First impression of Harvard Business Review

When I was in the undergrad and grad programs in the business school, the profs kept having us read articles from Harvard Business Review. I remember b&w copied they distributed, and back then, it was the most boring and tedious reading I'd ever done.

Now wind forward 10 years, to last week. After paying $80 of my hard-earned money for a 12-month subscription, I finally received the first issue.

Why did I subscribe? Well, I've been reading a lot of business books lately, mostly on Sales and Marketing, and I've found a lot of value in them. Working with a lot of sales and marketing clients, I got a better understanding of their world through my reading. The human mind works by association, and now I go beyond listening to my client talk about their challenges and opportunities and nodding my head - I relate their experiences to what I learn in the books and can ask intelligent questions about their strategy and business. Subscribing to the Harvard Business Review was a logical next step in the learning process.

The copy of the magazine I received had little resemblence to the b&w smudgy copies from the college days. Colors and high-quality glossy paper were a nice surprise (okay, my expectations were really low). The paper is thicker than the paper used by the Economist; I am pretty sure that the publishers did this on purpose to send a subliminal message of the lasting value of the magazine and its articles. It also seems that the style of the articles got a little lighter - but maybe it is just me being smarter now (my girlfriend would disagree at times!).

I am now going through the issue so the next post will have my thoughts on specific articles. Come back on April 17!