The decision to let a publishing company in Iowa produce Kansas magazine should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever picked up the quarterly oversized leaflet in a doctor’s waiting room. A subscriber list of only 43,000 should tell you that it didn’t do much to promote tourism. Kansas has more to offer than a close-up of a meadowlark and the wavy green terrain in the Flint Hills. The Des Moines publisher that will receive our tax dollars has produced Better Homes & Gardens and Midwest Living magazines; it has experience in producing quality tourist-based publications.
Department of Commerce spokesman Caleb Asher defended the move to the Iowa publisher, explaining it “will help them have a better understanding of Kansas, and promote the state through their magazines.”
The Iowa company’s landing of a Kansas-focused contract demonstrates a valuable lesson to Kansas businesses — exceed at your business, and you’ll find no borders to your market.
Posted by Angie Holladay
5 Comments
BAD business move, that is money GOING AWAY from Kansas, exceed at your business, and you’ll find no borders to your market is a bad lesson to follow.You are not exceeding in your business when your customer base is only 43,000 subscribers.
The grass is no more greener on the other side of the fence.
Foley thread, please.
My question is: What is the Iowa publishing company going to actually do? Will they write, take photographs, sell advertising and print the magazine? Or, perhaps, only print the magazine? A lot of outstanding printing companies exist in and near Kansas (in the Kansas City area).
And that magazine certainly doesn’t achieve the level of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS magazine. Lots of Kansas travel magazines display photographs of the beauty spots of Kansas so the magazine might as well be discontinued.
I suspect the financing of the magazine by the Kansas Department of Commerce comes from the “profits” of the Kansas Lottery, a long-time boondogle of Kansas. The income from the Kansas Lottery should go to Kansas education but this money was detoured to “industrial development” years ago.
Kansas as a growth-state scares me. I am sorely beginning to miss the “amber waves of grain” I used to see on my way home from work… now all I see is subdivisions.
Screw “progress.” What we need is a return to the agricultural base, coupled with a move towards modern farming techniques and sustainability. And a great big bulldozer. Turn those blighted neighborhoods into wheat fields.
We don’t need a magazine, we need a state worthy of a magazine. The more we try and become like every other state, the more we solidify our status as an also-ran. I say we hire the Mennonites in Reno County as our advisers, and let them lead the charge into an era of simple, quiet living.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone in this era of globalization that anyone would outsource anything. American flags carry the “made in china” label from time to time.
It’s WHY that’s the problem. We don’t have anyone to impress. Quite honestly, the reason most people around here are so stodgy they won’t do anything is they think that Wichita is too big for its britches. A bunch of people resistant to growth because with growth comes blight, poverty, noise, traffic, congestion, eminent domain, etc.
We are a status quo city. This magazine deal probably doesn’t have the power to change that.
Postal: Well said.