InfoWorld’s constantly evolving content

If you’ve arrived at this page seeking your weekly Kevin McKean fix, don’t be alarmed. Kevin hasn’t abandoned you; instead he’s graciously decided to share his Editor’s Letter duties — a tag-team arrangement that will land both of us in this space every other week.

This being my first time atop this page, a brief introduction is in order. When I joined InfoWorld last year, I was thrilled at the prospect of taking a respected tabloid, applying a few strategic nips and tucks, and recreating it into a magazine. Quickly, though, it became obvious that a face-lift wasn’t sufficient: If we were going to have a new format, we’d need to rearrange the publication’s DNA in the process. So we conducted research, interviewed readers, and chained ourselves to our desks for a few months while furiously cranking out a radically new InfoWorld. Then we held our collective breath.

Nine months later, we’ve exhaled. We’ve heard from you — via e-mail, surveys, and face-to-face events — and the response has been positive and enthusiastic. That doesn’t mean, however, that we’ve stopped making changes. This week, for instance, we introduce News Kernel, a lively collection of tidbits, interviews, leading indicators, and other IT-relevant goodies. “The idea is to bring some fun and personality to the News section,” explains News Editor Tom Sullivan. Like all the best ideas, News Kernel will draw from multiple sources, including readers, so shoot any Kernel-worthy morsels to Tom. We’re always looking for good ideas.

Take this issue’s cover story, “The New Enterprise Portal,” which wasn’t even a blip on our editorial radar until recently when we began assembling last November’s InfoWorld 100. As the senior staff waded through the entries, we noticed a pattern: Every other submission touted an enterprise portal. A cover story was born.

“We were gun-shy about the subject after the portal hype of the late ’90s,” admits Executive Editor at Large Eric Knorr, who wrote the story. “Back then, companies were so excited about building a unified, Webtop view of everything that they overspent on enterprisewide projects.”

When that top-down approach didn’t work, many ambitious efforts sank under their own weight. But enterprise portals didn’t go away; they merely morphed into smaller projects, often at a workgroup or department level. Knorr dissects those efforts and offers some time-tested approaches to portaling.

Let’s just say we know a story when we see one, particularly when it reflects what our readers are really doing. Your feedback helped us remake InfoWorld. Keep it up so we can continue the process.