The First Word

In lieu of an editorial

First Anniversary!  Happy birthday!

Well, we've made it through the first year of New Nurturing Potential.  Four issues.  What have we learned?   What have you noticed?

The most obvious thing is that I've moved the editorial - at least the section that stands in place of an editorial - to the beginning of the magazine, rather than incorporate it into the section known as The Last Word.  My reason being that I suspect very strongly that, by the time people get to the end of the magazine, their attention span has started to wane.  And my justification for that conclusion is that too many of my requests have been totally ignored.

We shall see.  Unless people skip The First Word and move on to something that sounds more exciting, we may get some of the feedback I have been unsuccessfully seeking.

All feedback is positive, it is said in the NLP discipline, and that makes sense when you think about it - whatever your starting point.  There is often a mental confusion between between "negative" and "unfairly critical", if you do not consider the terms in the context of therapy or linguistics.  Feedback is comment on something that has been done, or has transpired, so that any feedback at all must be a reaction to what has been done or has transpired.  That comment may involve praise, blame or indifference, but it is at least comment and, therefore, contains the inference of what needs to be done.  The only negative feedback, therefore, is no feedback.

Right.  Got that off my chest!

As far as I am concerned, you are welcome to criticise me or this journal, harangue me or this journal - even praise me or this journal - and the latter is the least welcome of those options.  Honestly.  Because it is the only reaction that doesn't suggest a way in which we might improve. Even though it is always reassuring to know when one is doing something right. And I am quite capable of providing my own plaudits

In fact, let's start with some. New Nurturing Potential Issue No. 4 is being published online on precisely the date that had been set for its publication three months ago.  As was No.3 and No. 2.  It also has a pretty full table of contents, and several new contributors, although we have - at least temporarily - lost a couple of old friends as a consequence of domestic and business pressures.

The most significant feature of our development, to my mind, has been the enormous growth in the book review section.  And this has brought both challenges and rewards.  The major challenge has been to our companion site Potential Unleashed rather than to ourselves.  The publishing houses for which we produce our reviews are apparently so happy with the quality of the material we have provided that they are determined to have it matched by the quantity of their offerings.  It has been very difficult to keep up.  The main sufferer has been Potential Unleashed for which the intention had been simply to handle the excess of books for review between the quarterly issues of Nurturing Potential.  As a consequence of the expansion in the supply of books, I shall be obliged to reduce the input of other material in Potential Unleashed.  Simply because of lack of time. This has already occurred.

But I have nothing but praise for the reviewers who have helped to make this section so successful.  Books have been sent for review as far afield as Turkey and Spain.  So if any of our regular announcements from publishers of books for review take your fancy, please don't let your geographical location deter you from requesting a review copy.  We merely ask that you produce your reviews in a timely fashion.

And please, please do submit your own articles for any of the subject headings of the magazine, OR, if rights to reproduce can be obtained, let us have articles that may have been published elsewhere which you think would be appreciated by a wider audience.

Warm regards to all of you,

May you have a  joyous Christmas, and a good, healthy and happy New Year.

Joe Sinclair

Managing Editor