As of Monday, May 2, I am the VP/CM of CXO Online, overseeing five domains — CXO.com, CIO.com, CSOonline.com, CMOmagazine.com and Darwinmag.com.
CXO was formed in 1987 with the launch of CIO Magazine by former IDG marketing exec Joe Levy (now at TechTarget) and Lew McCreary, a former colleague of mine at PC Week. CSO was launched in 2002 and CMO was launched last summer (edited by Rob O’Regan, former colleague also at PC Week and McKinsey’s Business Knowledge Services and TomorrowLab).
I went after this position because of the huge opportunity to make something happen in the B2B space — CXO is in the sweet spot of B2B and tech advertising, wins tons of prizes for its editorial and design — and because IDG has been such a consistently strong performer in the tech publishing space since Pat McGovern founded it in the early 60s.
I’ll be in the company of some smart online innovators. Colin Crawford sets the online strategy as IDG’s head of business development, and my counterparts across IDG are all very strong, engaged pioneers. Ulla McGee at PC World took home the Neal award earlier this year for best website, Matt McAlister (formerly of the Industry Standard) at InfoWorld is doing amazing stuff with tags, design theory, and analysis, and Martha Connors at ComputerWorld is reviving that publication’s online presence after building a great online operation at the MIT Technology Review.
The first 90-days will be predictably hectic and a true re-education after five years out of the magazine-online space, and more than 17 years out of the tech trades. Ping me for coordinates.
