The Madness of March
The month has that imagery for a reason, and it’s not just because of basketball.
It’s incredible if you think about it. Bill Self has led the University of Kansas basketball team to nine consecutive Big 12 Titles. As an MU grad and fan, I cannot say that I am entirely happy about that, but I have to respect the accomplishment. Self has had a substantially new team every one of those years. He has faced a different competitive environment every year, and yet he has managed.
At Ingram’s this March marks the seventeenth year of our ownership. We too have had changing teams and seen shifting competitive environments, and we may have surprised some people by surviving. True, we have not covered ourselves in the kind of glory like Bill Self, but think of this: in eight of those nine years KU finished its season with losses. Success is a given nowhere. Failure is the default position everywhere.
I feel particularly sympathetic this year for our very good friend Jimmy Frantzé and the staff of JJ’s. For years they survived the bizarre inconvenience of operating in the shadow of the woe begotten office complex only to be destroyed in a gas explosion caused by an outside party. Our prayers go to the injured and the family of the deceased. That tragedy should not have ever happened.
In a way, every business person who opens his doors each morning knows that tragedy could lurk around the corner. It is rarely as dramatic as what happened at JJ’s, but there is always the fear of a lawsuit, a fatal change in regulations, the loss of a key employee, a tailspin in the national economy, even back-to-back killer snowstorms.
Given the obstacles, I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate those companies that have succeeded in an extraordinarily difficult environment these last five years by surviving. At Ingram’s we’ve survived by staying true to our mission of serving area businesses and adapting to improve the quality of service we deliver.
Two years ago, we launched a pair of highly ambitious features—50 Kansans You Should Know, and 50 Missourians You Should Know. We wanted to get them front and center at the start of the year to emphasize the importance that we place on knowing the business infrastructure of each state, and we decided to execute both early in the year. It’s part of a business strategy tied to our mid-year planned launch of the Destination Missouri and Destination Kansas publication and portal website platform.
We’ve never shied away from the task of covering business in the Kansas City region, but determining who to include and executing 100 personality profiles for these two features has been quite a task. We’re pleased with the outcomes of these features. With this edition and its 50 Missourians component, we’ve now researched, interviewed and profiled 300 of the most influential, accomplished and interesting people in the two-state region since 2011, and they’ve given us a much deeper, broader understanding of the regional economy.
It’s been quite a ride getting all of that into publication. The Madness of March appears not only to be about tackling new, big, strategic initiatives. It seems like unfinished business from the end of one year, added to new goals and pursuits of the next, coalesces at a time of the year when staffing adjustments must be made while schools are on spring break, while people are taking vacations to make the most of college basketball tournaments or heading to the southern coasts to shake off the cabin fever, and while tax season bears down on us.
Factors like these can make March a difficult business month for a lot of us. But within that difficulty, we find opportunities. How can we marshal existing resources to do this better the next time around? What enhancements can we make to programming to accommodate next year’s demands? Do we need to re-evaluate the tools our folks work with, so they can be more efficient and produce a higher-quality product?
These are not considerations for a monthly business magazine alone. Every business needs to stop occasionally to ponder whether its plan is unfolding on schedule, make mid-course corrections, and move forward. But for many of us who grew up framing business around an annual budgeting year or reporting cycle, that model needs updating. The assessments in this technical, information-overloaded age have to be more accurate, more on-point, and more frequent—more like a continuum, in fact, than a cycle.
None of us have the luxury of adopting plans that extend far into the future, with the expectation that we’ll just follow the set schedule. The speed of business today no longer accommodates that approach. And that’s a good thing. Here at Ingram’s, it’s compels us to be responsive to opportunities as they arise, more willing to let go of the good to embrace the better—with-out making one the enemy of the other.
Throughout this edition, you’ll see indicators that there’s more change in the air than what spring is bringing us. From cover to cover, there are signs that things are looking up, and that business leadership continues to drive us out of a long, cold economic winter. It’s gratifying to see that kind of change, and rewarding to know that we can share those glad tidings with our readers. We doubt that anyone will crown us national champion of anything, but we’re in the game after a very rough business cycle and we’re focused on the future.
Joe Sweeney
Editor-In-Chief & Publisher