Archive for the ‘Editorial Thoughts’ Category

Why Not Make Another Change?

Tuesday, November 15th, 2016

hotel-roomSeeing that title, readers may wonder what exactly I’m changing at PeKu now. The good news for our loyal readers is that there have been no new changes to PeKu. However, there has been another set of changes in my personal life, which does affect PeKu in some form or fashion.

To review, there have been a number of changes for PeKu and me in the last three months:

  • In August I downsized PeKu and let go of my entire writing team in an attempt to revive its future.
  • In September my husband and I became empty nesters.
  • In October I decided that PeKu should focus solely on Think Tasty, including giving it my own personal voice.

Yeah, there’s been a little bit going on in my life on both personal and professional levels (and that list doesn’t even include my work with Wasabi Ventures Academy). However, I like to be busy and keep my calendar full. So, why not put our house on the market and see if we can find a better sized home- one that works well for two most of the time but still has room for kids who are home for the summer and holidays? So, we did that and closed on the sale of our home last week.

This was an exciting development, with one hitch. The sale happened quickly, and we hadn’t found our next place to live. So, with a contract signed we began a search for our next place and found one quickly. (Phew!) Of course, finding a place quickly doesn’t mean moving there quickly. The exact place we want isn’t available until early December. Let’s do a little math. House closes in early November. New place is ready in early December. Yep, there’s a month without a home.

It’s only the two of us for the bulk of that month, so there was an easy solution- live in a hotel. Now, that may sound like something out of storybooks or tv shows, and it kind of is. It’s nice not having to vacuum the bedroom or clean my breakfast dishes. Plus, it’s a nice setup with a good fitness center, indoor pool, and a welcoming staff. However, as someone who not only loves to work with food, but also builds part of her career around food, it makes things a bit tricky. I have done some hotel room cooking, as you’ll see on Think Tasty in a few weeks, but I miss having my whole array of kitchen tools and appliances.

I’m keeping in mind that this transition period is short and will make me appreciate our new home even more. In the meanwhile I’ll be crafting as many microwave-only meals as I can. And trying not to get used to clean towels that appear magically every day.

Setting PeKu’s Direction

Tuesday, November 1st, 2016

apron-next-to-a-baking-projectOver the last couple months I have worked on PeKu in a two-pronged attack. My first goal was to keep a couple of the publications live, filling both with new articles written by me. The second goal was to determine what PeKu will look like moving forward. As I mentioned in September I’m not ready to let this business fade into oblivion, but I also can’t run it in the same way as a team of one.

As I thought about the future of PeKu, I focused on what I do well and what could work well for PeKu. This brought me back to the very reason that I built PeKu- cooking and writing. One of my favorite things to do is to work in the kitchen. Whether it’s making an appetizer for a party, baking a batch of cookies for a care package, or creating a menu for Tapas Monday, I love spending time working with food. I also enjoy writing. This is why I built Think Tasty over nine years ago.

However, since then I have learned so much. Publishing schedules, self-promotion, social media, WordPress, photography, I’ve gained skills in all of these areas. What is even better is that I now have these skills and experiences, plus I get to use them focusing solely on Think Tasty.

In addition, I have decided that although PeKu is a professional publishing company, I need to give Think Tasty a more personal feel. There are so many excellent food websites out there; mine is simply one tiny fish in a very big pond. Adding my own personal touch will help make it special. As part of this, I have taken over all articles at Think Tasty. Although I let go of my team, I had continued to work with a PR firm to provide recipes. Yes, it was handy to have one delicious recipe pre-written every week, but that doesn’t grow the brand of me.

Finally, throughout the last nine years, I have published behind the moniker Think Tasty. Those days are over. I am the author of all future Think Tasty articles. If I happen not to be, you’ll see that also.

Yes, PeKu is much smaller than it was a few months ago, but this change fills a bigger place in my heart. I truly am excited to shape the future of PeKu.

Working Behind the Scenes

Tuesday, October 18th, 2016

laptop-writingI’m now a month and a half into running PeKu as a solitary team member. It’s been a month of adapting, learning, and brainstorming. While one part of my brain was trying to learn the new flow of the week, another part was thinking about changes I would make, as I worked on the next iteration of PeKu. It’s been a balance of letting go of what was and deciding what to add for the future.

Over the first few weeks, there were many schedule items that were no longer necessary. There was no need to check for article completion over the weekend. Any articles that would be written were done by me. With no articles submitted, there also were no emails sent by my writing team. While many may be delighted in the email reduction, I miss the weekly conversations that I had with my team.

On the bright side there was a task that I didn’t miss. Publishing many articles each week also meant sourcing many photos. Finding just the right picture and resizing it took time that I didn’t enjoy losing. Now with fewer articles, I either use my own photos or assign the task to my designer.

As I was adapting to these changes, I also needed to think about what I really wanted PeKu to become. How will I want to focus my time and energy? What is the best way to make it successful in its new form? I have some ideas and have made a couple small changes in the operations of PeKu. While I’d love to share it now, I’ve decided to wait for the big reveal in November.

Like I wrote in September, I have had to make major changes, but I haven’t given up on this startup. PeKu still moves foward to see another day of publishing.

Ending Where I Began

Wednesday, September 21st, 2016

writing for PeKuSo, I’ve been avoiding one of my managerial tasks- writing the Editorially Yours column. Looking in the archives, the last column I published was in mid-July. We’re past the midpoint of September, so I’ve done a fine job of procrastinating. *Sigh* That’s not like me at all.

With PeKu being a smaller enterprise I had reduced the frequency of EY columns from weekly to biweekly. That worked well. I could write about the happenings of PeKu, our team, and other assorted topics. However, in August I could see a change ahead, a set of storm clouds approaching on the horizon. Although I could see them, I couldn’t write about it yet, or at least I didn’t want to do so.

Then September arrived, and I was determined that I would write. But I found excuses not to do so and waited and waited, until today. It’s time to talk about those storm clouds.

Like many other online publishers the last two years have been a struggle financially. PeKu works on an advertising revenue model, and the numbers have been going farther and farther south. To combat the loss of income, I’ve made strategic changes: reducing the number of sites on which we publish; reducing the number of articles published on each site; doing more writing myself. Even with all of that, it was apparent in August (or sooner actually) that PeKu needed to be shuttered, kind of. So, as of late August, there is no writing team at PeKu, just me.

I felt overwhelmingly sad making this decision. I built this startup, and it has felt very much like another child. I have nurtured it, shaped it, put thousands of hours into it, lost sleep over it, and now I needed to say goodbye. No, I did not want to do this.

Being a stubborn person, I haven’t fully given up. I’m taking PeKu back to where it began in 2007, food. Think Tasty was the blog that PeKu was built on, on which I wrote during my final year of teaching. Conveniently I still love cooking and writing, plus I have nothing to lose, so I am continuing to publish on Think Tasty by myself. Since I’m stubborn and also like parenting, I’ve continued to write for Your Parenting Info as well. I’ve spent my last twenty years raising two kids, so I figured I might as well share some advice.

For now I am focusing on these two publications. Maybe if I can give them plenty of attention and find the right eyeballs, I can grow PeKu once again. If not, I at least am giving myself a creative outlet to help fill the empty nest that I now have. And I still have my work as Dean of Content and Instruction at WV Academy, so there’s plenty to fill my work schedule.

I apologize for taking so long to share the news on these changes, but it’s been hard to admit defeat. So, today I acknowledge that PeKu is just me. But don’t be fooled, as someone wrote about me, I’m a “petite powerhouse.” PeKu may be much smaller than it has been in years, but I’m going to give one heck of a fight before throwing in the towel.

PeKu Is 8! How Can That Be?

Monday, July 18th, 2016

birthday-cake-380178_640After the blur of June, it’s not a surprise that a lot of July has been discombobulated. The first full week was abbreviated after the 3-day holiday weekend. While last week was my first normal workweek in quite some time, it also meant that there was some catching up and reconnecting to be done. Starting my second normal workweek feels good, and I’m *almost* certain what today’s date is.

Even outside of the craziness of my life, there still is a shocking aspect to PeKu’s birthday. Eight. Years. Old. This startup that I built in 2008, after deciding to leave my first career as an elementary school teacher, has been active for eight years. It’s changed in so many ways, far too many to write about here, but still is a thriving publishing company.

What does PeKu look like at 8?

  • 14 articles published each week
  • 3 unique publications staying vibrant
  • 6 team members writing articles
  • 2 team members doing engineering & design work
  • 1 team member managing social media
  • 1 mascot cheering us on

Other fun facts:

  • All team members have been with PeKu for a minimum of 3 years.
  • This was the fifth year that PeKu gave a scholarship to a graduating senior in my hometown.
  • Over the past year we created an account for Your Parenting Info on Instagram, bringing our total to three accounts.
  • We also created Flipboard magazines for all three publications.

Although we’re a couple weeks late, I wanted to take today to celebrate PeKu and all of the growth its made. (Be sure to return to Editorially Yours next week to see what I personally have learned. It’s bound to be exciting!)

Putting It All in Perspective

Monday, July 11th, 2016

hospital-834152_640PeKu Publications turned eight on July 1st. Ten days later I haven’t written my annual post describing what we’ve accomplished and how we’ve changed over the past year. I’m also not writing that column today; I’m saving it for next week. Today there are more pressing topics to cover.

It’s been a challenging time for me, personally and professionally, over the last six weeks. When I published my last Editorially Yours, I didn’t realize all of the change that was about to come. At that point I was preparing for a high school graduation, PeKu’s birthday, and the beginning of summer. All of those events have occurred, but an even larger event took precedence.

Six weeks ago, I wrote that Editorially Yours column while I sat in a hospital room with my little brother. Diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer in February 2015, he had been through 15 months of fairly successful chemo treatments. But on Sunday, June 6th he was admitted to the hospital with some difficulty breathing and pain in his midsection. Although I knew that the prognosis wasn’t good, I didn’t realize that the next three weeks would be spent with him in a hospital, hoping for the best but knowing that time was getting shorter every day.

Thankfully because of the nature of my roles as Editor-in-Chief at PeKu and Dean of Content and Instruction at WV Academy, I was able to be with my brother almost daily. I would work while he slept or late at night when I got home. Of course, this meant that I wasn’t working a full schedule, and work items were prioritized. Articles were published; student assignments were reviewed; payments were sent; projects were assigned; courses were launched. However, nothing new or innovative was rolled out.

I kept my boards and advisors abreast of these work decisions, and they were supportive. I made sure that everything kept moving forward on the work front, but creative projects were tabled temporarily. Two weeks ago I eulogized my little brother; it was a challenging task, but one that I embraced heartily. I couldn’t have him back, but I certainly could help to reinforce memories of him.

In the past two weeks I have endeavored to return to the normal pace of work and home, while at the same time remaining a support to my sister-in-law and nephews. I can honestly say that I’m not back to 100% work form, but I am close. There are a few creative projects on the list for this week; I have moved from treading water to actually swimming.

These last six weeks have shown me that there are more hours in the day than we fully use, that it is possible to do more than you think you can. Most importantly it has validated my belief that the importance of human contact is immeasurable. Although the month of June was devoid of creativity, it was filled with connectivity. And I wouldn’t change that for the world.

Inspire. Inform. Engage.