FutureGov has closed
This morning I received an email: FutureGov, the publication I edit, is closing immediately. The company’s two events arms shut last year, but the debt they accumulated was too great, and the (profitable) digital arm was paying this off too slowly.
This was a nasty shock. But I want to set out briefly what the publishing team achieved at FutureGov — and why we think it’s important.
FutureGov’s readership has more than doubled over the past year to 70,000 government officials a month. This was due to the editorial team’s strong interviews and scoops: we exclusively got hold of the United Nations’ E-Government Rankings before they were published; interviewed very senior officials from right across the region; led the way on covering Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative, India’s MyGov movement, Malaysia’s Big Data projects, New Zealand’s digital transformation and open government schemes in Australian states.
As the book The Fourth Revolution notes, “government is lousy at spreading ideas”, but they need to more than ever before. They are all dealing with the same huge challenges and opportunities: new technologies, higher citizen expectations, changing demographics, and increasing complexity. We worked at FutureGov because we are keen to share these stories, and think it is a niche to be explored.
Publishing is a difficult industry, but we proved at FutureGov that it can be profitable and good quality. Revenues have been strong over the past year, but legacy debts from previous businesses seemed to bring us down.
I’m very proud to have worked with the FutureGov team. Medha, Salima, Eileen, Amy, Des, Katrina and Kelly have all pulled together over a testing few months.
I’ve written this post because I wanted to explain what has happened in our own words. It has been a tremendous experience speaking to so many people in government across the region, and also working with commercial partners who wish to support public sector innovation.
It is a great disappointment that our parent company — Alphabet Media — has gone into administration, but I think the entire team has valued the experience we gained at FutureGov, and is proud of what we achieved.
Thanks to everyone who has written to us showing their support. It has been greatly appreciated, and I hope that our paths will cross again.
Joshua
