Harvard Business Review (ed)

Is it just me, or has the shine paled on the institution that the Harvard Business Review once was?

It used to be that the articles were weighty, and almost all were worth reading, if only to broaden one’s understanding. I vividly recall reading it from cover to cover, learning about obscure ideas in unfamiliar industries that just might apply to my own. It seemed to regularly give me food for thought, and pointers to great books with powerful ideas that I could use.

Since it moved to a monthly format, however, things changed to my mind.

More lightweight stuff-started to make its way in, and in my field there is a lot of it, consisting of little more than re-treaded ideas said just a little differently. I have found the good articles to be more rare, and the best reading to come from the short “forethought” articles that track new trends, and new ideas. I used to think that the articles were the place to find new ideas, but not so anymore…

Of course, could just be that I am a bit older than when I first started reading the journal in my early twenties. Being forty does change a few things, and it might be that I have been around the block a bit, and heard some of the same ideas over and over.

Maybe it is just a bit of both.