Editor's Notebook

hat excited us last month wasn't Starr or Monica, but the news that we had won a significant award from the bible of the magazine publishing industry, Folio: magazine.

The Editorial Excellence Award went to our World Wide Web publishing vehicle, GovExec.com, one of only two online magazines so honored. In the Folio: competition, which drew 472 entries this year, a panel of industry leaders assessed contestants' success in meeting goals they set for themselves. We defined our mission as covering daily news about the business of the federal government and providing full archives of information for the officials who manage the government's departments and agencies. The judges praised our Web site for "up-to-the-minute information presented with no b.s." and added that this was "perfect for the in-and-out info retrieval that its readers seek." Other winners of this year's Editorial Excellence awards included Time, Entertainment Weekly, Smart Money, and Car and Driver.

When we set out to develop a Web presence in early 1996, we believed we were well positioned to accomplish the mission described above. We could rely, of course, on the product of our own talented staff of reporters and editors, whose work focuses on trends of interest to our audience of 60,000 federal managers. We could also draw from other high-quality publications of our parent company, National Journal Group Inc., including the weekly National Journal, with its authoritative analysis of political and policy developments, and CongressDaily, a twice-a-day newsletter on activities of the legislative branch.

We took a gamble by hiring a full-time staff of two for GovExec.com, and assigning a top editor, Tom Shoop, to manage the work. Brian Friel and Alison Maxwell spend many of their waking hours reporting and writing on developments of interest to our audience, and organizing the site so that it will serve a range of purposes for our audience. Thus GovExec.com provides not only a daily news briefing with four to five of our own stories and links to other federal news, but also information on career opportunities, the performance of the Thrift Savings Plan, and a growing archive of articles, now numbering about 3,000, on such subjects as technology, pay, working conditions, outsourcing, privatization and management trends.

As our site has gained popularity among managers, so too has it attracted more advertising from leading suppliers to the federal market. American Management Systems, Fore Systems, IBM, Leads Corp., Nortel, PC DOCS Inc., PictureTel, Spacesaver Corp., and SPSS Inc. are currently running banner ads that give readers the opportunity, with a single click, to learn about the range of services these companies can provide. The commercial success of the site ensures its viability and its promise of even better service in the future.

The print product you hold in your hand remains, of course, the core of our business. And we are always on the lookout for more readers like you, to keep our circulation up. You know that our advertising-supported magazine comes free of charge, but many of your co-workers do not. Would you take a moment to tell a colleague? And you can also say that it's easier than ever to subscribe, since we have devised an electronic subscription (and renewal) form that can be filled out in just a minute or two. That's another service we are providing on the Web at www.govexec.com/subscribe.