The Business Moment

Toby is a writer and editor who had been working freelance for some years with an eclectic range of projects to his credit.

“I’ve done ad and promotional copywriting in just about every medium – print, web, radio and even the back end of a bus.”

Past clients ranged from Thomas Cook to Cambridge Folk Festival, and he’s also done press and PR for Cambridge Film Festival and the Olympic Torch Relay. But it all began with magazine journalism.

“My first true editorial job was for a magazine called The Cambridge Insider, founded by Neal Robbins, who went on to set up Local Secrets. I had no journalistic qualifications whatsoever, but he liked my writing and took a chance on me as an editor, and I’m happy to say it paid off.”

He then went to a fledgling Cambridge company called adhoc publishing ltd, and worked with them to create a new weekly what’s on magazine for the city, as editor and then creative director.

“We built up the product over four years, starting with a folded listings sheet, and ending up producing a 96 page magazine every week with, reviews, previews, columns and a major interview feature in each issue.”

The magazine was rolled out into Oxford and Bristol, where Toby took on responsibility for setting up the editorial teams.

“It was a massive learning curve, with a lot being done on pure instinct. Now I understand the principles far better, but looking back, I realise the creative decisions were pretty sound.”

Unfortunately, some of the business decisions proved slightly less sound.

“I think most of us felt – instinctively, again – that the publishers were rushing the expansion plans. But they were supposedly more experienced than us creative types, so who were we to argue?”

Adhoc finally folded, having overstretched its resources.

“That taught me a great deal. About trusting my own instincts, but also about some very basic principles of business – one of the most important being that good entrepreneurs are not necessarily good day-to-day businesspeople, and that you need good businesspeople to establish stability.”

It was a tough time, with relentless hard work. But it was also a time of considerable achievement – he won the Keats-Shelley Prize for prose and an INCA radio advertising award during these years –
and looking back, doesn’t regret any of it.

“It was a fantastic team, and we produced an excellent magazine. And when it went, people really missed it. That told me we were doing the right thing. There was a lot of high-powered talk of ‘investment’ at adhoc – but, ultimately, the most important investment was that of the readership and the advertisers in the product. That’s what I learned, and that’s the insight I recognised when I got talking to Mark. I met my future wife, Felicity at adhoc too, and now she’s editing web content for The Moment, so it’s all worked out quite nicely!”

Toby went on to found and edit another Cambridge magazine – RealCity – before becoming
a freelance writer in 2003. And it hasn’t just been ads and features. “I also write scripts – one of which
is in development with a London-based production company – and now novels, too.” The first novel, The Viking Dead – a historical-horror mash-up published by Abaddon, available via Amazon and in all good bookshops – is due to be republished as part of a compendium volume in November. The second, Knight of Shadows, also for Abaddon, is the inaugural novel of a new series of adventures under the title Hunter of Sherwood.

“It takes place in the world of Robin Hood,” says Toby, “but not as we know it… Guy of Gisburne
is the hero. Kind of a 12th century James Bond, with a hint of Batman. He’s the original dark knight…”

Toby also – somehow – finds time to teach journalism and screenwriting at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge.

“Basically, I’m coming at this writing thing from a lot of angles – theoretical, practical, commercial, creative. But it’s all the same at the end of the day. It’s about telling stories, engaging audiences – and understanding the desires of each audience.”

Next to join the story-writing machine was Deputy Editor Tamsin Cocks, and once again, it was
The Moment network that brought her to Mark’s attention.

“I met Mark through a mutual contact on the magazine around the time he was thinking about the new concept,” says Tamsin. “I had done a couple of features for The Moment and I happened to be looking for another job and The Business Moment sounded a really exciting concept. So I sent over a few ideas… and it went from there!”

Tamsin, who grew up in Hong Kong, has had something of a jet-set existence. Scuba diving in the Phillippines. Mountaineering in Borneo. Internships in Kettering and Rugby…

“After my degree I did stints at local newspapers before going on to get an MA in journalism. I then worked as a copywriter for a PR company in London, writing press releases, newsletters and also some articles for trade magazines and websites. After that, I started to branch out into some part time freelance journalism work, which is how I met Mark.”

One epic editorial meeting later, the magazine was already taking shape.

“Two fundamental principles emerged from our pooled ideas,  One was that we didn’t want it to come across as corporate. It was about all those SMEs out there – people who didn’t just work behind desks, but in shops, restaurants, greenhouses studios and gardens. The other was that we did not want all the content grouped in ‘specialist’ sections. This was going tomix it up, to look at what businesspeople have in common, and what we can all learn from each other, no matter what product or service we’re selling,” says Toby.

It would even, at times, court physical danger. Toby explains:

“In addition to getting the news section and many of the main features together, Tamsin is by far the most intrepid of us. She’s done all manner of outdoorsy things and has her Bronze and Silver Duke of Edinburgh Award. This has turned out to be great for us, but maybe not so much for her. Basically, if we were the Blue Peter team, she would be the one who was sent out to bungee jump or bond with gorillas.”

He’s not joking, either. For the second issue of the magazine, she literally walked on hot coals. A sign of dedication?

“Or madness! Part of the reason I agreed to do the firewalk was that by experiencing something first hand, you’re (hopefully!) able to talk about it from a more informed perspective. But also, it was an opportunity to do something new and exciting – and I think people should always grab opportunities like that when they come along,” she smiles.

Although it is offered as an empowerment tool for businesses and individuals (see
the January and March issues for the full story of Master Firewalker Steve Consalvez)
firewalking is hardly the most obvious topic to find in a business publication. But it was
typical of The Business Moment approach.

It first featured in a slot called Management Style, which was itself something of a departure from the norm, as Toby explains.

“It was Mark who came up with the idea of a purely pictorial piece, just showing people in their place of work, Essentially, it was treating the subject like a fashion shoot. I’d never seen that done in a business title before. It could easily have come across as frivolous, but from the first issue it achieved something quite special.”

That first shoot showed the staff of Elite Autoworks in their car repair shop – but lit and shot in epic style, as if a scene from a movie. It was like a statement of purpose.

“The Management Style piece is a good example of what’s at the heart of The Business Moment. Doing things in a different way, looking at things from a different perspective and revealing something new in what we think is familiar,” nods Mark.

The visual style of the magazine, as well as the written content, has always been of paramount importance.

“It’s not just about committing words to paper. It’s about building relationships and instilling trust – having an idea, visually, that we think is going to work with individual personality types. And making Peterborough businesspeople feel that they are worth it! That’s why we do our own photo shoots whenever we can, and why that picture choice is important. We have a couple of exceptional photographers in Paul Bryant and Simon Hipperson, who have captured some really memorable images for both magazines. And our business partners, AT Graphics, have done an amazing job of the design. People place a lot of trust in us and I take that very seriously. We are dealing with people’s brands, after all.”

The other defining feature of The Business Moment from launch was that it did not appear in print. As Mark explains: “The fact that The Business Moment is digital in no way devalues its worth,”. “As a digital publication, it’s actually able to have an influence far beyond the core database that drives distribution. That’s the nature of a viral offering. Who knows where it ends up?”