Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.

This quote by Walter Elliot, a Scottish politician, got me thinking. Recently, I broke my wrist and hand and cracked some ribs — and the first thing I thought was, how am I going to work? It wasn’t about what happened to me (a wicked fall from my horse), who would watch my animals or the amount the hospital ER visit was going to set me back. I was only thinking about how I could perform my job.

And this led me to wonder how many of you may be struggling with a limitation in your job. Maybe it is a broken limb, long hours, or not finding the next game-changing product, etc.

What I’ve learned since my accident, is that sometimes it is good to take a break — especially if you are burning the candle at both ends — trying to get through the holiday craze, staying late to catch up on work and so forth.

For me, it was a paradigm shift. This week, I realized that I would not be able to write for at least one month. I needed assistance, be it a person or program. In other words, it was time to reset.

Thankfully I was able to find speech to text technology, which types what I say aloud onto a document. It isn’t perfect but it works. I was also lucky to have some time off for the holidays to let myself heal. I hope you also got some down time during the holidays and were able to reset for a brand-new year.

New Digital Edition Experience

Speaking of brand new, we have some exciting news regarding our digital edition of Packaging Strategies. Our team has been diligently working on creating the best experience for audiences on the go. The new digital edition employs a responsive reading experience with an interactive interface. Convenient for readers, the Contents View mirrors the print magazine on your desktop, and on your phone in an easy-to-view scrollable series of articles.

While our digital editions have always had audio, it is now front and center with Instant Audio. This allows readers to simply click on the speaker icon and listen to any of the articles in the digital version — even from your phone.

We also use artificial intelligence to deliver a personalized content stream for readers based on reader behavior and preferences. You’ll find that option in the menu bar of the digital version.

In this issue, flip to page 20 for the Best Practices for Packaging Line Optimization, page 28 for Giving the Human-Machine Interface a More Human Touch and the rest of this issue.

Cheers to a prosperous 2020,

KRISTEN KAZARIAN
kazariank@bnpmedia.com