An exclusive look into the editorial mission of Military & Aerospace Electronics (and a renewal reminder)

By Ernesto Burden, Publisher -

If you read Military & Aerospace Electronics - the print or digital edition of the magazine - you know what a special experience that is, and how distinct an experience it is from reading the website. The rest of the post is going to be an elaboration on the reasons why Military & Aerospace Magazine is so important, and therefore, why you ought not to delay in renewing your (free!) subscription. And while I think what I'm about to say is interesting and worth your consideration, if you're a cut-to-the-chase absolutist, just click here and take a minute to renew your subscription. Trust me, you would have been convinced had you kept reading. Everyone who's interested in a deeper look into the soul of Military & Aerospace Electronics, read on.

Last month, I met with the editors of Military & Aerospace Electronics for a couple of days of deep discussion about where they envisioned taking this magazine in the year to come. We started the meetings with a discussion of the magazine's core values. I'll tell you, no group of editors could have been more passionate about a topic than ours were about this. Here are the guts of what they said:

• Our editorial content serves you, the reader, first
• We will strive to understand you, our readers, well enough so that every piece of content we publish will be useful to you, and we will add value to every piece of content we publish
• In order to achieve these goals, we don't sell editorial space; there's a clear distinction between advertising and editorial content in our magazine (at the end of the day, of course, this fundamental integrity makes our publications more effective vehicles for advertising, as well)

But what does it mean to put the reader first, or to add value to each piece of content we publish? What do these points all mean in terms of real world actions and results? They mean our editors wake up every day thinking about how to:

• Save you time and energy
• Provide data that can help your business run better
• Provide insights that will give you a strategic advantage over competitors
• Provide tools to improve your work and that of your employees

We took those core ideas and used them as lens through which we viewed all of our strategic initiatives in the coming year - including a very important one, the addition of a new editorial position in the Aerospace & Defense Group. In mid-October we hired Skyler Frink, who joined John Keller and Courtney Howard on our editorial team. Skyler is a human face on a big idea - that we're going to keep growing the value of Military & Aerospace Electronics for you - in print, on the web, email newsletters, mobile apps, video blogs, social media and more.

But looking at that cool list of media channels by which we can get you our content brings me back to the initial proposition and the question implicit therein. Why should you hurry to renew your print subscription?

Our website and digital products provide you critical, time-sensitive data anytime and anywhere, and you need that timely information to make quick decisions in an evolving market. But that's a lot of data to synthesize into long-term thinking and strategy.

Our print (and digital edition) magazine provides you that utility: it's the "best of" section of our content, a place to dive deep and think even more deeply. Need to know that you've covered the most essential news of the month, and need that packaged in, as our editor in chief, John Keller says, "a portable wireless product with an intuitive graphic interface"?

That's the print edition, and for all intents and purposes, the digital edition as you can read it on your iPad via standard digital edition download or our custom iPad app.

So there you have it - just as our editors relish saving you time and energy and improving your business with the content they create, I hope I can do the same for you with this reminder. We know you value the content, and we'll help you out by reminding you to renew as needed, it'll save you time if you take a minute to fill out this form on the web. Here's the link: http://www.omeda.com/cgi-win/mae.cgi?login&p=blogrenew

And while you're waiting for your next issue, please feel free to take a minute and drop any of our editors, or me, a note about how we can do even better in our mission to help you do better in yours.

Ernesto Burden is the publisher of Military & Aerospace Electronics and Avionics Intelligence. He can be reached at ernestob@pennwell.com and on Twitter @ aero_ernesto.