Well, it was more than two and a half years ago that I wrote something like "Here's to some new characters" in our inaugural issue. It was late 1999. The dot-com bubble was at the peak of its rainbow translucence. Boards magazine was a spanking new player on the international ad scene and eyebrows were cocked across many lands as our small yet tenacious team began calling agencies and production companies and posing all manner of keen questions.

In that first editorial (for the love of God, don't feel that you have to refer back to it) I talked about what was a perceived dearth of "characters" in the business and the mass exodus of young ad types to the new media/Internet arena. But now we've seen another, sadder kind of exodus from the industry - layoffs that have cut across demographics and have cut muscle along with fat.

We may also be seeing another kind of emigration: according to a British study (published by the IPA), the more experienced (over-40) set is running screaming from the youth-oriented ad game. All of this brings to mind a catch phrase from a ubiquitous Canadian beer campaign: "It's all about balance." It's clear that youth, in the form of fresh thinking is essential in the ad industry, but youthfulness itself doesn't guarantee that commodity: look no further than any "hip" or shocking-for-its-own-sake wankery that can seem as tired as the most plodding pack shot-snorer.

A decline in average age means fewer people with heavy ad experience but also fewer people who have lived through recessions and economic adversity. But as we know, age doesn't always guarantee wisdom. In that first outing I emphasized the enduring importance of working with "smart bold people" amid changing ad formats, and I'll reiterate that now. As the form, locus and length of ad messages change, what doesn't change is the need for core marketing strength and the importance of agencies in delivering this - and good agencies thrive on youth and experience.

This brings me to another balance that has always struck me as so critical, and the one good ad people achieve most lyrically: the balance between creative foolishness and hard-nosed business sense; of taking an advertiser's balance sheet seriously but not oneself (and not much of the stuff that goes along with the advertising business). If advertising is the spur in the flank of capitalism, those who practise it must do so with an awareness of the solemn responsibility it represents, while still being able to act goofy.

We've aimed to strike such balances with Boards. When we started asking all those questions in November 1999, to our delight, most of our subjects answered, and then some. Since then, the outpouring of insight, strange ideas, contrary views, challenging arguments, booze and creative energy has amazed and satisfied us in more ways than even we can define.

Over the next few years, as the industry recovers and moves into new territories, the team here will get even smarter (yes, I am leaving) and bolder.

For all your Boards editorial needs from this issue forward, please continue to contact Sandy Hunter or Rae Ann Fera here in Toronto, as many of you have already been doing.

Encore: A bientôt.