Self-renewal is important at individual and corporate levels. Otherwise, products and processes get stale and moribund with repetition.

Michael Ivanovich, Editor-in-Chief

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Self-renewal is important at individual and corporate levels. Otherwise, products and processes get stale and moribund with repetition. Such things are true for magazines, too, and who wants to read a boring magazine? At Consulting-Specifying Engineer, we not only practice continuous improvement, we like to shake things up a bit to keep our creative juices flowing.

Leading into the New Year, the editors were hard at work developing three new magazine sections: Pulse , Leading Edge , and 2 More Minutes . We started these in January, and retired Equipment Lifecycles and Green Space along the way. The net result is that we will cover more topics more efficiently and with greater dynamism than previously.

I invite you to review the new departments closely and to take a few minutes to let us know what you think. My e-mail address is below, as are brief introductions to the new pages. Thank you in advance!

Pulse : The editors routinely try different software tools, explore websites, and hone techniques to improve our efficiency and effectiveness. And, we also look out for media revolutions that engineers can adopt to improve their own communications skills and efficacy. Social media, such as Twitter and LinkedIn, have become very active and important to engineers, as are online events. Pulse will distill lessons learned and point to hotspots in the exciting worlds of online and social media.

Leading Edge : Did you ever notice that some new technologies take a long time getting specified in systems? Ever wonder why? Certainly, engineers are conservative with new products, and so are owners. But what other factors might be hampering the absorption of these products? Leading Edge dissects one emerging technology each month, identifying application stumbling blocks and disincentives that engineers are experiencing.

2 More Minutes : Every engineer has a unique story about how he or she joined the profession, and what matters to them and why. 2 More Minutes, on the back page of the magazine, introduces you to one of your colleagues each month. The goal of 2 More Minutes is to stimulate introspection and discovery of what made you an engineer and what you have in common—or don’t—with your peers.

I’m also happy to announce a major re-engineering of the search engine on our website, www.csemag.com . The new results page of the Zibb search engine enables users to extract technical articles from the other types of content. Give Zibb a test drive; I really think you’ll like it.

Finally, please welcome Ala Ennes, our new art director, effective with this issue. Ala has been an art director for more than 20 years and has won more than 30 awards for her work.

Send your questions and comments to: Michael.Ivanovich@reedbusiness.com