Last night the ASBPE Awards of Excellence Northeast Region awards banquet, was held in Newton, Mass.

David Barach, publisher of PennWell Corp.'s Solid State Technology, was the dinner speaker, and his topic was PennWell's internal Eddy Awards program. He had some interesting things to say — and not necessarily all about awards per se.

One thing that caught my attention was the fact that PennWell uses its awards program as an opportunity not just to celebrate editorial quality, but improve it, by combining the ceremony with a day of editorial training. This seems like a good approach to me, because it guarantees some regular training for all magazine staffers.

Yes, it's only once a year. But from what I've experienced, and heard from others, that would be an improvement for most B2B publishing companies. So many in-house training programs seem to fall by the wayside for whatever reason: No one to take ownership; lack of time among the person or people who do take ownership; difficulty in developing programs that meet all staffers' needs; or just apathy among the intended recipients, who may be way beyond the need for a "how to write a compelling story" seminar (or at least think they are).

On this last topic, PennWell has what seems to me like a good solution: It brings in outside trainers for junior editors on topics like headline writing and reporting, and in other sessions has in-house editors share lessons learned through the reporting process.

What do you think is the best approach to editorial training? In-house? Out-of-house? Do people at your company only get training if they ask to take a class? And what, if anything, can ASBPE do to better help you with your training needs? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think.

For more of Dave's comments from the banquet, see our chapter web page on the national ASBPE web site.