The Institute of Professional Management has ceased publishing its print publica-tion and the last issue will arrive in your mail in June 2003. There are many reasons why this decision was made and I'd like to share a few of them with you. It wasn't an easy de-cision as we have been publishing it in print form for close to 20 years under different names and titles. It was first called Recruiting Today®, then Recruiting & Supervision To-day® then HR Today® and finally Workplace To-day®. It went from eight pages to 48 pages and from one colour to full colour covers providing a neverending and technically complex learning experience every step of the way. But it was fun and it kept us on our toes.

And then came the Web. Market pressures forced us online and we ran a print and online version of the maga-zine simultaneously to stay current with competing publishers at the time. That was another learning experience. We went through about 20 iterations of the online version and learned much about the new technology but never thought it would replace the print version anytime soon. But two things happened that started to change our thinking.

First, the demand for a broader range of news, articles and features started to squeeze out member news

Brian W. Pascal President, IPM

and information and secondly, print subscribers started moving their sub-scriptions to the online version. It was a trickle at first and then it became a flood. We came to a point where it was no longer viable to produce the magazine. There were no longer enough subscribers and it was the subscriptions that generated the vast majority of revenue required to publish.

In the meantime, and as previously mentioned, we were providing less and less to our members in terms of association news and information. We polled our members and Regional Di-rectors to see if they would accept an online-only version of a members news-letter and that idea was shot down quickly. They wanted something in their hands and they wanted it now.

In order to balance the needs of members with the needs of the Insti-tute, it was decided to launch the Members Quarterly, a print publica-tion totally devoted to the membership and to provide members with a sub-scription to the online version of Work-place Today® without cost as part of their member benefits. Communicating effectively with the members of IPM's Associations is of paramount importance. No longer will members have to search for mem-ber news and updates among the articles and features of Workplace Today® Online.

Although Workplace Today® is now available only online, it brings numerous benefits to our subscribers and members. We no longer have a restriction of 48 pages to fit articles and features in. This gives us a great deal of flexibility in presenting the best and latest workplace information available anywhere regardless of its size or complexity. There's lots of room.

Also, doing research or looking up past issues or articles becomes a breeze as we archive all our issues for you and provide you with a built in search engine. For those tasked with implementing a new Human Resources policy or procedure, the online journal would be a good place to start collect-ing views, opinions and facts on the topic and the information may raise issues that could have an impact on your organization.

In addition, it took a lot of trees to put out a 48 page magazine. We're not necessarily tree-huggers but we feel we're doing our small part in protecting our environment.

So, where are we? Well, we've gone from a print magazine to an exclusively online journal and we've put out a printed Members Quarterly that will come out in January, April, July and October from now on and that will be devoted totally to the needs of our members. Although Workplace Today® Online will con-tinue to broaden its scope and direc-tion, the Members Quarterly will remain a member's newsletter written by and for the membership. I feel confident that we made the right de-cision. Into the future we go.