Go East, young man
If I were young again and just starting out in journalism, I'd learn an Asian language. Heck, I'm not young anymore, and I've been in this business for a long time, but I recently decided to learn some Vietnamese. (PERSONAL DISCLOSURE: The love of my life was born in Vietnam, and although she's been a Brooklyn girl since she was a baby, she still speaks Vietnamese with her family. So my decision to learn that language has more to do with my heart than with my career.)
But regardless of who you love, you could do a lot worse than to learn a new language from the developing world -- for that's where the opportunity is in B2B journalism.
Check out the latest news from Reed Business, which is launching a new publication about the pharmaceutical industry in Asia.
Reed has made similar moves before, and it isn't the only publisher to sense that there is growth in the East. Look at what I've written about before here and here.
If you want to hear more about international opportunities in the trade press, try to attend this upcoming session at ASBPE's New England chapter. And follow developments at the blogs of my friends Paul and Hugo.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, advertising