Last June I used this space to recap all the changes and additions to NEW MOBILITY in my first year as editor. In retrospect, I wish I had waited until this issue because the pace of change has only accelerated since then and is about to speed up even more in the new year.

I guess that’s why they say hindsight is 20/20.

Bad humor aside, 2020 is shaping up to look like a great year for NEW MOBILITY. We have an exciting slate of stories lined up and we’ve enlisted some new voices that I think you are really going to enjoy. A couple of those new voices — Todd Stabelfeldt and Josh Basile — make their debut later in this issue.

Also look for expanded monthly coverage of United Spinal Association and a new quarterly feature focusing on sharing insights from community leaders and visionaries. We’re calling it “Big Ideas” as an homage to September 2019’s Big Ideas Issue.

If I had to pick a highlight from 2019, that issue would be my choice. It was a ton of work, but it pushed our editorial team to think outside the box in terms of content and design, and I genuinely believe the final product will stand the test of time as an invaluable resource for our community. It also educated us about some hot-button issues we now plan to cover more in the future.

“Big Ideas” will build on the excitement and momentum the issue generated by featuring a Q&A with a different thought leader or innovator every quarter. Executive Editor Josie Byzek kicks it off in style this month with an interview of famed disability advocate Judy Heumann.
While our content evolves at a breakneck pace (my New Year’s resolution is to give up humor — I swear), we are doing our best to keep up with the changing worlds of publishing and online distribution.

As the official membership magazine of United Spinal Association, NEW MOBILITY is seen every month by over 100,000 people, either electronically or in print. Thirty years ago, that level of distribution would have been more than enough to entice a king’s ransom of advertisers and fund an all-encompassing staff to cover every aspect of life on wheels.

Today a publication’s online readership and social media metrics are just as — if not more — important than print circulation. Despite the explosion of web content on all topics, we believe that NEW MOBILITY fills a niche of authentic, curated content for wheelchair users better than anyone else on the internet, and we are committed to ensuring that content reaches as wide an audience as possible. To that end, we are working behind the scenes on a number of ideas and projects that I will reveal to you in the near future.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy our first issue of the ’20s. With your help, I am confident we will make this NEW MOBILITY’s best decade yet. And who knows? Maybe scientists will have discovered an all-encompassing cure for SCI/D by the time 2030 rolls around.

Just to be clear, that wasn’t a joke.