Re: [CR]The decline of Bicycling mag

(Example: Racing:Jacques Boyer)

Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 12:31:32 -0600
From: Jerry & Liz Moos <moos@penn.com>
To: Tom Dalton <tom_s_dalton@yahoo.com>
Cc: garth libre <rabbitman@mindspring.com>, classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: Re: [CR]The decline of Bicycling mag
References: <20011105161757.45662.qmail@web10901.mail.yahoo.com>


I think Tom has a good point here, but I would go a bit farther and say that the old Roldale was not about making money, nor, in my opinion, is any really successful business. In my perhaps naive opinion, focusing primarily on profits is the perscription for long-term disaster. The companies which are successful over many decades focus on quality, value, and innovation first, in the belief that the consumer is not really a moron after all, and that in the end those who offer real value will be rewarded, and those who shaft the customer to make this quarter's income statement look a bit better will in the end be punished by the defection of customers to less short-sighted competitors. This is what I would define as "vision". To be sure, one must be diligent in not wasting money unnecessarily, but financial management should always come second to the focus on providing the company's real products and services in a way that gives the customer his money's worth and more. Unfortunately, Rodale and many other companies have fallen into the hands of CEO's who beleive that this quarter's results and this morning's stock price is what really maters, rather than the substance behind the results. When the top executives talk excitedly about "making our numbers", rather than "publishing the best cycling magazine on the market", the company is in trouble. Unfortunately, US buiness is widely infected with this kind of management, and it is destroying once-great companies as it nearly destroyed Schwinn, Sturmey-Archer, and Brooks (indeed did destroy the first two as independent companies).

Fortunately, there are still those with the vision to put quality and service first, and the necessary but secondary profits in second place where they belong. Not to dwell on Fred Benjamin's remarks, but what I think he failled to recognize is that those on this list who are "in the business" almost all exhibit that sort of vision. Brian Baylis and Richard Sachs and Bicycle Classics, and John Barron, and Cycling Plus, and Larry Black, and last but not least, Dale and his Cycles de Oro, are not primarily concerned with profit, but with delivering products and services that will truly please and truly benefit their customers, and doing so at fair prices. Do they seek to make a profit? Of course, otherwise the business fails, and the customer is not served, the employees have no jobs, and the support of community causes ceases. But I don't think any of these people for one moment would entertain the thought of making more profit by giving the customer substandard products or services. They have chosen to spend their lives doing something that they truly believe of of benefit to others, and they seek to make profits to sustain this goal, not the other way around. This society would be better of if we saw more of this kind of vision again at Rodale, and at companies much larger than that.

Regards,

Jerry Moos

Tom Dalton wrote:
> I wouldn't look too hard for a connection between
> changes in bicycle technology and changes at
> Bicycling. The connection is really between the
> decline of the magazine and the decline of Western
> Civilization. Okay, okay, I'm being a bit overly
> dramatic, but simply put, Bicycling is just a crappy
> advertisement for "lifestyle" cyclists. Time was that
> Rodale's mission was to help readers do things to make
> positive changes in their life, their health and their
> environment (paraphrasing). Then Bob died. Bob
> Rodale, son of Rodale founder JI Rodale, is described
> by nearly all of his aquaintances who I've met as a
> "visionary." He was a leading authority on composting
> before that Land Grant universities all started their
> own research. Now it seems that every municipality in
> the US has a yard waste composting program. Bob rode
> a bike between Rodale buildings in Emmaus and took the
> Bieber bus to Rodale offices in NYC. Bikes are no
> longer allowed in Rodale offices. Rodale's current CEO
> has a limo and a driver. So does his secretary.
> Meanwhile the company just laid off 140 people.
> Rodale is no longer about substance, about health, the
> evironment or anything else that matters. You might
> think that the next thing I'm going to say is that
> they're all about making money. I'm not going to say
> that, becasue hopefully they always have been and
> always will be about making money. They are a
> corporation, after all. But I will say they are now
> about image, and not about substance. They know that
> the average Rodale reader looks at any given issue for
> less than 5 minutes. The magazines reflect it in
> their USA today layout where ad and editorial are
> indistinguishable.
>
> Why the loss of substance? Is the short attention
> span of the TV generation to blame? Perhaps. But
> then there is the family. While Bob was an
> intelligent man and his wife is a flaky half-wit and
> the children, who now run the company got Mom's genes.
> Maria is now at the helm, and seems to be using the
> opportunity to compensate for never being one of the
> cool kids in high school. Content and substance are
> out, a hip-and-cool image is in. Want proof? Check
> out an issue of Organic Style, Maria's new project.
> Steal ideas from "Martha Stewart Living" and add an
> "earth friendly" spin. What you get is a magazine
> that at best serves to help wealthy thirtysomethings
> and fortysomethings reconcile their pathological
> consumerism with their environmental guilt. "I always
> swore I'd never be a Yuppie!" Well yuppies are a
> thing of the past, but Explorer-driving
> "environmentalists" seem to have taken their place.
>
> Tom Dalton
>
> No real connection to Bicycling.
>
>
> > As the bikes have become more
> > functional, but less artistic and shapely, so has
> > the magazine become more crass. The articles from
> > the 70's and 80's included musings about the sheer
> > beauty of this or that stem shape or frame
> > detailing. Now that the bikes are industrial and not
> > pretty, the writing has become functional window
> > dressing in support of the way the industry has
> > moved. I may be wrong, but do any of the
> > contributing staff ever question the value of 10 cog
> > freehubs or robot weld displays?
> >
> > Garth Libre in windy South Florida (Surfside Fl)
> > with several 0.75 mile sprints at 32.5 mph on level
> > ground this morning.
> >
> >
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