better

“The subhead looks funny. I can’t figure out if it should have a period.”

We all keep working. Benoit will figure it out. He’s been a writer for the New York Times Magazine. The author of two books. Surely he can figure out a period on a subhead without help from us.

“Can anybody help me figure out why it doesn’t look right?”

“I’ll google it.” Henry doesn’t sigh, but his foot starts tapping a little faster. Benoit says, “I’ll look on Salon, see how they do it.” “Hmmm…they’re inconsistent, let’s try Slate.”

My keyboard clatters as I type. “Forget those pubs, how does the Times do it?” I hadn’t wanted to worry about subhead punctuation protocol, but we’re four days away from launching our own online magazine, and it has to be right. We search for subhead trends in every publication we aspire to.

“Does anyone know how to change the size of a video in blog post?” Sarah had been surprisingly quiet as she chewed her lower lip.

I lean slightly right, point to the part of the screen she’s scowling at. “Maybe…I think….here…in the embed code. Try reducing these numbers by a percentage.”

Sarah’s face lights up. “Ahhhh…calculator?”

I slide my phone over to her. We laugh.

Surely there are more important things I have to do. There are contracts to be signed, revenue models to figure out. There’s the content strategy for the next 6 months, the second book we’re putting together, the playwright we want to hire. But for today, I’ve promised my team I would focus on just the magazine, and that’s what I’m here to do.

I look around the conference room table. We’re a motley crew. It would be easy to label us: man, woman, old, young, gay, straight, single, married, divorced, tattooed, uninked, tall, short, have children, don’t. I won’t bother to tell you which of those describe me. But when you’re committed to a common vision, differences are irrelevant. We all love sentences. We understand the importance of design. We believe in the power of stories. We want to do some good in this world. We want to create something amazing.

And we’re four days away from a magazine launch and the subheads have to be figured out.

“Let’s go with no punctuation.”

“We can’t. Some of the subheads are two sentences. You can’t have a period on the first, but not on the second. That’s why it looks funny.”

“Some of the subheads aren’t sentences.”

“We have to be consistent.”

A while ago I had seen a question floating around the internet. The question was “If you were investing in a CEO, would you care how passionate they were?”

My answer to that question was that I think sometimes excitement gets mistaken for passion. Pure excitement about something? No – look at the numbers instead. But – to me – passion is really about caring. In relationships. In business. In life. And yeah, caring is important. Caring about the little things. Caring about the big things. I’d put my money on passion. For sure.

Benoit and Henry have settled on a format for the subheads. I know they will move on; a standard has been set, documented, and put in place. We will be consistent. We will be clear. We will be interesting. We will care, always.

There are new decisions to be made. “Hey Lisa.” Benoit is ever-serious as he poses the next important question. “Which headline do you like better for this article – ‘monogamously challenged’ or ‘make love like an animal, cuddle like a man?’”

I smile. I wouldn’t trade working on this launch for any job in the world.

The Good Men Project Magazine launches June first, 2010.