A Change Will Do You Good
By Mike Carlon, Editor-in-Chief, QRCA VIEWS Magazine, Vertigo Partners, LLC, Stamford, Connecticut, mike.carlon@vertigopartners.com
As I look out my office window, the sun is shining, the leaves are on the trees, and I hear my neighbor’s rooster giving its early morning wakeup call. Their kids named the rooster Kevin, which I think is an odd name for a bird. At the moment, though, because its cock-a-doodle-doing is distracting me from putting the finishing touches on our summer issue, I’d like to rename it Nuggets—as that is the fate I am imagining for my aggressive feathered distraction.
Still, in the immortal words of James Brown, “I feel good.” As I write this, all adults in the U.S. are eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. I personally have been fully vaccinated for three weeks and celebrated by visiting my parents in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. At almost 89 and 88, I’ve been hesitant to see them for fear that I might inadvertently get them sick or bring back the virus to my family.
As someone who traveled at least twice a week as a qualitative consultant, it felt great to be back in an airport after a fourteen-month hiatus. Even the TSA agent who offered me a very special pat-down after I was randomly selected for extra testing seemed to be smiling as he snapped his blue gloves into place. I’m looking forward to doing this more often (traveling, not getting to second base with government officials).
Enough about me, though. This summer issue is full of great articles—so great that the editorial team had a difficult time deciding what to feature on the cover, and I call that a nice problem to have.
I’d like to call out a few changes we’ve made starting with the summer issue. We’ve decided to pivot the Online/Tech Talk column to have more of an industry focus. Years ago, when online qualitative was “new,” it warranted its own feature. However, we realized that there was a lot of overlap between that column and our Toolbox feature and, in the spirit of bringing more value to our readers, we decided to craft a column that highlights a different vertical in every edition. We welcome Tom Neveril to the QRCA VIEWS team as editor of this new feature.
Tom isn’t the only new face you will see in VIEWS. We also welcome Pamela Batzel and Natalia Infante Caylor as feature editors for Toolbox, and Sebastian Murdoch-Gibson who will be spearheading a new column called Dear Emeritus, an advice-style column featuring insights from our more “experienced” members.
Zoë Billington has joined the team to lead our Luminaries feature, and Ashley Paulson is taking over the TravelWise reins. Mark Wheeler has joined us to spearhead Business Matters, and Frankie Lipinski is helping us as digital editor.
Of course, having all these new faces means we have to say thank-you to the members whose shoes they have stepped into. Tori Gentes (TravelWise), Kay Corry Aubrey (Luminaries), Roben Allong (Business Matters), Ashish Maheshwari (digital editor), and Jonathan Schneider (Toolbox), we thank you for your contributions to VIEWS magazine and wish you all the best as you move on to other opportunities inside the organization.
We are always looking for new voices and fresh perspectives for VIEWS magazine. If you have something you’d like to write, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Happy summer!
