How to Be Featured in Optimize Magazine

Brian Gillooly
Editor in Chief
Optimize
CMP Media LLC
600 Community Drive.
Manhasset, NY 11030
bgillool@cmp.com
703-266-1537
www.optimizemag.com

-> Circulation:

70,000 print recipients. 70% of readers are IT, 30% are business execs.

-> Gillooly’s background:

Gillooly began his publishing career editing crossword puzzles for Dell Crosswords. “I lived in New York City at the time. My friends were lawyers and bankers, and there I was editing crosswords,” he says.

After a while he decided he needed a career change. “Computer journalism just seemed to be the best thing to get into within publishing.”

He spent 7 years at Computer Reselling News. In ’94, he moved to Information Week where he eventually became editor. Currently, he is editor-in-chief of events for that magazine, as well as editor-in-chief of Optimize.

“I often look at the industry and say it’s the one place where the personalities are as interesting as the industry itself,” Gillooly says. “It’s intriguing to me how so much of the business world is evolving and being driven by technology.”

What he has realized is that tech executives need to become better business people. Optimize strives to teach them how to do that.

-> Current editorial coverage:

The magazine’s focus is to provide technology-driven business strategy and theory to business technology executives.

It focuses on 11 disciplines, with 6 of those 11 covered each month: Business leadership, business management, collaborative strategies, corporate culture, contemporary ethics, global issues, financial management, optimal marketing, ROI valuation, customer relationships and understanding law. (For an editorial calendar, go to http://www.optimizemag.com/mediakit/editcal.)

“We want to create the language of business leadership, so that business and tech executives know how to communicate about finance, marketing, corporate culture, etc.,” Gillooly says.

Articles run between 2,500-3,000 words, including a 90-Day Plan: A 400-700 word sidebar that outlines how readers can apply the idea put forth in the article.

Articles are written by subject matter experts such as academics, consultants, CIOs, and CFOs. They are always looking for new experts.

The editors want answers to the following questions:
1. Who are the influential and trustworthy subject matter experts?
2. What are some of the cool things they are thinking about?
3. How can they apply that to an audience of CIOs?
4. How do developments in technology help in customer loyalty or brand issues?
5. How will new developments in technology help readers understand shifting business trends?

According to Gillooly, this would be the perfect scenario:

“Say you’re a PR person who represents Semantec. One of Semantec’s clients purchased new privacy software, and an analyst came in and helped that company to implement the software by using a particular practice that the analyst is known for. That’s what we want to know. We would ask the analyst to write the article, to tell us about the approach, how it was applied it to the corporation, what technologies were affected, and what were the results.”

In this case, Semantec and the software would certainly be mentioned, but would not be the focus of the article.

For information on how to craft your pitch, visit www.optimizemag.com and click on Submitting Articles. Also check out About Us/FAQ at http://www.optimizemag.com/about.htm for more on editorial content.

-> The best way to pitch Gillooly or his staff:

Send an email to senior managing editor Paula Klein at pklein@cmp.com or senior content editor Cheryl Rosen at crosen@cmp.com. You can also copy Gillooly at bgillool@cmp.com. Phone pitches are okay, too, but Gillooly will need to see an executive summary of the article before he can decide.

One giant pet peeve: DO NOT send an email with the word “optimize” in the subject heading, as in “Our technology optimizes such-and-such.”

“We’re not just looking for something that optimizes something,” he says. In other words, your clever word-play will not get you anywhere—you must have a unique business strategy with a technology underpinning.

Also, read the FAQ online. He says he can tell if you do not.

-> Deadlines:

The 15th of the month, two months prior to publication. (For the May issue, the deadline is March 15.)

-> Submitting pre-written contributions:

You can, but it is inevitable that they will make alterations, working with you to spin it or get the Optimize point of view. Make sure it is exclusive content, nothing pre-published.

-> Becoming a regular columnist (or “expert”):

Gillooly already has a pretty extensive list of columnists and when he needs another he goes out and recruits one.

-> Where you can meet Gillooly:

You are most likely to find him at Information Week conferences (which he runs). Also look for him at business/IT conferences and symposia rather than at expos.

-> What he looks for in printed press materials:

Does not read ‘em.

-> Favorite professional publication:

Information Week, of course. Also the Wall Street Journal. Newsweek, he says, not for technology but for a better understanding of “how our industry is evolving in the broad perspective.”