InRetro turns 20 this year…

InRetro turns 20 this year – I had to say that twice.

I can hardly believe all the places being an entrepreneur has taken me and how blessed I have been to have met so many wonderful people along the way.

This venture first began as a magazine – old style – on the cusp of the digital take-over of our time. Yes, I took a ribbing from a few people in my day –

“Why would you start a magazine when everyone’s about to go digital?”

The truth is I was a romantic. I grew up on print, Mad Men advertising (where you would hand-place ad layouts and then photograph them in a darkroom), and on old fashioned commercial art practices long before working artists would rebrand themselves as graphic designers, and so on.

So, I worked at it. I taught myself how to publish, how to put a physical magazine together, how to work with writers, artists, photographers… and I got to 64 pages.

Ironically, I learned I wanted more than print while on a road trip to a printing press in Montreal. I had just done an in-person interview with Buzz Hargrove – a candid discussion about the role of unions in the then modern age.

To me, our conversation was riveting. Sitting at his kitchen table, there were so many questions I wanted to ask. We talked about the role of unions in industry; if they had any responsibility in helping to future-proof the hardworking employees it represented – for generations beyond their own.

As the kilometres passed by, still on my way to Montreal, I tuned into the CBC and heard a conversation with June Callwood. She had grown up in the town I had just left three hours earlier. Her shared experiences, how she used her voice, and the sound of her sincerity touched me.

Inspired, I rushed home and grabbed the tape recorder of my earlier interviews and got to work transcribing all that had been said to turn it into an article. But as I listened – I wanted to share the words just as they were. Spoken in context.

And that’s when I expanded into web radio and podcasting – far before the bandwagons had rushed in.

That was a long time ago.

But to be twenty again (she said laughing) – albeit in a different form, feels young to me. It feels like when you hear people say, “If I only knew then what I know now” — but still being in the position to do something about it!

So this is me, starting over with the wisdom and experience of someone now much older, working with a still-youthful 20-year-old. 🙂

Happy Birthday, InRetro!