As SA and the rest of the world continue to battle an unpredictable, invisible enemy and the restrictions it’s placed on populations, businesses in all sectors have had to find new strategies for surviving not just the present crisis, but the long period of reconstruction which will follow. In many senses, the impact of the virus has been apocalyptic: entire industries – such as the travel, tourism and hospitality industries – have been all but decimated.
The media industry has also been severely impacted and publishers have had to employ innovative thinking to navigate the future.
Aware of the opportunities presented by digital technology, the Bar Group has chosen to take full advantage of that option to continue giving our readers, advertisers and shareholders our monthly titles with the same top-notch editorial content we’re committed to delivering. However, due to restrictions created by the present lockdown in SA, we’ll be publishing them online through digital platforms. (Indeed, we’ve been uploading issues of our titles since they were relaunched in November/December 2019.)
To do this, we’ve partnered with Magzter – a cross-platform, self-service, global digital magazine newsstand with over 8 000 magazines from over 3 400 publishers – to retail our issues monthly until such time as the lockdown is lifted, when we’ll revert to printed publications (but continue uploading online issues as well).
Digital platforms have the added advantage of enabling us to reach readerships we previously couldn’t access beyond our borders, both in our own continent (Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique, Ghana, Nigeria, the DRC, Morocco, Zambia, Cameroon and Angola), as well as globally.
Though it was launched in 2011, Magzter was designed for this era with almost premonitory accuracy. Well over a decade ago, digital was the obvious future for the media industry.
To register on Magzter so that you can read the magazines online or via the Magzter app, visit:
https://www.magzter.com/ZA/The-Bar-Group/Destiny/Women’s-Interest/ https://www.magzter.com/ZA/The-Bar-Group/Destiny-MAN/Men’s-Magazines/
The May-June 2020 issue will duly be available for purchase through the platform’s subscription model from midnight on Monday, 4 May. Look out for subscription giveaways, competitions and IGTV live sessions with the editors of our publications during the week of 26 April-1 May.
May is also Africa Month and, accordingly, the theme of our May-June issue will focus on the “new normal” in business and society, exploring ways in which African corporates and entrepreneurs can restructure their operations for recovery, survival and future prosperity.
We’ll also be celebrating Africa’s complexities, power, magic, potential, resourcefulness, resilience and unique way of viewing humanity and the world.
Above all, we celebrate the African imagination, which unfailingly finds ingenious ways of overcoming challenges. We call on all African businesses to harness their ingenuity and courage and overcome the one facing us now.
There’s a great slogan in our continent: “Africa isn’t for sissies.” We couldn’t agree more. Our people do not buckle under pressure or quake before adversity. In the words of diva extraordinaire Sibongile Khumalo’s song, we are “dreamers who do”. We are not only workers, but warriors. Our history is one of tenacity, fortitude and faith. They’ll again see us through us this dark present into the future sun.
Ithemba alibulali!
