Who or what is mturro?

In my professional life I am the Director of Technology for M. Shanken Communications, publisher of Wine Spectator, Cigar Aficionado, Food Arts, and other magazines. (By the way: All writings, opinions and comments attributed to me here and most places on the web are entirely my own and DO NOT represent M. Shanken Communications or its publications in any way, shape or form.)

In my personal life I am a father, husband, son, son-in-law, brother, uncle, friend, and neighbor to a small group of individuals who take residence in the hills of North Jersey and other more remote areas of the country.

Working from life back to books…

A random fact about me that might give you a more full picture of who I am and what I believe: I walked away from my Master of Arts Degree in Literature with only six credits left to complete. After reading Marshall McLuhan I decided that I needed to get out of the academic trap. I needed to understand the practical effects and biases of the media I offhandedly consumed. As I saw it the only way to effectively do that was to get my hands dirty–to understand the media I used so that it couldn’t use me. The time had come to shift from consumer to maker.

So I got a job with a magazine publisher (or as they now like to refer to themselves – a media company) and dove into learning how magazines actually get made. I learned about web offset printing, computer to plate technologies, fonts (sigh, fonts), trapping, line screen, halftones, copy-dot, drum, chromes, color keys. I learned about the real life bargain between art and commerce that comprises the fundamental core of media. I learned about the ecosystem of technologies and individuals that fuel media.

I was extraordinarily lucky to get into the business at a time when the computer – the Mac really – was transforming the printing and publishing world. I grew up on Apple so the Mac was natural to me – I was well versed in its culture, its excentricities, and it’s application as a creative tool. This understanding gave me a leg up on people who had been in the business for decades, people who had (perhaps jokingly) claimed to set type in hot metal, people who looked at the Mac with scorn.

All in all I am happy I walked away from academics and found real life waiting for me in the media and publishing worlds. I’m not sure I could see myself being happy teaching Mellville and Emerson and Thoreau to college kids. Not that there is anything wrong with that… I come from a family of teachers – I’m even married to one… it’s just that it never felt like a fit for me. I need to be confronted with market level uncertainty… I love to (here I will paraphrase Nassim Nicholas Taleb) work from real life back to books, not from books to real life.

If after all of the above you feel like I might be of some help to you, or you might be of some help to me, or you just want to say hello, feel free to contact me.