns and live events. No one can do it all, but each medium should be considered if we want to maximize our storytelling efforts. This session draws on work produced by college and university magazines—work produced in all of those platforms previously mentioned—that demonstrate how a magazine operating as a media company can have the greatest impact for its institution. 
  Matt Jennings, Editor, Middlebury Magazine and Editorial Director, Communications, Middlebury College

11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Newcomers Lunch 
This informal lunch is for newcomers to the Editors Forum. Join us to network with other first-time attendees and conference speakers before the Editors Forum begins. 
Pre-registration is required.

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