The Calmm Before the Strom

The “calm” in question is the January edition of Ingram’s Magazine, just another smart, sophisticated issue in a venerable 34-year tradition.

As to the “storm,” hold your hats.  it’s on its way. On the front edge is Destination Missouri, arguably the most ambitious series of economic development publications and integrated websites in the nation.

This exciting project begins next month with the release of Destination Kansas City, the first of seven regional publications in Missouri. Look for--and please consider being a part of--the 2008 edition.

Later in the year we’ll release two statewide publications including The Missouri Economic Development Report and Destination Missouri.

Each of these publications will be delivered to site selection consultants and executives of expansion-oriented companies throughout North America and beyond.

Later this spring, in addition to an all new IngramsOnLine.com, we will launch DestinationMissouri.com.  Now, every city of size throughout Missouri will have its own web site. So will every county and region. So will the seven major districts of the state and the state itself.

Each of these fully integrated web sites will have one strategic focus: to facilitate investment and job creation. To help accomplish this, we have engaged associates in the KC area and across Missouri, who have already written some 3500 feature articles and taken more than 10,000 photographs.

Our sales advisors are working with civic and business leaders in virtually every county, community and region throughout the state. You can meet our sales team in this issue on page 12, opposite a new and regular feature—Sales Moves—by best-selling author and friend of Ingram’s, Jeffrey Gitomer.

And Kansans, hang on too!  A new Destination Kansas project will soon enough generate for you the kind of energy now building in Missouri. 

For all of our expanded efforts, however, our commitment to serving KC area counties and communities remains steadfast. Over the last eleven years, Ingram’s Magazine has organized and hosted more than 100 economic development assemblies throughout the greater Kansas City area. We resume such efforts in 2008 with aggressive plans to showcase area counties and communities with the production of regional focuses and publications.

Of course, too, we remain committed to our key market sectors. To serve them, we will produce three, highly useful, industry quarterly reports: Health and Wellness, Building and Development, and Banking and Financial Services.

Ingram’s will have some new features as well, most notably a monthly Ingram’s Awards program. This will incorporate some of our classic recognition programs like 40 Under Forty and the Corporate Report 100, and it will add several new awards initiatives as well.

These include “Best Companies to Work For,” “Blue Chip Awards,” and “Best Start-Ups” to name a few. Sponsorship and positioning opportunities are available for what will assuredly be some of the best read and most talked-about features in the area.

If this in not enough, 2008 will witness the launch of Ingram’sLifestyle, a special section designed for the sophisticated, business-savvy Ingram’s reader. Ingram’s Lifestyle delivers useful content that caters to the non-business hour interests of our discriminating readers with the same level of sophistication that you’ve become accustomed to in Ingram’s.

It is not that we are particularly clever here at Ingram’s, but we are attentive. You have told us what you would like to see, and we have done our best to oblige you. 

We appreciate your continued support and encourage you, if you have not done so, to engage your organization in our exciting plans.

Joe Sweeney

Editor-In-Chief & Publisher

JSweeney@IngramsOnLine.com