Moving Forward Through Learning Curves

A lot has happened since the last time we were in your in-box.

First, if you haven’t noticed we have a new name – Canadian Military Family Magazine. It says exactly what we are–a magazine for Canadian military families.

And second, on June 1st we launched the first in-print Canadian Military Family magazine; a dream come true for our team. It has been a long road, but I have come to appreciate the saying – you are right where you are supposed to be at any given moment.

For four years I wanted the magazine to launch and worked towards that goal. Now that it has happened not only are we publishing a magazine every two months, but now we also have a circulation department. I admit I feel like I have jumped out of the pan and into the fire.

Learning curves are what I have come to call these nuances and when you take on a project of this magnitude there seems to be a lot of them. In the beginning they used to cause me stress, headaches, illness, frustration, anger and sometimes crying. But today I am learning to look for a solution rather than get caught up in the emotion.

This week the learning curve is educating myself on the ins and outs of Canada Post’s publication mail system. I won’t bore you with the details, but I will mention I had 10 windows open on my computer the other day as each page I read led to another click to open another window. I also learned the military is not the only government institution that uses acronyms excessively. I had to eventually start printing off pages to retain the information.

It has been two days since I attempted to understand publication mail and today I will give it another go. Experience has taught me that questions are good and asking for help is even better. When I can take the emotion out of the situation the solution can be found faster. So, I will spend the day reading through the material and when the time comes I will be calling my Canada Post rep for help.

For those who have a paid subscription I promise you I am working hard to have the mail preparation figured out by the end of the week so you can receive your first copy of the magazine, a product we are very proud to have put together in less than a month. Yes, less than four weeks to have content, advertising and layout completed.