Inside every slacker, there’s an entrepreneur trying to get out.
That’s the editorial message, sort of, behind Realm/Creating the Work You Want, a new quarterly magazine out of Burnaby, b.c. targeted to readers 18 to 29 years of age.
‘We describe it as Business Week meets Rolling Stone,’ says Elisa Hendricks, publisher and editor. She says that, while the Realm reader is the same as the Shift reader from the demographic point of view – ‘someone who’s over-educated, under-employed and living in their parent’s basement,’ – its editorial stance is very different.
Realm is trying to debunk what it considers the myth of an unpromising future for the young by focusing on career and labor market issues, says Hendricks. ‘So many (young) people have lost hope,’ she says.
And no wonder. With a youth unemployment rate of 17% – almost double the national rate – and a major glut of boomers stifling the career aspirations of those who do manage to get work, it’s no surprise that the nation’s youth feels disillusioned.
The job of Realm, apparently, is to give these readers the facts and motivation they need to get ahead.
‘Information is power,’ says Hendricks, adding there’s lots of information out there to help Canada’s young find their way – it’s just a matter of packaging it so that it’s easily accessible.
In Realm’s case, the packaging won’t be all ribbons and pretty paper – but it will be inspirational, she says. ‘It will be optimistic and realistic,’ she says, adding that the magazine will present useful and motivational information in a funky, pop culture-friendly manner.
Realm differs from its competition on the distribution front as well.
Most significantly, it’s to be a self-sustaining project published by YES Canada-BC, a non-profit agency founded in 1987 to provide Canadian youth with the information, skills and training they need to succeed in the working world. One of the agency’s programs is the Youth Entrepreneur Program which helps young Canadians find or create work, according to Hendricks.
Yes has also published Motiv8 and Career Paths, two Western Canadian career-planning publications on which Hendricks also works. While Motiv8 focuses on school-to-work transition and caters to youth at risk, Career Paths is used extensively for career planning in high schools, says Hendricks. In fact, she says, the publication is often used as a textbook in the province’s classrooms, boasting a distribution of between 300,000 and 600,000, thanks to the fact that career planning is obligatory from kindergarten to grade 12. While neither of these publications carry advertising, that won’t be the case with Realm. Hendricks says that, if all goes as planned, the non-profit magazine will be self-sustaining by year two. Toronto media sales house Magazine Network is in charge of selling ads and sponsorships in the glossy.
Hendricks is quick to point out that non-profit also doesn’t mean boring. ‘It’s not written by a bunch of teachers and profs,’ she says. Rather, young people are responsible for the final product, albeit with input from an editorial board including individuals from public and private sector interests across Canada.
With editorial departments like ‘question everything’ (news bites on hot jobs, growth industries and the like), ‘generation why?’ (examining the stereotypes and misconceptions of youth culture), ‘open for business’ (a guidebook-style section that explores the details of entrepreneurship) and ‘limelight’ (profiles of ‘thriving’ young Canadians), it sounds as if the focus is indeed miles away from the preceding generation’s ‘put in time and work your way up’ school of career planning.
‘It’s a cool magazine,’ says Diane Haynes, marketing manager for the publication. She says the message is that there are opportunities out there for the young – and they don’t have to join the rat race to become fulfilled. ‘You don’t have to tailor your life to what the market is doing,’ she says.
As of press time, no advertisers had signed on to Realm but Haynes says there was a lot of interest after its trade launch in mid-June. The publication is looking for both advertisers and sponsors.
The magazine will be sold for $3.95 at select bookstores and newsstands, but will also be made available, if sponsors are found, free of charge to high schools and post-secondary institutions, according to Haynes.
Now standard to any publication targeting young adults, Realm will be launching a Web site Setting it apart from its competition is the fact that it’s offering a French edition of the publication. The magazine also will not take alcohol or tobacco advertising. According to Haynes, advertising will be judged on a case-by-case basis to determine its suitability. Advertisers and sponsors will also have the opportunity to tap into the Realm Creative Advisory Team (rcat) which will provide feedback and input on the language and content of ads aimed at young Canadians. According to Hendricks, the team’s advice will be invaluable to advertisers interested in attracting the oft-misunderstood Gen X and Gen Y markets.
