It is not every day that a personal aspiration begins to take shape and to become a reality. After eight years of editing CMA Magazine, the flagship publication of the Society of Management Accountants, Sarah Kennedy and I have decided to produce a new publication. For the last year we have debated many aspects of this new publication between ourselves and with the associates of Focused Management Information Inc. the training and consulting company I established 11 years ago.

We addressed such issues as:

• What to call the publication?
  Answer: FOCUS Magazine
• What format would be best?
  Answer: 4 - 6 articles of approximately 1500 - 2000 words each edition + columns and information on services such as training and conferences
• What topics should we cover?
  Answer: Measurement, management, productivity improvement, computing and communications (but it can change in response to reader interest), complete with case studies and articles on leading practices
• Who would we invite to write articles?
  Answer: Knowledgeable practitioners, academics and consultants
• What media should we use (printed or electronic)?
  Answer: We chose electronic so that readers can scan the contents of a brief electronic front-page and then simply choose topics of interest, but we will maintain a database of articles. Eventually, we hope, you will specify your interests and you will be notified of new articles as they are filed
• Should we pursue advertising sponsorship?
  Answer: We decided that we would allow the publication to establish itself in the minds of readers and writers as a legitimate reader interest lead service. We will address advertising opportunities as they arise, but will not be pursuing it aggressively
• How frequently should we publish?
  Answer: Every month, except maybe we will take a break in the summer and winter. So, ten editions each year
• Will the publication be limited by geographic boundaries?
  No. Our reputation is global and so should the appeal of our publication. We are pleased to offer articles by writers anywhere in the world. (see this month's article by Roberto Mendoza) Articles will be published in English as well as the writers home language if they wish

Sarah and I, know from the wonderful feedback we received over the years on our efforts at CMA Magazine, which topics appeal to Management Accountants, so we decided that the new publication should continue to address those interests but perhaps with limited attention to financial accounting. We also agreed that we wanted to broaden the range of topics to include subjects with appeal to readers in other management fields such as operations and general management. Perhaps most important is our desire to produce a publication that is non-partisan and objective. Our reputation from CMA Magazine stands as our reference in this regard.

In this month's publication, people within Focused Management Information Inc. have prepared three articles, and we are grateful for the opportunity to publish an article by Roberto Mendoza. Our objective is to set the publication in motion by writing articles, and we will actively pursue authors to write on subjects, which we think are pertinent. We also wish to publish articles that readers contribute. Accordingly, we welcome your offers to send us articles for consideration.

Informal surveys of readers have been encouraging. Practitioners whom I have approached to test the idea of a new publication have been overwhelming positive and supportive. Many people have expressed interest in submitting articles, and we welcome your involvement. We also would really appreciate your comments and suggestions on subjects to cover, potential authors or people who should be written about, stories that must be told and any other ideas we might incorporate to make the publication an interesting, applicable and practical source of information.

We invite you to enjoy our efforts in creating a community of interest around the topics we choose to cover. For those of you who wish to contribute ideas, articles, listings of seminars offered please send them to myself Paul Sharman at our email address:

psharman@focusedmanagement.com

We look forward to hearing from you.
Paul Sharman