We reviewed the growth that Mission Critical has shown in the past year, in terms of pages, coverage, topics, readership, and even revenues. Remember, last year was our first on a six-time frequency, and I worried that we'd rue the decision to increase our frequency given the economy at the time. The growth in webinars has been particularly dramatic.  

Even so, we were advised, this is no time for complacency. The co-CEO challenged our thinking on how we could use the tools we have to make Mission Critical more useful and more accessible to our current readers and to increase our efforts to find new ones. 

As part of this retreat, the editorial and sales staffs met also with BNP Media's web and IT specialists. They demonstrated for us how far web technologies have advanced and how these might be used to improve our e-newsletters, web site, digital edition, and even our magazine.

Many of the solutions we discussed involved increased use of social media. Many in the IT and data center industries have embraced Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn as ways to get things done and not just to communicate.  

Mission Critical's entire staff is eager to meet the challenge in front of us, and, as usual, I'd like to enlist your help. Please feel free to drop me a note about interesting ways you are making social media work for you. I'm also interested in projects that we could develop jointly on social media or other platforms, so feel free to share these ideas with me.  

Our entire organization is excited about developing new ways to help you meet the challenges in front of you, and I believe that social media can be a very useful tool for sharing information or collaborating. I can be reached here at my office at 518 731-7311 or by email at heslink@bnpmedia.