The Four Question-John Kenney, HomeWorks Media Group

October 21, 2004

Boston-based HomeWorks Media Group President John Kenney describes its annual HomeWorks Sourcebook as “an insider’s guide to the best home-and-garden professionals.” The company now publishes four regional editions for 160,000 of the wealthiest homes in the Boston area, but hopes to eventually expand into other major cities. According to www.homeworkssourcebook.com, the idea for the business arose from Kenney’s personal experiences as the onetime management consultant renovated his Back Bay condo. The company was founded in 2002 and published its first issue in March 2003. Homeworks Media Group joined MPA last year.

Q. What’s the best idea you’ve ever gotten from a reader?
A. We get all sorts of great ideas from our readers – and our advertisers, too, for that matter. Probably the best idea was to do something more focused on home-and-garden retailers, so we created a HomeWorks Shopping Guide, which is a series of spreads in our books. Each spread has a big map of one of our regions, with logos pointing to the locations of our advertisers.

Q. What story in your magazine thus far has had the greatest impact?
A. Though we do have articles that generate a lot of interest, we aren’t really an editorial-based publication. We’re more a resource guide. Our real mission is to compile lots of information about local companies that helps homeowners make smart hiring decisions. Part of this involves vetting all our advertisers by using a nine-step credential check.

Q. Looking at magazines in general, what's been your favorite magazine article of all time? And why?
A. To be honest, I’m pretty new to the magazine world, so I’m looking at magazines in a whole new way now that I’m publishing them. Actually, I do a lot less reading now and lot more analyzing about how the whole thing is put together: What are they trying to do? Who are they trying to reach? What’s different? Who are their advertisers? What can we learn from them? That sort of thing.

Q. What do you think of the Do-It-Yourself cable channel and all these makeover shows on TV and cable that are, in a way, moving into your turf?
A. Well, one of the remarkable things we’ve learned is what a remarkably small share of the market do-it-yourself is compared to work done using professionals. You wouldn’t know it from watching TV, but 78% of all spending is done with professionals, versus just 22% DIY. You’d think it was the other way around. So, in a sense, what’s going on in the DIY-oriented media space doesn’t really affect us too much.