A view on the new
INside Innovation magazine
from an outside innovator
I'm a fan of BusinessWeek Online, and have been enjoying their innovation-themed emails, but the announcement they will be publishing a magazine title "INside Innovation" leaves me shaking my head.

To make a goal of reporting on innovation, and then executing that goal with one of the least innovative means at your disposal, dooms the project to failure. How can you think anything covered in the magazine will still be "news" (let alone 'innovative') by the time it gets through layout, printing, and distribution. Hell, in internet time things that are considered innovative at breakfast are old school by dinner time.

Better for BW to have followed Fortune's example and kept their feature online. The Fortune Innovation Forum (renamed the even less-catchy "Business Innovation Insider") has done an excellent job of keeping innovative insights in front of online readers since 2005.

An even better execution has been implemented by my buddy, Howard Mann, of the DIG Tank blog. His online "magazine" UXMAG.COM is a feat of gorgeous design and delicious content. If the traditional magazine were to incorporate the internet and evolve to this level -- I could live with that.

Until BusinessWeek enacts the same innovation internally that it intends to report in this new magazine externally, look for INside Innovation to last about five issues (or less.)