We'd like the Society to see its members as potential contributors of content—and to help us buy the digital tools we need (i.e., cameras, computers, etc.) to do this work.

Our idea: Create an online network where we can aggregate our demand for the digital tools of the trade. In other words: Instead of selling our 4-million-plus pairs of eyeballs to Canon for their one-page magazine advertisement, we could poll the community to find out how many of us plan to buy, say, a digital video camera this month—and then ask Canon: If we buy 3,000 units next week, what sort of discount would we get? That way, the price of Society membership ($19, say) would be more than covered by the savings we'd enjoy when purchasing gear. Plus, we'd be plugged into a vast network of other producers using the same equipment. (A nice thing when you have to troubleshoot a problem.)

Please help us become the journalists we already are—and still long to be.

So many photographers said digital would never replace film. Likewise, many magazine fans cling to the notion that paper magazines will never be replaced. Rollable, foldable, stash-in-the-purse types of electronic material are still in the lab, but will replace rigid plastic and glass handhelds and paper magazines one day. Something you can drop on the sidewalk without breaking it. NG should be actively invested, financially and intellectually, in what that technology will look like, feel like. They should take a leading role in its development, and optimize it to accept NG's text, photos, and video each month, week, day, minute, from the entire membership. People in the future should be saying: NG did it first, with the help of their five million members.

Here's the reasoning: In 10 years I see two things happening: the ubiquity of a kindle like information view and retrieval device and the ubiquity of wi-fi.
I also see ISP's like Verizon creating profit models along the lines of cable that is when you sign up you can sign up (for a small HBO like fee) to receive specialized content that is pushed to your viewer. So every morning instead of picking up your paper you pick up a kindle read the NYT, Washinton Post and NG Headlines. Walter Isaacson has suggested something very similar but none of this works until media groups make a collective decision to limit the content they are placing in a free online world.

Participation through words and pictures by members and other readers could offer a hugely diverse source of fascinating insights and images from places around the world -- without cost to the Society. Inspiration for this thought comes from my own recent experience searching for shed deer antlers in the wilds of Saskatchewan. How many folks know of the beauty, the vastness, the isolation, the teeming wildlife of that flat, expansive region? There must be legions of people making such personal discoveries who would be happy to share them gratis with the magazine. It offers a creative outlet and an audience to the traveler -- and a rich resource of stories and written accounts without the magazine spending a penny on writers or photographers.