Mr. Magazine

“Magazines to me are not the thing that people carry around in their purse or under their arm as much as they used to, but the magazine to me is a quieter activity; it’s a less hectic information experience. It’s not like going through your Twitter feed or your Instagram feed where things are coming at you from every space. It’s a highly-curated space in time that you have for yourself. Before I even came here, I thought to myself, what is the BH&G reader doing and how is he or she looking at the magazine and I think it’s like a me-time moment where he or she has a moment during the day when things are quiet, kids are in bed or there’s a quiet space in the day and she’s going to sit for a while and look through her favorite magazine. We want to be that magazine.” Stephen Orr

Better Homes and Gardens was born in 1922 and in seven years will celebrate its 100th birthday. It is the largest paid consumer magazine in the country with 7.6 million in circulation (mainly subs) and 40 million readers.

Commanding a ship that large is a huge responsibility, but Stephen Orr is the man to do it. Combining both his art and editorial skills; he could easily be just what the doctor prescribed for the magazine as it moves into its next century. Stephen was Executive Editor of Condé Nast Traveler, and has more than 25 years of experience in content creation and design leadership across many of the media industry’s most recognizable brands.

Throughout his career, he has been very successful at developing brands across multiple channels. Prior to Condé Nast Traveler, Stephen was a VP/Editorial Director for the Martha Stewart Living brand, where he created multi-channel content with a special focus on style, food, and gardening as well as licensed product development. He has also held senior content creation leadership positions at multi-platform brands such as House & Garden, Domino, Gourmet, Bon Appétit, and Epicurious. Early in his career he held senior design positions at The New York Times Magazine, W, and WWD. He is a man both experienced and passionate about the world of magazines.

I spoke with Stephen recently and we talked about this passion of his for magazines and for people. In fact, he believes wholeheartedly that magazines are people and Mr. Magazine™ would have to agree with him on that. He loves the opinions and ideas of his staff and thrives on their energy and creative talent, which he feels overflows into the brand and makes it even more content-engaging and reflective of what BH&G’s audience expects from their favorite magazine.

With a few new surprises coming up down the pike from Stephen’s own creative energy and talent, the largest consumer magazine in the country can sail confidently into its 100-year-old berth, knowing that around the corner is the beginning of the next centennial which promises to be even better than the first.
And now without further ado, the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Better Homes and Garden’s new Editor-In-Chief, Stephen Orr.

But first, the sound-bites:

On his feelings when he was offered the job of editor-in-chief at Better Homes and Gardens: Certainly, it was an honor. I had been working in magazines for 25+ years and I had worked at a lot of different titles, but I had never worked at Meredith before. Meredith is a very disciplined company, which I really respect. They did a lot of interviews; I met a lot of different people during the process. It was a long interview process and I was really happy when I finally got the offer.

On whether the thought ever crossed his mind that he was moving from “class” to “mass” by joining a title that had 40 million in readership from specialized titles that had a more targeted audience: I think some of my other experiences that I’ve had helped with that. For instance, I’d say two places in particular; Domino Magazine, even though that was a Condè Nast Magazine and had a very elevated level of shopping. The original idea of Domino, and I was there in the early days until it shuttered, was to bring an accessibility to design and a feeling of how to combine kind of cheap-and-cheerful and this mix of high and low, and also point out to people when they should spend a little extra money on something, while giving them tips on ways to save money at the same time. And I also think Martha Stewart where I once worked was like that. Martha is the empress of bringing a level of knowledge and visual sense to a mass market audience. That’s what Martha has done so well for the American consumer.

On his multifaceted career as a journalist/designer/editor and how he plans to bring those personas into play at Better Homes and Gardens: I think one of my strengths is, if I can say it about myself; I’m half visual and I’m half words. For half of my career I was an art director and a graphic designer and then the other half so far has been more of an editor with words and a writer. So, I definitely have those two sides of my brain and I think a magazine like Better Homes and Gardens, and in fact most magazines these days, unless you’re speaking of The New Yorker or something like that, are visually-driven. We only have the readers’ attention for such a brief span of time, so I think that my career as an art director does allow me to see things very visually.

On the February issue, which will be the first totally original issue under his guidance, and the changes readers can expect: We’ve been feeding new things into the magazine; it’s been sort of a development over time. I’ve been here since July, so when I arrived they already had October’s issue basically done; I just did a few tweaks and changes, but not much; we didn’t shoot anything new. The only thing new there was my editor’s letter and in it I wanted to make a statement, so my editor’s letters will all be shot with an iPhone; the first one was a bit of a mix, but eventually they all will be shot with an iPhone. I wanted to immediately telegraph to people that these are new days here at Better Homes and Gardens; we are a print magazine, but we’re also BHG.com and we have our social media channels and I interact with our readers over all of those different ways, so I’m not a hidden editor-in-chief; I want to be connected with our readers, especially through our social media.

On whether he heard any media or reader feedback about the fact that once again a man was editor of Better Homes and Gardens, mainly a women’s magazine: I haven’t heard anything about the fact that here’s a man doing this job at all. I think women are very accepting of men in roles where we talk to them about different things. I don’t know if women care as much whether it’s a man or a woman telling them about home décor or cooking or flower arranging, as long as people seem to know what they’re talking about.

On how important the printed Better Homes and Gardens is to him: It’s all of equal importance. We talk about Omni-channel consumers, and that’s something we were discussing in a recent presentation. We have about 50 million readers, if you look at the whole audience, print and digital. It’s a gigantic number of people, and we want to appeal to them on whatever platform they’re on. And this is the way it is today with all of us; we consume information in the way that we find most convenient for us. So, magazines to me are not the thing that people carry around in their purse or under their arm as much as they used to, but the magazine to me is a quieter activity; it’s a less hectic information experience. It’s not like going through your Twitter feed or your Instagram feed where things are coming at you from every space.

On if we are talking seven years from now, on the 100th anniversary of the magazine, will the readers say it’s still they’re same Better Homes and Gardens or something totally different: No, I want them to say it’s still theirs. I was saying in a meeting the other day; we get letters where people get upset if we give them a story that doesn’t particularly pertain to them; I mean, they do feel like it’s their magazine, but it’s hard with that many readers to hit a chord with every single person. And so I do hope the readers will realize that sometimes there might be a story that’s more kid-focused and they might be empty-nesters, so they might just glance at it and keep moving. But we’re trying to offer a wide range of stories so that the majority of every issue is appealing to our established audience as well as a new audience.

On the biggest challenge that he’s faced since becoming editor-in-chief of Better Homes and Gardens and how he overcame it: There have been more perceptual challenges, I think. Maybe perceived challenges would be a better way to describe it, ones that I thought I might have. I felt like maybe I would encounter people who were set in their ways and resistant to new ideas or change, and I have to say that what I have encountered has been the exact opposite of that perception. I had never been to Iowa before in my life and coming here I found that people are categorically open to new ideas and change. And they’re eager for something new.

On anything else he’d like to add: People might have a hard time understanding my living in Des Moines after living in New York City for so long, and people might have a hard time understanding, like you said, my coming from Condè Nast and now working at a gigantic, more mass general interest magazine, but I think what’s most exciting about working in media is it never stops changing. And I always tell people if you don’t like change, don’t work in media. (Laughs)

On what motivates him to get out of bed in the mornings: What I like is when I come to the office in the mornings, the office is humming and people are going at full-tilt. I tend to come in slightly later than they do and stay later. That gives me a nice time at the end of the day to catch up on emails and read proofs and do the more concentrated work, because with a large staff like this we do a lot of meetings during the day, so the schedule is working great for me.

On what keeps him up at night: I don’t have stress like I’ve had with other jobs. What I have isn’t stress. I guess with the responsibility of this title, I do think about the people here a lot. I’m a very people-focused editor-in-chief, so I would say that I spend time not worrying or stressing, but I spend time thinking about the people I work with and I spend time thinking about how they can be the best at their jobs.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ conversation with Stephen Orr, Editor-In-Chief, Better Homes and Gardens Magazine.

Samir Husni: Congratulations on being named editor-in-chief of the largest paid consumer magazine in the country.

Stephen Orr: Thank you.

Samir Husni: When you received the offer to take over at the helm of the mother of all consumer magazines, Better Homes and Gardens; what were your feelings at the time?

Stephen Orr: Certainly, it was an honor. I had been working in magazines for 25+ years and I had worked at a lot of different titles, but I had never worked at Meredith before. Meredith is a very disciplined company, which I really respect. They did a lot of interviews; I met a lot of different people during the process. It was a long interview process and I was really happy when I finally got the offer.

It was a real honor because I knew they didn’t take this job lightly. Their management and the executive team here know that this is their flagship brand, so they didn’t take anything about this job lightly.

Samir Husni: From all of these other titles that you’d been working with which were technically very specialized magazines to Better Homes and Gardens which has a big, mass 40 million-audience readership; did you at any given moment throughout that long interview process feel like you were moving from “class” to “mass?”

Stephen Orr: I think some of my other experiences that I’ve had helped with that. For instance, I’d say two places in particular; Domino Magazine, even though that was a Condè Nast magazine and had a very elevated level of shopping.

The original idea of Domino, and I was there in the early days until it shuttered, was to bring an accessibility to design and a feeling of how to combine kind of cheap-and-cheerful and this mix of high and low, and also point out to people when they should spend a little extra money on something, while giving them tips on ways to save money at the same time. So, Domino Magazine was very much like that.

And I also think Martha Stewart where I once worked was like that. Martha is the empress of bringing a level of knowledge and visual sense to a mass market audience. That’s what Martha has done so well for the American consumer. And she educates people.

When I think of working at Domino and Martha Stewart Living; I think I learned a lot of those lessons here too, because we’re always talking to a huge range of people.

Samir Husni: From following your career and looking at what you’ve done; you yourself are a multiplatform journalist/designer/editor. You’ve worked in design and editing positions. How are you going to bring this multifaceted Stephen Orr to Better Homes and Gardens?

Stephen Orr: That’s a nice question. I work in both Des Moines and New York City, but primarily in Des Moines, and we have a very talented staff of people here. And they’ve been making a beautiful magazine for years. So, when I came in, I didn’t say: out with the old and in with the new. I wanted to build on what we had that’s really great and make it even better.

I think one of my strengths is, if I can say it about myself; I’m half visual and I’m half words. For half of my career I was an art director and a graphic designer and then the other half so far has been more of an editor with words and a writer. So, I definitely have those two sides of my brain and I think a magazine like Better Homes and Gardens, and in fact most magazines these days, unless you’re speaking of The New Yorker or something like that, are visually-driven. We only have the readers’ attention for such a brief span of time, so I think that my career as an art director does allow me to see things very visually.

We talk about things very visually and for me it’s how do we create engagement with the reader in the print page, but also how do we engage our reader at BHG.com and also our social media channels. All of those things have equal importance to me and with our staff and our editors we’re constantly talking about social media and how to get the word out about BHG and how to attract new readers, while we have our loyal audience base; we want to keep them really happy as well. That, to me, is the real challenge.

Samir Husni: It’s my understanding that February will be the first completely original issue under your leadership. Can you tell me a little about the changes you’ll be unveiling with that issue?

Stephen Orr: We’ve been feeding new things into the magazine; it’s been sort of a development over time. I’ve been here since July, so when I arrived they already had October’s issue basically done; I just did a few tweaks and changes, but not much; we didn’t shoot anything new.

The only thing new there was my editor’s letter and in it I wanted to make a statement, so my editor’s letters will all be shot with an iPhone; the first one was a bit of a mix, but eventually they all will be shot with an iPhone. I wanted to immediately telegraph to people that these are new days here at Better Homes and Gardens; we are a print magazine, but we’re also BHG.com and we have our social media channels and I interact with our readers over all of those different ways, so I’m not a hidden editor-in-chief; I want to be connected with our readers, especially through our social media.

One of our art director’s takes her iPhone and shoots my editor’s letter and then we pick up shots from either my Instagram or our staff’s Instagram’s. If it’s a food issue, we’ll have me with Nancy Hopkins, our food editor, and then we’ll have some shots from her Instagram and then another food editor’s Instagram.

People have had a very good response to it, even the editor’s letter. I think they find it very personable and they like how casual it is; it doesn’t feel staged like some do, which is why I we did it that way; I felt kind of uncomfortable just having a shot of me in a suit and tie, all posed and everything. I wanted it to show how as editors we lead the life. So for us, that was one of the first things that changed.

And then we’ve kind of loosened things up. One of the things that we’re trying to do at Better Homes and Gardens is try to loosen up the presentation a little bit, with more color and people. We’re trying to show people kind of an elevated version of real life and the best life can be in an accessible version.

And then we’re also trying to weave together some other themes: acknowledging that women have jobs at the same time that they’re trying to make a nice home that people work, but also have a home life. We’re trying to talk to new types of readers; we’re looking at young entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of all ages and home-based businesses.

We’re also looking at trying to show a new type of BHG reader, but at the same time one of the things that’s very important to me is to highlight Better Homes and Gardens’ heritage because I believe if you run away from what you are; you’re denying what’s been accomplished over these almost 100 years, and the authority that Better Homes and Gardens has.

For instance, we’re doing a story on our own test kitchen to show people that we have all of these amazing resources here that sometimes get hidden just because they’ve been around the magazine for so long. Sometimes people forget how special they are because they’ve just always been there. But there are treasures here. We have an amazing test garden and test kitchen full of amazingly knowledgeable people and I want to bring that knowledge into the pages.

Samir Husni: I don’t know if you know this, but my magazine program here at the University of Mississippi was started by Meredith and Better Homes and Gardens.

Stephen Orr: That’s amazing. Meredith has so many deep community roots in so many places and that’s why it’s such a wonderful company. I’ve worked at Condè Nast primarily; I’ve also worked at The New York Times and other places, but you know, I love the culture of Meredith.

There are a lot of values at Meredith that I think we’re trying to show in the pages of Better Homes and Gardens. It’s has a very democratic appeal to a wide range of people and I think I understand that because I’ve lived in New York before being in Des Moines and New York now. I lived in New York for nearly 30 years, but before that I was raised in West Texas, so I really understand how it is to be brought up in the middle of the country and the values there.

Samir Husni: I love your ideas about the test gardens and test kitchen; I’ve seen them all and they’re amazing. I’ve often thought they should be written about.

Stephen Orr: Yes, there’s so much to do with it. We’re going to have regular features on the test kitchen and test gardens, whether they’re specific lessons or other things. Before I came, I don’t know how often there was a regular meeting, but now I have regular meetings with our head test gardener and she comes and tells us seasonally what’s interesting and she’s working on what plants she’s obsessed with. She’s on the front lines of gardening, doing her thing there. I planted 1,000 bulbs this weekend myself, but I don’t have the time to garden every day with my job, as much as I’d like to.

Samir Husni: When I received the note that you’d been appointed editor-in-chief of Better Homes and Gardens, I was taken back to almost 30 years ago when David Jordan was editor-in-chief of the magazine. Was there any response from the media or from readers about the fact that a man was now editor-in-chief of mainly a women’s magazine? When the first woman was hired as editor-in-chief, there were a lot of stories reflecting the sentiment that finally women’s magazines were getting women editors.

Stephen Orr: I haven’t heard anything about the fact that here’s a man doing this job at all. I think women are very accepting of men in roles where we talk to them about different things. I don’t know if women care as much whether it’s a man or a woman telling them about home décor or cooking or flower arranging, as long as people seem to know what they’re talking about.

Obviously, I’m not the only authority here, so for me when it comes to family and what a woman really thinks about something, I never tell women what they think, I always ask people who work with me, my executive editor or one of my other editors. I’ll ask then what do they think about something as a mom with young kids; what do you think we should do. From a health standpoint, Amy Brightfield will tell me what she does as a mom.

We have so many great experts here and I’m a very collaborative non-hierarchical kind of editor-in-chief, so we have a lot of talks and meetings. We’re all getting to know each other and I just want the communication to flow. That’s where I think the reader will feel that this is a team effort; it really is not just about me. It’s a team effort with people who have all kinds of expertise.

Samir Husni: You’ve emphasized the fact that you have print, BHG.com and all of your social media channels; how are you going to strike this balance between the 7.6 million subscriber/newsstand-based audiences and the website? How important is the printed Better Homes and Gardens to you?

Stephen Orr: It’s all of equal importance. We talk about Omni-channel consumers, and that’s something we were discussing in a recent presentation. We have about 50 million readers, if you look at the whole audience, print and digital. It’s a gigantic number of people, and we want to appeal to them on whatever platform they’re on. And this is the way it is today with all of us; we consume information in the way that we find most convenient for us.

Increasingly for people, it’s on their phones. We all go everywhere and we see people on their phones all of the time. You don’t see people flipping through magazines that much; you see people on their phones.

So, magazines to me are not the thing that people carry around in their purse or under their arm as much as they used to, but the magazine to me is a quieter activity; it’s a less hectic information experience. It’s not like going through your Twitter feed or your Instagram feed where things are coming at you from every space. It’s a highly-curated space in time that you have for yourself. Before I even came here, I thought to myself, what is the BHG reader doing and how is he or she looking at the magazine and I think it’s like a me-time moment where he or she has a moment during the day when things are quiet, kids are in bed or there’s a quiet space in the day and she’s going to sit for a while and look through her favorite magazine. We want to be that magazine.

It’s interesting that we get a lot of letters that say that and the other day we actually got a wonderful phone call from a woman, I believe in Tennessee, and she just talked about that she’d been going through some family trouble, health problems with relatives or something, she didn’t go into details, but she just left us a long phone message that was forwarded to me. She said that she loved Better Homes and Gardens and she was so excited by the new direction and she wanted to call and tell me that, because she’d walked in the door from a challenging week and she sat down with her magazine and she said it was almost like a healing moment for her, to sit there and look at all the beautiful images and flip through it at her own pace.

And that’s what I think we offer as a printed magazine. But we also offer people engagement on social media, which we’re trying to continually improve, and also quick and easy solutions and tips that they might encounter through their Facebook feeds and on BHG.com and videos. We all live in this multifaceted information world and I don’t think one aspect is better than another. I’m grateful that the printed page is still there for people because I do think that it offers them a respite during the day.

Samir Husni: If I’m talking with you seven years from now and you’re launching the Centennial edition, the 100th anniversary issue of Better Homes and Gardens; do you think the readers who have been with the magazine for 20 or 30 years and the new readers too, will say wow, it’s still my same Better Homes and Gardens or they’ll see a drastically different magazine?

Stephen Orr: No, I want them to say it’s still theirs. I was saying in a meeting the other day; we get letters where people get upset if we give them a story that doesn’t particularly pertain to them; I mean, they do feel like it’s their magazine, but it’s hard with that many readers to hit a chord with every single person. And so I do hope the readers will realize that sometimes there might be a story that’s more kid-focused and they might be empty-nesters, so they might just glance at it and keep moving.

But we’re trying to offer a wide range of stories so that the majority of every issue is appealing to our established audience as well as a new audience. I’ve worked at magazines before where they kind of discounted their existing audience and were rushing after a new audience and I didn’t want to do that here. I am very conscious of the fact that I want our magazine to appeal to people of all ages, of multi-generations; I’m a GNX, but barely. I’m on the cusp of Baby-Boomer.

I’m not a millennial at all, but I have the millennial mindset; I really follow what millennials are doing. I’m the type of person who is on their phone and Instagram all of the time. I read my news off of Twitter a lot, both in-depth news and looking through to primary news sources. I also get inspiration from Twitter and people who are doing interesting things. I get a lot of inspiration from Pinterest and Instagram every day. And so that’s how I get my information, but also when one of my favorite magazines comes through the door, I stop and I read that magazine.

I feel like I exist at the point where people that are older than me are less computer native in many ways and people younger than me are more computer native and information-technology native. And I feel very much at my age and my experience level, and how I started working with computers in college, I feel I’m very much a good representative of both groups. I’m neither too much of one nor not enough of the other. And I want to try and be that divining rod or whatever phrase might be used, to try and speak to all of the different audiences that we have.

And I feel like people in this day and age, especially marketers, put people into these groups and talk about how different we all are; I tend to focus more on how similar we are.

Samir Husni: I think your role at your age; you’re the two-lane bridge that connects both sides of the spectrum. I’m a little bit older than you and having grown up during the print platform and having adapted to the digital platform; to me that’s more powerful than just being a digital native or a print native.

Stephen Orr: I’m very happy with my position. I’m happy that I love print and I love books and magazines and I love the visual appeal of those things and I also love digital. I love being online.

But like most people and maybe younger people don’t feel this way, I actually look for ways to not be online. So a magazine is a way for me not to have to be connected. I don’t have to be connected all of the time; I’m the kind of person who might say, OK – I’m putting my phone in the drawer and I’m going outside. And that’s why I love gardening, because I can go outside and if I bring my phone with me, it’s too expensive to replace should I drop it…(Laughs)

Samir Husni: What has been the biggest challenge that you’ve had to face since you became editor-in-chief of Better Homes and Gardens and how did you overcome it?

Stephen Orr: There have been more perceptual challenges, I think. Maybe perceived challenges would be a better way to describe it, ones that I thought I might have. I felt like maybe I would encounter people who were set in their ways and resistant to new ideas or change, and I have to say that what I have encountered has been the exact opposite of that perception.

I had never been to Iowa before in my life and coming here I found that people are categorically open to new ideas and change. And they’re eager for something new. So, the wide range of people that I’m working with here on a day-to-day basis are open to change and everybody is willing to try something new; people are quick to get onboard.

They really know what they’re about and I value their expertise, because for me I don’t want to come in as a change agent and not listen to the people who have been doing it for a long time. I always want to hear: why did we do it that way and when did we last change it and what was the reaction? I don’t just blithely discard the past. For me it’s a combination of the past and the future. I’m a dual person; I love both.

But I don’t think I’ve encountered any enormous challenges. The things that I wondered might be challenges turned out not to be problems. The Meredith Corporation has been very supportive. We had a presentation a couple of weeks ago where they saw some of the ideas for some of the changes and they couldn’t have been happier and more supportive.

Samir Husni: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Stephen Orr: People might have a hard time understanding my living in Des Moines after living in New York City for so long, and people might have a hard time understanding, like you said, my coming from Condè Nast and now working at a gigantic, more mass general interest magazine, but I think what’s most exciting about working in media is it never stops changing. And I always tell people if you don’t like change, don’t work in media. (Laughs)

Our world, because of technology and everything that’s happening, everything changes all of the time. And I think as editors our job is to be nimble. People overuse that word, but it’s such a nice word to think about because it implies that you’re able to skate over the surface and keep nimbly moving no matter what to make it all work. And I think that’s’ what’s exciting about what we’re doing in this day and age with media. The changes, even though they’re challenges, are what offer the most excitement.

Samir Husni: What motivates you to get out of bed in the mornings, especially now that you’re out of the City and in the Midwest? Does farm life get you out of bed any earlier these days? (Laughs)

Stephen Orr: (Laughs too) It does. They work on an earlier schedule and that took some getting used to. But there’s no commute here. In my last job, my commute was an hour. And that was killing me, an hour each way. Now my commute is five minutes, so I don’t have much to complain about.

What I like is when I come to the office in the mornings, the office is humming and people are going at full-tilt. I tend to come in slightly later than they do and stay later. That gives me a nice time at the end of the day to catch up on emails and read proofs and do the more concentrated work, because with a large staff like this we do a lot of meetings during the day, so the schedule is working great for me.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Stephen Orr: I don’t have stress like I’ve had with other jobs. What I have isn’t stress. I guess with the responsibility of this title, I do think about the people here a lot. I’m a very people-focused editor-in-chief, so I would say that I spend time not worrying or stressing, but I spend time thinking about the people I work with and I spend time thinking about how they can be the best at their jobs.

So, that’s basically it. I’m just thinking about the people I work with a lot. I hope that doesn’t sound insincere, but that’s what I believe. I believe magazines are people and so for me all of the people that we work with here at Better Homes and Gardens are all friends, including digital and social media and our special issues. It’s thinking about everybody’s strengths and how to get everybody super-excited about making this product over all its platforms.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

“I think it functions holistically. When we think about our health holistically, we don’t just say if we run we’ll be healthy. Or I eat right, so therefore I don’t have to exercise. They all have to work together, but I think we are stronger for figuring out how they can all work together in meaningful ways and support each other. We get amazing cover subjects on the cover of our magazine. And there is no better poster for the brand than the magazine and that’s why we put so much time, attention, effort, thought and creativity into making these covers. And then these covers go everywhere. They’re on the homepage of Yahoo; they’re being spread socially through all of Ronda Rousey’s fan pages, and my sister, my best friend; everyone is a part of this.” Joyce Chang (On what she believes is the cornerstone of the SELF brand)

SELF Magazine has been the authority on health, wellness, beauty and style for women for over thirty years, exemplifying a spirit and energy that still permeates its pages today. The magazine went through a reinvention about a year ago to reinvigorate the brand under the watchful eye of its new editor-in-chief, Joyce Chang. In fact, the first issue of SELF was one of my early first editions added to my American collection of first editions right after arriving in the United States on September 1, 1978. The first issue of SELF magazine (above left) arrived on January 1979, four months after my arrival to the States.

Joyce served as executive editor for Cosmopolitan prior to joining SELF in May 2014. In just one year, she has not only rebranded the magazine and website, but has also used her position to advocate for women’s health and rights at large. She is a woman who knows what direction her brand is heading and how to navigate through any choppy waters she might encounter along the way. The positivity and energetic spirit that lives within the magazine is shared by its new leader. The two have come home to each other. .

With Joyce’s vision, SELF has become a more vibrant and beautiful brand that feels like a breath of fresh air on a hot summer’s day. She set out to create a motivational women’s guide to life and she succeeded brilliantly. The DNA of SELF remains intact, but the clean touches and vitality Joyce brought to the magazine is vivid.

I visited with Joyce recently at the magazine’s headquarters at 1 World Trade Center in New York City, and we talked about SELF’s past, present and future. It was an invigorating conversation about a legacy brand that has been reborn into a more dynamic reality and is thriving with the changes.

So, enjoy the passion and spirit of SELF’s new Editor-In-Chief, Joyce Chang, as you read the Mr. Magazine™ interview and get to know a woman who’s vision is as clear and sharp as the view from her office window.

But first, the sound-bites:

On the changes SELF Magazine has seen since its early 1980s inception and whether she adheres to the original DNA of the magazine or steers the magazine in a completely different direction: You know it’s funny; I was looking through some old issues of the magazine not too long ago and I believe we were looking at one from 1983. I flipped to the middle of the book and there was a column that was called “Self-Made.” And it was about a self-made reader. And one of our cornerstones in this “new” SELF is the idea of the self-made woman. And reading through the Self-Made column of this readers; she was entrepreneurial; she was trying to balance all the many aspects of her life, but was also very focused on the things that mattered to her, which were work, business and her family; the people that she loved, and also taking care of herself. That is still very much who we are today.

On whether the large, bold typography and very vocal covers are insisting that readers have to do something about themselves and voicing that magazine message firmly: No, I don’t think that’s really our message, to do something about themselves. (Laughs) Rather, it’s do something for yourself. And I really don’t think our covers scream, I actually think our covers are really clear and really strong, that’s why we use the typography that we use. That’s why our cover subjects look the way they do. And actually, I feel like the newsstand is constantly screaming at you. Every cover has a thousand lines and a thousand gimmicks. There are bursts and bubbles and tons of color and of course, hair everywhere.

On if she struck the magazine with a magic wand and a living, breathing human being appeared from the pages, who she thinks it would be: I think the magazine reflects many women. It reflects many of the women that I know. It reflects pretty much every single woman that I interact with. They each have an element of SELF within them. And yes; it reflects my own thoughts as well. As I said, we are part of this generation of really motivated women who want the most out of their life. They want to make an impact on the world; they want to have careers that have impact, and they want to have really meaningful relationships. And these are all of the goals that I and my friends have. And these are the goals that so many women share with me when I go out and meet them.

On the major stumbling block she had to face: We changed everything. We changed offices, just everything. There’s nothing that’s the same except for the name, even the logo is different. And being evolved to taking something that’s such a heritage brand, that has a long history as you said; people have such good feelings and such historical feelings about SELF, and just feeling confident in my vision of this is where it’s supposed to go was challenging.

On her most pleasant moment: I love this job. And I love this brand and I love this magazine. Every day I look out at the view from my office window and I think how amazing this all is. What a wonderful, inspiring place to be, to think about a brand that is about inspiration and motivation like SELF is. That’s all really satisfying. Every time I see one of our covers come together I feel really happy and really satisfied. This Ronda (Ronda Rousey) cover is everywhere and that’s really satisfying to me. When I go to the airport and I see our cover stand out on the newsstand, that’s really rewarding and satisfying to me.

On whether she thinks the role of an editor has changed since the days before the dawn of the digital age: I don’t know if it’s because of the dawn of the digital age or not, but I do think the role of editor-in-chief has changed. It’s gotten bigger and I feel like the world has gotten bigger. And we have much larger appetites and we all want more out of our products. So, as the leader of a brand you have to come up with that “more” and you have to always be thinking about what else you can do.

On whether she thinks the magazine might be catching up to its mother/daughter dynamic when it comes to audience since teaming up with her mother for a feature in her first issue of the magazine: Sure, I think it’s very possible. I think SELF is an ageless link; the things that we talk about at SELF are ageless propositions. We’re talking about taking care of you; it’s a universal message.

On which platform she believes is the cornerstone of the brand: I think it functions holistically. When we think about our health holistically, we don’t just say if we run we’ll be healthy. Or I eat right, so therefore I don’t have to exercise. They all have to work together, but I think we are stronger for figuring out how they can all work together in meaningful ways and support each other. We get amazing cover subjects on the cover of our magazine. And there is no better poster for the brand than the magazine and that’s why we put so much time, attention, effort, thought and creativity into making these covers. And then these covers go everywhere. They’re on the homepage of Yahoo; they’re being spread socially through all of Ronda Rousey’s fan pages, and my sister, my best friend; everyone is a part of this.

On anything else she’d like to add: In this landscape, the strong will survive. And we are a magazine about strength and strong women and we’re just really starting to dig in when it comes to thinking of the most creative and innovative ways to, not just survive, but thrive.

On what motivates her to get out of bed in the morning: I love this life. This is exactly what I wanted to do; just as you had a hobby of getting first editions since you were a child, I was a magazine junkie too when I was a kid. When I was 12-years-old, with some of my friends, I made up a rendition of The New Yorker for kids. And we published our own magazines. This is what I’ve always imagined and always dreamed of, so of course I’m going to jump out of bed; this is what I asked for.

On what keeps her up at night: I try not to engage so much in that worry zone, but I do stay up at night because we have so many ideas and I wonder how we’re going to do them all. We need more pages; we need more platforms, more outlets for all of these ideas.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Joyce Chang, Editor-In-Chief, SELF Magazine.

Samir Husni: SELF was one of the first editions that I bought when I came to America. I arrived in 1978 and I believe the first issue of SELF came out in January 1979. SELF was born with a bang. The magazine was a major new launch from a major publisher. From that beginning and through all of the changes and different editors that the magazine has seen over the years; what is SELF today under your guiding hand? Do you still adhere to the original DNA of the early 1980s or is it a brand-new SELF Magazine?

Joyce Chang: You know it’s funny; I was looking through some old issues of the magazine not too long ago and I believe we were looking at one from 1983. I flipped to the middle of the book and there was a column that was called “Self-Made.” And it was about a self-made reader. And one of our cornerstones in this “new” SELF is the idea of the self-made woman.

It was so amazing to me to see this sort of time capsule of the headspace and the mental space of the SELF woman then and how similar it was to the SELF woman of today in a very essential way. Many of the trappings and references have changed, but the essential spirit is very much the same.

And reading through the Self-Made column of this reader; she was entrepreneurial; she was trying to balance all the many aspects of her life, but was also very focused on the things that mattered to her, which were work, business and her family; the people that she loved, and also taking care of herself. That is still very much who we are today.

I think we probably put an even finer point on it today and really look at ourselves as the motivated woman’s guide to life. The message that SELF began with has even greater relevance and the voice has grown even stronger because we have yet another generation, two generations of working women. And I think there has never been a time in history where we have had such a span and spectrum of accomplished women helping other women get to the next level.

So I think that we’ve just been building on the foundation that SELF is built upon, this very all-American idea of being self-made. And the way we look at it is; my mother always said to me a successful person is successful in all aspects of her life, you can’t just do it on one thing and call it a day. So successful people want to have meaningful relationships; they want to bring that same passion to their work, and that same discipline to the physical and to their health.

And so we really look at life as this 360° view of success. That’s what we aspire to; that’s what we want to inspire our readers to pursue and also that anything is possible. And in order to do all of these things, you have to take care of yourself. So, I think that’s very much in keeping with the origin story of SELF. And because it is such a universal message, it completely works today. But I think it’s even more resonating.

Samir Husni: And is it because we are today bombarded by information and surrounded by noise everywhere that you are becoming more vocal with the covers, so to speak? Like “Go For It” or with the big typography screaming in your face, insisting that readers have to do something about themselves?

Joyce Chang: No, I don’t think that’s really our message, to do something about themselves. (Laughs)

Samir Husni: (Laughs too).

Joyce Chang: Rather, it’s do something for yourself. And I really don’t think our covers scream, I actually think our covers are really clear and really strong, that’s why we use the typography that we use. That’s why our cover subjects look the way they do. And actually, I feel like the newsstand is constantly screaming at you. Every cover has a thousand lines and a thousand gimmicks. There are bursts and bubbles and tons of color and of course, hair everywhere.

All of that works for a certain kind of magazine. It sends a certain kind of message or multiple messages. And for us, I feel like our message is more focused than anyone else’s message, which we are all about confidence and positivity. Supporting you and whatever your goals are. So, that’s why you get “Go For It,” because it’s us just cheering you on. We know that life is busy, demanding and hard and we could all use a pick-me-up.

The point of all of this is not to tell you to do something or to scream at you; the point is for you to know that we’re cheering for you. And we want you to get whatever it is you want out of your day and out of your life.

Samir Husni: If I gave you a magic wand that you could use to strike the ink on paper magazine and instantly a living, breathing human being would materialize; would I see Joyce appearing from the pages of SELF or someone else? Who is the magazine?

Joyce Chang: I think the magazine reflects many women. It reflects many of the women that I know. It reflects pretty much every single woman that I interact with. They each have an element of SELF within them.

And yes; it reflects my own thoughts as well. As I said, we are part of this generation of really motivated women who want the most out of their life. They want to make an impact on the world; they want to have careers that have impact, and they want to have really meaningful relationships. And these are all of the goals that I and my friends have. And these are the goals that so many women share with me when I go out and meet them.

And even in the process of when I was hiring and people were coming to talk to me about why they wanted to join SELF, everyone was sharing these stories of looking for the next thing, and the next thing being something that made them really happy, the next thing being an outlet for their passion and creativity. And the next thing that they really wanted was something meaningful to them.

And I think that there has been such a shift in what success means to people, but particularly women. I think this answers that need to know what that next thing is. It might not give a clear-cut answer, but it has a lot of paths and a lot of ideas on how to pursue your answer to that question.

Samir Husni: Since you became editor-in-chief of SELF; what has been the major stumbling block that you’ve had to face and how did you overcome it?

Joyce Chang: We changed everything. We changed offices, just everything. There’s nothing that’s the same except for the name, even the logo is different. And being evolved to taking something that’s such a heritage brand, that has a long history as you said; people have such good feelings and such historical feelings about SELF, and just feeling confident in my vision of this is where it’s supposed to go was challenging.

It’s pretty different. As much as it was used to this original DNA; it was really different. It was a complete rewrite of the visual formula and it was a complete change in terms of tone of voice. So, it was a total overhaul. And it was like once you dove in, you just found more and more. And you just had to do it systematically.

It was something that I had learned when I was at Cosmo because we also had a total change; a transformation. And so I had done that the year before, so I felt ready and comfortable with SELF’s transformation. But nevertheless, it’s never easy to come in and take something as legacy as SELF and make it something totally different. So, that was obviously really hard, but also really rewarding and energizing in its own way.

I think personally the thing that was hardest for me was when you’re introduced to high-level worry. It’s a different level of stress when you run a brand than when you are the #2. And I always thought I was so busy and I always felt like I had a certain level of stress, as all New Yorkers have; we’re always competing with each other, who’s busier and who’s more stressed, but when you’re actually the person for whom the buck stops with you and you’re making all of these big decisions that affect people, readers and dealing with bottom lines, that’s another level of stress and another level of worry. And getting used to that was something that was hard. I never slept; I was always worried.

And I think as member of the media, the landscape is changing so quickly, we all want to be superheroes for our brands. We all want to figure out how we save print or how can we transform media so that we come out on top. How do we navigate this Wild West that nobody seems to really have an answer to? Everybody wants to be a superhero.

Actually you have to make peace with yourself and know that you don’t really have to be a superhero and you don’t have to be the one person who figures everything out. What your day-to-day comes down to is doing a really good job with what you have in front of you. And doing the best work that you can, and just figuring it all out day-by-day, so that you can get better at what you’re doing. What else can you do? You can’t solve the world’s problems overnight in your sleep. That was the hardest thing for me, letting go of some of that stuff and just doing the work instead.

Samir Husni: And what has been the most pleasant moment?

Joyce Chang: I love this job. And I love this brand and I love this magazine. Every day I look out at the view from my office window and I think how amazing this all is. What a wonderful, inspiring place to be, to think about a brand that is about inspiration and motivation like SELF is. That’s all really satisfying.

Every time I see one of our covers come together I feel really happy and really satisfied. This Ronda (Ronda Rousey) cover is everywhere and that’s really satisfying to me. When I go to the airport and I see our cover stand out on the newsstand, that’s really rewarding and satisfying to me.

We were the exclusive media partner for a fitness retreat with the Tone It Up girls who are superstar trainers that have a huge fitness following. My fitness director and I went to the fitness retreat and we had a SELF photo booth and we did all of these different activations with them. And the women, 500 women from all over the country, from all different walks of life, were talking about what SELF meant to them and how they had grown into themselves through SELF. And how they’ve seen the change in the magazine over the last year and how much they appreciated it and how it had affected their lives. And when I get emails and letters from women who feel like SELF has changed their lives. That’s really rewarding and that’s why you do this kind of thing.

Personally, my mother is a cancer surgeon and she runs the Breast Center at UCLA. One of the causes that SELF has always been behind is breast cancer awareness. This year I’m able to help her with program. She’s had a program and an event that she’s done every year. And this year SELF can be a part of it. It’s something that’s important to my mother and it has always been a part of my life and it’s something that’s important to SELF. So, it’s really nice to be able to do things like that.

Samir Husni: As your job has changed, going from the #2 to the #1 at SELF, are you more than an editor-in-chief in today’s world? Do you think an editor’s role has changed since the dawn of the digital age? Are you more involved in events and in directives? Are you no longer just sitting behind your desk and editing a magazine?

Joyce Chang: I don’t know if it’s because of the dawn of the digital age or not, but I do think the role of editor-in-chief has changed. It’s gotten bigger and I feel like the world has gotten bigger. And we have much larger appetites and we all want more out of our products. So, as the leader of a brand you have to come up with that “more” and you have to always be thinking about what else you can do.

I don’t stay awake at night worrying about losing things; I stay awake at night thinking about what else we can do. There’s so much momentum to what’s possible with the brand and that’s exciting.

And I think that’s the pivot of what being an editor-in-chief is now; we’re actually brands, like all of these titles within the building, within this industry, we’re all brands. We’re all media brands and there’s so much more than just the book. There’s more than the digital platform. There are events, community, products; there are TV shows. There are a thousand things that fill this world we’re creating. And that’s really exciting. We do have to be multidisciplinary because we are creating this immersive world, that’s what a brand is, an immersive world.

Samir Husni: And now with that brand and teaming up with your mom in your first issue as editor-in-chief; does it feel like you’re catching up to your audience who might be a mother/daughter dynamic when it comes to the SELF life?

Joyce Chang: Sure, I think it’s very possible. I think SELF is an ageless link; the things that we talk about at SELF are ageless propositions. We’re talking about taking care of you; it’s a universal message.

To me, when I’m speaking to our reader, I speak to the age that she is in her own mind’s eye. And I think when you’re 21, you’re aspiring. You’re kind of thinking ahead to when you’re 25 and it’ll all make sense, or something like that. You’ll have a little more money and more control; there’s an aspiration there.

At the same time, I think when I go to a yoga class in Tribeca, I look at all these women and I have no idea how old any of them are. They could be 20, 30, 40 or 50 years old. So, I do think there is this ageless spectrum of where women are now. And what they really care about is the important things. They really care about their health, having meaningful experiences and a lot of market research shows that is what the millennial mindset is. I believe we have a very strong core audience in the 18-34 realms, but I also know plenty of mother/daughters who read the same SELF and get the same satisfaction out of their experience.

Samir Husni: What do you believe is the cornerstone for the SELF brand? Is it the printed magazine, the social media, the events?

Joyce Chang: I think it functions holistically. When we think about our health holistically, we don’t just say if we run we’ll be healthy. Or I eat right, so therefore I don’t have to exercise. They all have to work together, but I think we are stronger for figuring out how they can all work together in meaningful ways and support each other.

We get amazing cover subjects on the cover of our magazine. And there is no better poster for the brand than the magazine and that’s why we put so much time, attention, effort, thought and creativity into making these covers. And then these covers go everywhere. They’re on the homepage of Yahoo; they’re being spread socially through all of Ronda Rousey’s fan pages, and my sister, my best friend; everyone is a part of this.

It’s all of equal importance because one branch brings one thing and another branch brings another. Together we’re able to push this message out and amplify it to as many people as possible. And we think we have a very meaningful message and a very resonate one for right now. So I’m happy more people can see it.

Samir Husni: What would you like to tell me about SELF if we’re sitting and talking together one year from now?

Joyce Chang: That it all worked. It’s amazing. Everything worked.

Samir Husni: (Laughs)

Joyce Chang: It was just as I thought! (Laughs too)

Samir Husni: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Joyce Chang: In this landscape, the strong will survive. And we are a magazine about strength and strong women and we’re just really starting to dig in when it comes to thinking of the most creative and innovative ways to, not just survive, but thrive.

Samir Husni: What motivates you to get up in the morning and say it’s going to be a great day?

Joyce Chang: I love this life. This is exactly what I wanted to do; just as you had a hobby of getting first editions since you were a child, I was a magazine junkie too when I was a kid. When I was 12-years-old, with some of my friends, I made up a rendition of The New Yorker for kids. And we published our own magazines. This is what I’ve always imagined and always dreamed of, so of course I’m going to jump out of bed; this is what I asked for.

And we just have so much going on and the opportunities are vast. There has been so much tremendous feedback and support, and other brands coming to us and wanting to partner and there are so many ways in which we can do that to expand our reach. It’s all very exciting and I can’t wait to get up and get going. There aren’t enough hours in the day to do all of the things that you’re supposed to do. That’s the natural momentum of when you’ve hit the right message and that’s where likeminded people are.

That gets me up and out in the morning and I also feel like that I’ve created a life that I really like down to the last detail. When my feet hit the floor; I love that rug that I have. And I love the coffee place down the corner from me. I live on the Upper East Side; my office is all the way down here at the World Trade Center and at first I was dreading the commute, but I found that being in the car for half an hour, driving down the FDR, with the river running alongside, was really a peaceful way to start the morning.

There are really all of these great things and it’s exciting. I have a lot of breakfasts in the morning with people who I am really excited to meet and so there are a thousand different ways to start the day that are positive and rewarding and that make you want to get up and get going.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Joyce Chang: I try not to engage so much in that worry zone, but I do stay up at night because we have so many ideas and I wonder how we’re going to do them all. We need more pages; we need more platforms, more outlets for all of these ideas. I feel like sometimes that I stay up at night because my mind is racing with things that we can do and about how we can get it all done.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

“For me what this magazine represents is a prize that you can keep on your table; the design is so thoughtful and the colors are so rich and the photography striking. I do think that with the Internet and online journalism there’s an immediacy to news nowadays that isn’t our purpose. Our purpose is to have something that’s kind of a keepsake that you want to really look at. So, I do think that print, as we’ve seen in the industry, is continuing to grow. We’re all just trying to make it the most gorgeous process that we can to differentiate from everything else that’s out there.” Emma Rosenblum

Bloomberg Pursuits is a quarterly guide to intelligent luxury. It is distributed to all 375,000 Bloomberg Markets magazine subscribers—a highly-coveted and affluent readership comprised largely of users of the Bloomberg Professional Service around the world. The reader demographic is 63 percent male and 37 percent female. And at the helm is new Editor-In-Chief, Emma Rosenblum.

The magazine experienced a major redesign earlier in the year and under Emma’s guiding hand, Bloomberg Pursuits’ summer 2015 issue, which featured tennis star Maria Sharapova on the cover, signaled a new era of luxury publishing at Bloomberg. Readers will now find a much more sophisticated and energetic content, informing them about where to go, what to eat, what to wear, and how to spend their leisure time. And the design is now more modern, with an airy, bright aesthetic.

I spoke with Emma recently about all of the changes with the magazine and with her own life too, having experienced motherhood for the first time a few months ago. We talked about the juggling of two worlds as busy and complicated as both can be, and how creating a new magazine can be comparable to giving birth in some ways, something Mr. Magazine™ can’t do with all of the editor-in-chiefs he interviews. But Emma is a woman who believes with hard work, dedication and love for each, anything is possible. And it’s a definite that she is passionate about both her new roles.

We also discussed the redesign and refocus of the editorial content of the magazine and the reaction from readers and advertisers to the new look. It was a delightful and insightful conversation that I know you’ll enjoy. And now the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Emma Rosenblum, Editor-In-Chief, Bloomberg Pursuits Magazine.

But first, the sound-bites:

On how she’s juggling her new role as editor-in-chief of Bloomberg Pursuits and new motherhood: I’m just starting to figure it all out now, because this is my first baby and I’m still on leave. I’m working from home, answering emails, getting pages sent to me and weighing in, because even though I’m on leave, I still feel very responsible for the product and want it to be done a certain way; it’s our holiday issue.

On how she plans to take the redesign and the DNA of the magazine and expand on it and grow it as the new editor-in-chief: We just closed our third issue of the redesign, so last summer was our first fully redesigned issue. And then we had the fall issue and this one is our holiday issue. So, I feel like we’re still figuring things out, but we’ve got a really good base for the design and the editorial viewpoint. And so it’s just a matter of tweaking and honing and figuring out what we like and don’t like. But as of right now we spent a lot of time thinking about what was going to go into the redesign and why; what it was going to look like and what kind of articles we were going to include, so I’m pretty comfortable with the DNA as it is. And just like any magazine, we’ll continue to experiment and try to make it as good as we can.

On whether she thinks luxury, upscale magazines such as Bloomberg Pursuits are the future of print: Personally, that’s what I gravitate towards, but you can never say that’s the future; nobody really knows. For me what this magazine represents is a prize that you can keep on your table; the design is so thoughtful and the colors are so rich and the photography striking. I do think that with the Internet and online journalism there’s an immediacy to news nowadays that isn’t our purpose. Our purpose is to have something that’s kind of a keepsake that you want to really look at. So, I do think that print, as we’ve seen in the industry, is continuing to grow.

On the early reaction from people on the new redesign and changes with the magazine: It’s interesting, I keep saying to people: tell me if you don’t like it because nobody tells me that. Everybody tells me that it’s amazing and I always say, great, thank you. We have been getting really good reaction from our peers, which is super-important to us. Though from our readers we don’t get instantaneous feedback, so there isn’t quite a way to gauge that, but I’m hoping. Of course, the other most important party is the reaction from advertisers, which has been positive as well, so far, so good up to this point. We’ve gotten a very good internal reaction too, so I think it’s going pretty well.

On who would appear if she struck the magazine with a magic wand that could turn it into a living, breathing human being: Our readers are already really successful and really savvy and curious about the world. I would like to think the magazine is very reflective of what our readers really want to know and the terminal subscriber is our reader. So, the person who would emerge would be that exact type of person, but who has slightly more time to do their research about everything that is the best of the best. That’s who I think would appear, somebody who really knows what’s going on, who’s very stylish, well-traveled, loves restaurants; just everything that our magazine is about.

On being a curator as much as she’s a creator and how she handles the roles simultaneously: Well, it just sort of goes hand-in-hand like with any magazine. I feel like that’s what being a magazine editor has always been. I don’t think that’s something new. I believe the word curator is slightly overused. Nowadays everyone is curating something. But that’s what we’ve always done.

On what she does differently today as an editor than she did before the digital explosion: One of the best things about Bloomberg, if not the best thing, is that we have all of the different aspects of the company that we can use in conjunction with the magazine. We have our digital site, the TV station and our radio platform; so we use all of these, and especially our website very specifically for content and then we have segments on TV and radio as well.

On the major stumbling block that she’s had to face and how she overcame it: That’s a good question. I think starting a magazine anew is always a big challenge and it was a big challenge for us, to try and think about and really pinpoint what it is our readers wanted and who our reader actually was and what didn’t exist out there already for them? And that was really hard because, as you know, the market is pretty saturated with luxury publications and we didn’t want to just be a copy of other people. And so it wasn’t the easiest to figure out what the actual mission of the magazine was because basically we were starting over with a blank slate. So, that took us a long time. We had a bunch of different ideas about it and we finally came up with this notion that we really wanted to be the person that’s telling the reader who doesn’t have enough time to know, what to do.

On whether the founder of the company, Mike Bloomberg, is a reader of the magazine: I hope so. (Laughs) He’s very aware of everything that’s going on in the company. We create the magazine with him in mind too because he is one of our readers and he exemplifies this idea of the curious, successful person. And that’s what we want to create the content around.

On whether she thinks comparing the creation of a new magazine to the birth of a baby is a fair statement: Creating a magazine is a lot of work and the “having a baby” metaphor is kind of apt in that it’s all you and you’re solely responsible for it. There are jobs that I’ve had where I was one of the pack and turning out someone else’s vision. And you can get very good at that and put your own mark on it where you can, but ultimately it’s somebody else’s product that they’ve created. So, this has been a super-new experience for me. To think and ask myself: what do I want; what kind of content do I think is right for the magazine? And a lot of times it’s hard to figure out because you do become very good at following someone else’s vision.

On what motivates her to get out of bed in the mornings: Right now I’m out of bed a lot, especially in the middle of the night. (Laughs) But I love my job. I’ve never really had a day where I’ve been at work and haven’t thought how lucky I am to be able to do what I love. I have many friends who are not stimulated at all by their careers, but I learn something new every day. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a super-challenging day or just an average day at the office, it’s a pleasure to get up and create something. And it’s just fun. When I get out of bed, I’m happy that I get to go to my job; I’m not necessarily jumping for joy at having to roll out at 7:00 a.m. (Laughs)

On what keeps her up at night: Besides the crying and daycare? (Laughs) In my new role, it’s this thing I have about always wanting everything to be perfect and getting better and better. And how do I do that? So, it’s a constant thought in the back of your mind of, OK – this issue is closed, now what’s next? How do we improve upon that one? And that’s basically what I think about all of the time.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ conversation with Emma Rosenblum, Editor-In-Chief, Bloomberg Pursuits Magazine.

Samir Husni: The job of an editor isn’t getting any easier, nor is the job of being a mother. So, how are you juggling your new role as editor-in-chief of Bloomberg Pursuits and motherhood?

Emma Rosenblum: I’m just starting to figure it all out now, because this is my first baby and I’m still on leave. I’m working from home, answering emails, getting pages sent to me and weighing in, because even though I’m on leave, I still feel very responsible for the product and want it to be done a certain way; it’s our holiday issue. So, I do a lot while the baby is napping, and you know, it’s easier to work remotely nowadays. I just answer lots of emails and phone calls right now. And it’ll be a new stage when I get back to the office and we’ll just figure it out from there.

Samir Husni: As you prepare for the changes ahead, you’ve had a change in your life and now there has been a change in the magazine; how are you going to take the DNA of the magazine and expand on it and grow it as the new editor-in-chief?

Emma Rosenblum: We just closed our third issue of the redesign, so last summer was our first fully redesigned issue. And then we had the fall issue and this one is our holiday issue. So, I feel like we’re still figuring things out, but we’ve got a really good base for the design and the editorial viewpoint. And so it’s just a matter of tweaking and honing and figuring out what we like and don’t like.

But as of right now we spent a lot of time thinking about what was going to go into the redesign and why; what it was going to look like and what kind of articles we were going to include, so I’m pretty comfortable with the DNA as it is. And just like any magazine, we’ll continue to experiment and try to make it as good as we can. I’m the kind of person, which I think most editor-in-chiefs are; you’re never fully satisfied, you always want to make it better and better. So, that’s the goal going forward, to just keep going and making it even more surprising and beautiful and interesting.

Samir Husni: You’ve used the word beautiful a few times; do you think luxury, upscale magazines such as Bloomberg Pursuits are the future of print?

Emma Rosenblum: Personally, that’s what I gravitate towards, but you can never say that’s the future; nobody really knows. For me what this magazine represents is a prize that you can keep on your table; the design is so thoughtful and the colors are so rich and the photography striking.

I do think that with the Internet and online journalism there’s an immediacy to news nowadays that isn’t our purpose. Our purpose is to have something that’s kind of a keepsake that you want to really look at. So, I do think that print, as we’ve seen in the industry, is continuing to grow. We’re all just trying to make it the most gorgeous process that we can to differentiate from everything else that’s out there.

And in luxury, of course, that’s especially important because we’re showcasing these gorgeous travel destinations and fashion and food, things that you really want to see in a very luscious way. So, yes, I do think we’re heading toward that, but I also think we’re there already. And we’re just going to continue to try and figure out how readers respond to that and if they love it just like we do.

Samir Husni: And what has been the early reaction to the new redesign and changes with the magazine?

Emma Rosenblum: It’s interesting, I keep saying to people: tell me if you don’t like it because nobody tells me that. Everybody tells me that it’s amazing and I always say, great, thank you. We have been getting really good reaction from our peers, which is super-important to us. Though from our readers we don’t get instantaneous feedback, so there isn’t quite a way to gauge that, but I’m hoping.

Of course, the other most important party is the reaction from advertisers, which has been positive as well, so far, so good up to this point. We’ve gotten a very good internal reaction too, so I think it’s going pretty well. And we’re getting more notice; we’ve been picked up by a lot of websites and design sites as something that’s new and cool and should be checked out. So, I always take that to be a positive.

Samir Husni: If you struck Bloomberg Pursuits with a magic wand that could instantly transform the magazine into a living breathing human being, who would appear? And I’m not referring to the audience; I’m talking about the ink on paper magazine itself. What type of person would appear before our eyes if that were possible?

Emma Rosenblum: Our readers are already really successful and really savvy and curious about the world. I would like to think the magazine is very reflective of what our readers really want to know and the terminal subscriber is our reader. So, the person who would emerge would be that exact type of person, but who has slightly more time to do their research about everything that is the best of the best.

That’s who I think would appear, somebody who really knows what’s going on, who’s very stylish, well-traveled, loves restaurants; just everything that our magazine is about. But then also has the time to be doing all this research, which I don’t think our readers do have all of that time and that’s the service that we provide. They’re super-busy and on their computers all day, so we feel like we can bring them this service of being the arbiter of taste basically and say, you have this success now and in your leisure time, we know best and here’s that information.

Samir Husni: You mention researching and collecting in that description, so you’re as much as a curator as a creator; how are you juggling the curation with the creation?

Emma Rosenblum: Well, it just sort of goes hand-in-hand like with any magazine. I feel like that’s what being a magazine editor has always been. I don’t think that’s something new. I believe the word curator is slightly overused. Nowadays everyone is curating something. But that’s what we’ve always done.

When I started my career I was at New York Magazine and basically our jobs there were to find the coolest, most interesting aspects of the city; the stories within the city that would resonate with readers. And that to me is also curation. So I learned to do that very early on, to have an eye out for interesting things, things that would appeal to readers.

And then creating it is the second part of that. Once you have the idea and then the story itself, then you get to figure out how it should be presented to readers and decide the most interesting way to package it. The two have just always gone hand-in-hand to me; it’s not a new thing. And I think that’s what we do.

Samir Husni: What’s the new responsibility in your job today as editor-in-chief, something you do now that’s different from before the digital age, before 2007 and 2008?

Emma Rosenblum: One of the best things about Bloomberg, if not the best thing, is that we have all of the different aspects of the company that we can use in conjunction with the magazine. We have our digital site, the TV station and our radio platform; so we use all of these, and especially our website very specifically for content and then we have segments on TV and radio as well.

But we have to think about when we’re choosing stories how are we going to translate this or that piece for each platform. And you don’t want to do something that can only live in one medium, because first of all it’s not cost-effective. You want something that you can spread throughout all the platforms.

And secondly, the best way to get your story out there is to use all of these different outlets that we have. It’s just a new way of thinking, but honestly, I came of age during the digital age. I don’t feel like it’s something that’s not second nature to me whenever I think about a story. This has been since I was a young editor and was thinking about how to put something online.

I do think as the new generation of editors comes up, it’s not going to be so one-sided. For example, no one will be thinking in just print and have to develop the new skill of utilizing digital too. It will just be ingrained. You know when you’re assigning a story and wonder about sending a video crew as well as a photographer when we send a writer in order to get digital video so that we can put it up online.

For example, with our cover story last issue, which was Eric Ripert, we sent a writer and we did the traditional kind of writer/photo shoot setup that you’d do for a magazine, but then we went back the next day with a Bloomberg digital video crew and we filmed him cooking and giving a sort of life story while he was cooking, which was very complementary to what our writer was writing about for our print version.

Things like that are different, where you have to ask, what’s the best way to get this story out to the greatest number of people and also enrich the story? You don’t want to just put up a piece of junk online because it’s an extra; you really want to find something that will enhance what you already have. And I think that we’re doing that and to me that’s not so new.

Samir Husni: What has been the major stumbling block in your journey with Bloomberg Pursuits and how did you overcome it?

Emma Rosenblum: That’s a good question. I think starting a magazine anew is always a big challenge and it was a big challenge for us, to try and think about and really pinpoint what it is our readers wanted and who our reader actually was and what didn’t exist out there already for them? And that was really hard because, as you know, the market is pretty saturated with luxury publications and we didn’t want to just be a copy of other people. And so it wasn’t the easiest to figure out what the actual mission of the magazine was because basically we were starting over with a blank slate. So, that took us a long time. We had a bunch of different ideas about it and we finally came up with this notion that we really wanted to be the person that’s telling the reader who doesn’t have enough time to know, what to do.

And also this idea of luxury is kind of a challenge too because what exactly does luxury mean? What do advertisers think of it as? And so those questions were a bit difficult to figure out. For us, what we really wanted to do was hopefully what we are doing and what we’ll continue to do as we really think about luxury as being disconnected from just blanket price point. I never wanted to just feature expensive things in boring settings. We really wanted to define what luxury meant to us and we decided that to us it meant the best, not necessarily just the most expensive.

And so trying to figure out what that was and really lock it down has been a challenge, I will say, but I do think that we’re now hitting our stride with our third issue. We’ve sort of gotten there. But you always have hits and misses when you’re doing a redesign. We came up with tons of stuff that we had to end up killing because it just didn’t work or look good.

Samir Husni: Is the founder of the company, Mike Bloomberg, a reader of the magazine?

Emma Rosenblum: I hope so. (Laughs) He’s very aware of everything that’s going on in the company. We create the magazine with him in mind too because he is one of our readers and he exemplifies this idea of the curious, successful person. And that’s what we want to create the content around.

Samir Husni: I’ve heard it said that creating a magazine is a lot of work and some have said it compares to having a baby – would you say that’s a fair statement?

Emma Rosenblum: Creating a magazine is a lot of work and the “having a baby” metaphor is kind of apt in that it’s all you and you’re solely responsible for it. There are jobs that I’ve had where I was one of the pack and turning out someone else’s vision. And you can get very good at that and put your own mark on it where you can, but ultimately it’s somebody else’s product that they’ve created.

So, this has been a super-new experience for me. To think and ask myself: what do I want; what kind of content do I think is right for the magazine? And a lot of times it’s hard to figure out because you do become very good at following someone else’s vision. For example, at Businessweek when I was there looking through stories the Businessweek lens or I worked at Glamour for two years and I became very good at thinking about how a story would resonate with young women. And it was the same at New York Magazine when I’d look at a story and try and see how it was relevant to New York.

To get out of that and actually do it myself and create a vision where someone else was working for me and following my lead has been, and maybe this goes back to the question about my biggest challenge or stumbling block, but it’s been really hard, but satisfying too. There’s a creative part of yourself that you have to tap into that you didn’t necessarily use before, you could get really good at channeling another editor.

Samir Husni: What motivates you to get up in the morning and start your day?

Emma Rosenblum: Right now I’m out of bed a lot, especially in the middle of the night. (Laughs) But I love my job. I’ve never really had a day where I’ve been at work and haven’t thought how lucky I am to be able to do what I love. I have many friends who are not stimulated at all by their careers, but I learn something new every day. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a super-challenging day or just an average day at the office, it’s a pleasure to get up and create something. And it’s just fun. When I get out of bed, I’m happy that I get to go to my job; I’m not necessarily jumping for joy at having to roll out at 7:00 a.m. (Laughs)

But people who work in magazines are so lucky to get to do what we do. It’s not drudgery. It’s cool and fun; it still has that glamourous “something” that makes people want to get into it even though you might see kids graduating from college and you think good luck. (Laughs again) Why are you doing this? But of course they are because when you’re having a day and you’re working with really creative people, both editorially and digitally, it’s something that most people don’t get to do. So for me it’s a real joy. I love it.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Emma Rosenblum: Besides the crying and daycare? (Laughs) In my new role, it’s this thing I have about always wanting everything to be perfect and getting better and better. And how do I do that? So, it’s a constant thought in the back of your mind of, OK – this issue is closed, now what’s next? How do we improve upon that one? And that’s basically what I think about all of the time. And I just want to keep going and never get stagnated or feel bored with it or feel like I’ve done this and now I can go on autopilot. I never want to do that.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

As a bonus to the Mr. Magazine™ readers, click here to read the cover story of the holiday issue of Bloomberg Pursuits.