Editor's Desk: Soup's On, The Atlas Society | Ayn Rand, Objectivism, Atlas Shrugged

Summer 2010 issue -- We’ve launched. Yes, we threw the switch and nothing blew up. On our new website that is. You can find it at www.atlassociety.org/tni. This is the new home for our print magazine as well as for web-only features. Each article comes with an “auto-podcasting” feature—meaning you can listen to any TNI print article over your computer speakers, or you can download it as an mp3 file. Now you can listen to TNI on a train, in a plane, or in a box with a fox. Anywhere you like. You also won’t want to miss our Live Discussions—text-based Q&A with various authors and opinion leaders.

The TNI web home is part of a larger web-world, produced by our publisher, The Atlas Society. Visit the section next to TNI, and you’ll find the society’s new Business Rights Center, headed by the irreplaceable Roger Donway. Don’t miss his “Business Rights Watch” blog. You can also find interactive webinars to attend, free of charge, on intriguing issues, like individual rights. Understanding these issues will help you to understand the “clockwork” behind current events. The interactivity includes live opinion polling, Q&A, and virtual breakout rooms for concurrent discussions on different topics.

The real starsof this launch are our donors, subscribers, and our tireless trustees. Our hats are off to you.

It’s been one intense year. For my own part, I’ve been wearing two hats, one as editor of this magazine, and one as the head of the Atlas Society website project—submerged in both big picture issues like design, strategy, and selection of functionalities; and minute details like choice of photos and formatting of articles. I had a great team to work with. The talented folks at Gravitate Design Studio produced the visual design of the sections, and the programming of that design. So hats off to that extremely talented group: Cyndi Nguyen, Clay Woodward, Tom Wheeler, Ray Lloyd, and Michael Parker. It was also a pleasure to work with Joop Heijenrath, Paul Walstra, Niclas Bergstrom, and Christopher McKinley, the Netherlands-based providers of our auto-podcasting functionality. We’ll be continuing to work together to finesse the automated web-reader—by teaching it new words, so to speak, and fine-tuning pronunciation where needed. Kira Newman assisted in prepping content prior to posting, including editing and copyediting, and performing SEO edits. Nicholas Garbacz and Bradley Doucet also made contributions to the new site.

The executive staff at TAS worked hard to enable the project to transition from vision to reality. That staff includes executive director David Kelley, executive consultant Jim Jeck, and our one-of-a-kind ndefatiigable board chairman Jay LaPeyre. With few execptions over the past year, the executive commitee of the board met every single week to fine-tune and implement the overall strategic transformation of The Atlas Society. Now that's dedication.

Everyone’s hard work is paying off. This dream is coming true thanks to the dedication of the real stars of this effort—our subscribers, donors, and tireless trustees, who support our efforts with great enthusiasm and dedication. To you: our hats are off. You were the key players. It would have never happened without you. And it’s only going to get better.