After a decade at Paste, I am moving on.

On March 1, I will become the inaugural director of the new Center for Collaborative Journalism at Mercer University.

I am beyond excited at the opportunity that awaits. Academia has long held special appeal for me, but this opportunity is incredible beyond that. The Center is funded by a grant from the Knight Foundation (whose reputation for promoting journalistic excellence and innovation is unsurpassed) in collaboration with The Telegraph (a Pulitzer-winning McClatchy newspaper that, most impressively, remains financially successful and where the vision for the Center originated) and Georgia Public Broadcasting (one of the top public broadcasters in the nation). The paper’s newsroom will be located in the Center, and GPB is just out the door (also on Mercer property). It’s an innovative program focused on community engagement and a clinical (medical school-like) model of education. It will be cross-disciplinary; we’ll work with Knight and the other departments at Mercer to explore new technology and innovative business models. And Mercer is the most entrepreneurial and fast-moving institution of higher education I have witnessed. The impact they have had on their community is incredible. This position really ties together all the disparate parts of my background–-media, technology and entrepreneurship. I am looking forward to working to build the Center into a model of excellence and a program of national renown.

Nonetheless, the decision to leave the magazine I helped found and poured so much into over the years was not an easy one. I’ve already passed on multiple opportunities in recent days. It would take a dream job to pull me into a new path. In fact, my dream magazine company (the best magazine company out there, unless I count the McSweeney’s collective) was about to make an offer and bring me to New York City, where I’ve wanted to be forever. But the vision and ambition for the Center; the unique flexibility, speed and resources offered; the wonderful people I met; the chance to return to higher education; and the opportunity to continue the reinvigoration of Macon were irresistible.

I’ve even fallen for the city of Macon, which comes as quite a shock. I grew up 40 miles north and never knew the treasures the city offers nor its rich history. Macon’s place in rock history rivals Memphis’. Little Richard (barely arguably) got it all started in Macon. Otis Redding followed soon after, and then the Allman Brothers and Capricorn Records. Mike Mills and Bill Berry of R.E.M. got their start there, as did Mark Heard (a personal favorite) and Young Jeezy. Macon was one of the 5 M’s where you could find legendary engineer Tom Dowd (the others being Manhattan, Miami, Memphis and Muscle Shoals—not bad company). I’m looking forward to exploring (and maybe helping to build) the current scene. The architecture in parts of the city is stunning. I’m told Macon has more homes on the historic registry than Savannah (Sherman spared Macon) and the nation’s largest revolving historic-renovation fund. The tree-lined avenues and blocks of gorgeous buildings downtown are like something out of a movie. We’re looking at 19th Century homes that we can get for a song. And I can’t wait to go kayaking through downtown.

Paste has been a wonderful, enlightening, enlivening and surreal journey. Over the 2001 winter holidays, Josh, Nick and I began crafting a plan to bring forth Paste magazine. The music we loved wasn’t getting the attention it deserved, and the music press was either narrowly focused on a single niche or consumed with reaching teens. In March 2002, Nick and I headed to our first SXSW to learn what we could (“how do you get review copies of albums?”—how green we were!). People told us we were crazy to start a print magazine in 2002, especially one as broad as “whatever we like” (including non-music entertainment). But we plunged ahead. Borders signed on nationwide on the strength of a one-sheet alone, Wilco gave us a track for the sampler, and Paste debuted on July 1 of that year. We soon brought on Joe Kirk as a partner and even started a label that spawned Manchester Orchestra. The ensuing decade saw incredible growth in audience, quality and prestige. We quickly surpassed all our niche competitors in audience and racked up numerous awards. I was fortunate to spend a day with Cameron Crowe (who helped recruit Joni Mitchell to illustrate our cover), to talk to Philip Seymour Hoffman near his home right after his Golden Globe nomination (and Matt Lauer interview), to spend time with Jeff Tweedy in the band’s loft and follow them on the road, and to interview many other favorites (Jason Schwartzman, Janelle Monaé, Quincy Jones, Over the Rhine, Edward James Olmos, Helen Hunt, Patty Griffin, T Bone Burnett, John Hiatt, Marty Noxon, among others). I never got to Bono, Bill Cosby or Joss Whedon, but I’m not giving up hope just yet. Sitting in Lincoln Center alongside David Granger, Jann Wenner and Anna Wintour for our numerous National Magazine Award nominations was an honor. And I’ll never forget attempting to watch the 2009 Presidential Inauguration while also trying to keep the Obamicon servers humming. Taking the staff through Good to Great and the big redesign of the magazine were highlights as well. Over the past year and a half, Paste has transitioned from print + digital to digital only, and we’re now reaching a much wider audience than we ever have. I’m proud to have conceived mPlayer when most others were simply throwing glorified PDFs online. At two million monthly unique visitors, Paste now has one of the largest editorially focused music sites in the U.S. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing, but I’m proud of what we (that means everyone involved with Paste, in any capacity, in any of its iterations ) built. I will miss the work, but mostly I will miss the wonderful people I’ve worked with over the years. 

I leave knowing that Paste continues in great hands and will continue to grow and make me proud. Josh and Nick are as excited about Paste as on the day we launched. Bonnie, Max, and Sean–-with help from great section editors (Charles, Michael, Garrett and their assistants, Rob and Laura on the graphics front, and Jay as utility player), freelancers and the always-stellar interns–-have performed yeoman’s (and yeowoman’s) work in continuing the Paste tradition of great content. And I’ve enjoyed working with and getting to know George Howard, our primary contact at the parent company and a man with his own storied history in music.

May the next decade be filled with as many wonderful people and adventures.

UPDATE: This short video that captures well the beauty and history of Macon.

Compare the two lists from perpetua:

• Top 10 U.S. vinyl sales for 2011
• Top 10 Best-Selling Albums, 1991-2011

The former has The Beatles, Bon Iver (twice), Radiohead, Black Keys (twice), Wilco, Adele, etc. The latter has Backstreet Boys, Creed and Celine Dion (and, he points out, Creed outsold Perl Jam’s Ten and Nirvana’s Nevermind). Of course, these lists cover different time periods and 2011’s best sellers may be a little better than the decade’s as a whole, but I’m sure it will look nothing like the vinyl list.

Not that vinyl buyer’s superior taste should come as a surprise. Of course people who shop at indie record stores are going to have better taste than those shopping at big box retailers. (Not that I’m a music snob. I have nothing against truly mainstream music; some of my favorite bands fill arenas. But if you bought more than half of the albums on the 2nd list, I’m not sure we can be friends.)

This Forbes summary of Sydney Finkelstein’s research on major failures is a corrective to an insidious strain of common thinking on success and leadership. It jives well with Jim Collins’ research in Good to Great (Level 5 leaders, etc.) but runs counter to what we commonly believe about business leaders. We have this image of successful leaders as egocentric, fast-moving, loud-mouthed geniuses steamrolling through life, a combination of Gordon Gecko, Alex P. Keaton and Steve Jobs. The facts paint a different picture, and in light of the growing mythology of Jobs, we need this reminder.

How do I account for Jobs? At most, he’s an exception that proves the rule. Emulating his ego-driven management style will no more bring success than dropping out of college will bring you closer to Jobs, Gates or Zuckerburg’s achievements. Much has been, and will be, written on his success, and I won’t try to sum it up here. But I think it’s not so much an exception as a peculiar example. He may have ran roughshod over people, but ego does not seem to be his primary driver. He was driven by visions of transformational products. He was relentlessly focused on end users, not PR. And he was never complacent.

The lessons in 7 Habits and Good to Great aren’t just for high-profile CEOs. I’ve witnessed firsthand entrepreneurs, managers and non-profit employees who hurt their organization and careers because they over-identified with their company. I’ve seen teams shun anyone who raises questions in the interest of shared vision or community, silencing perspectives they very much need. And I continually see everyone from line workers to middle managers to company leaders who repeatedly use what worked in the past, insisting against the evidence in front of them that the square peg will fit in this round hole if they just keep trying (since they got a square peg to work somewhere else in the past). I need these reminders too. Not only have I made the same mistakes, I occasionally buy back into the myth of the steamroller leader and forget what it really takes.

Andrew,

I’ve particularly enjoyed your recent series of posts on religion (I’m still pondering the whole faith vs practice thread). And I agree with the sentiments expressed by you and your reader in this Whatever Happened To Hell? Ctd post.

However, I must take issue with those sentiments presented as a critique of what Rob Bell has said. You are both in violent agreement with him, just not the paraphrases and soundbites that his book has been reduced to.

Your reader quotes Bell’s “endless list of absurdities and inconsistencies” and says, no, it’s the abuse and “God is going to send  you to hell, unless…” that turns people off. But that is exactly his point. Not a tangent, not a minor one of his points. Exactly his point. Hell, it’s the context of the video your reader pulls the quote from. But it’s even clearer in the book. Much of modern Christianity (especially the evangelical portion that Bell speaks from) talks of an all-loving God but then says, you have an unknown but infinitesimal amount of time to do, say and/or believe the right things to appease this God and avoid eternal torment. That is the essence of the absurd inconsistency that he is writing against. (Even worse, that view of hell and salvation is usually presented as the only possible interpretation of Christian history and text, and he tries to show the history of much broader way of thinking going back to the early church fathers.)

And Bell also makes exactly your points. Some excerpts:

Do I believe in a literal hell? Of course. Those aren’t metaphorical missing arms and legs [referencing Rwandan kids with missing limbs].

Have you ever sat with a women while she talked about what it was like to be raped? How does a person describe what it’s like to hear a five-year-old boy whose father has just committed suicide ask: ‘When is daddy coming home?’

… I’ve seen what happens when people abandon all that is good and right and kind and humane.

… I tell these stories because it’s absolutely vital that we acknowledge that love, grace, and humanity can be rejected. From the most subtle rolling of the eyes to the most violent degradation of another human, we are terrifyingly free to do as we please.

… So when people say they don’t believe in hell and they don’t like the word ‘sin,’ my first response is to ask, ‘Have you talked with a family who just found out their child has been molested? Repeatedly? Over a number of years? By a relative?

Some words are strong for a reason. We need those words to be that intense, loaded, complex, and offensive, because they need to reflect the realities they describe.

But his broader point is that, as his title says, love wins. That the real story of Christianity is about unfailing, never-ending, all-encompassing love, grace and redemption. Its a story that doesn’t even stop at the grave. Maybe we get so locked in our own depravity that we’ll keep rejecting what’s healthy and good and loving forever. But eternity is a very long time, and to say that God has some magical cutoff time by which you must do, say or believe the right things doesn’t strike him as good, loving, moral or in keeping with what he reads of the Biblical story. That’s the story he wants to tell.

Rob Bell doesn’t need me to defend him, but I think it’s important that, if his name is going to invoked in an argument, what he actually says should at least be accurately represented.

I am not evangelical (though I grew up as an evangelical PK). And Bell does little to address the existential skeptic in me. But I have tremendous respect for him and he paints a picture of God and Christianity that is as appealing and optimistic, while acknowledging the ugliness of our present reality, as I can imagine.

Thanks,

Tim