I am delighted to announce that Tim Carey has become our new editorial director at Enterprise Minnesota.
With more than 29 years as a news reporter and editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Tim is an experienced journalist who understands the value of storytelling, not just reporting facts. On top of that, recent consulting engagements at Wells Fargo and Thompson Reuters have given him insights into business services. He learned much about writing for websites, social media and TV news through his consulting relationship at KARE 11.
Tim emerged as the top candidate from a lengthy and highly competitive list of experienced and talented writers and editors. The fact that this position attracted 221 applicants may surprise many manufacturers, whose chase for qualified (and even unqualified) employees can feel as futile as watching the Twins’ march to the 2021 World Series. We can credit part of our success to how the internet has disrupted the economics and stylistic journalism of traditional print media. The web-based “New Media” (no longer so “new”) prioritizes quick turnaround factoids delivered in ever-shorter editorial nuggets.
Consequently, many web writers today “write” as quickly as they can type, under the light supervision of Mother Grammarly. There is far less demand for writers who care about crafting well-honed sentences and even less need for writers who want to dig into long-form narratives. (You remember: the old-fashioned magazine story.)
Like everyone else, Enterprise Minnesota relies on web-based communications to reach out to manufacturing’s ecosystem, but Enterprise Minnesota® magazine remains our differentiator. Print publishing is not dead, as many “experts” would have you believe. Hardly. Niche publications that delve knowledgeably and deeply into specific topics or communities continue to thrive. And Enterprise Minnesota magazine is among them. Our editorial outlook is to celebrate the kind of lengthy feature profiles that share the challenges and successes of Minnesota’s manufacturers through their personal experiences. I have yet to meet a manufacturer who doesn’t have an interesting background story. (We sometimes have to dig deeper for some than others!)
Enterprise Minnesota magazine’s popularity has grown over the years because, first and foremost, we understand manufacturing and manufacturers. Other media, if they cover manufacturing at all, mainly report surface issues that will appeal to a broad mass audience. You won’t read about how manufacturers are creatively deploying lean or ISO or value-stream mapping — or how they are rethinking overall strategy or really rethinking their efforts to recruit and retain workers. Topics that matter to other manufacturers.
And the ultimate secret sauce for Enterprise Minnesota magazine is that we always focus on manufacturers — people! — whose real-world experiences will enlighten or inspire those in the same industry. Where else will you read, as you did in this magazine, about the Duluth-based entrepreneur who transformed a high school-bred obsession with composite materials into a sophisticated company that this week opens a new 40,000-square-foot facility? Or what about the farmer in tiny Greenbush, Minn., who turned a hobby of making outdoor wood-burning furnaces into a mammoth enterprise that today operates out of a 300,000-square-foot facility? And then there’s the Glencoe-based company that makes equipment for farm, ranch and pet products whose sprawling facility today employs 350 people.
It also helps that our writers frequently rely on the experience and opinions of our own staff to bring color and relevance to many of the stories. And sometimes they produce their personal takes on essential topics, as our Business Growth Consultant Steve Haarstad does in this issue with a timely analysis about how manufacturers need to adapt to customers who vastly prefer digital or self-service transactions.
I should add, too, that it doesn’t hurt that our art director Scott Buchschacher presents it all in such an inviting and accessible graphic design. I’m biased, but I don’t think there is a better-looking regional business magazine anywhere.
All that said, Tim Carey evolved as the best-of-the-best in a field of exceptionally talented writers and editors. His admiration for long-form storytelling combines well with his appreciation of crisply written, relevant copy for the web. We’re grateful he elected to work with us. We all look forward to working with him.
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Featured story in the Fall 2021 issue of Enterprise Minnesota magazine.
