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10/03/2015
About PROMOS

Creative chaos and busy minds – a look behind the scenes of the PROMOS PRESS editorial office

Jens Kramer, founding shareholder and managing director of the Berlin-based IT company PROMOS consult, came up with the idea to launch a magazine for IT applications in the real estate business 15 years ago. Now the 20th issue is being published, and the publisher would like to report on the editorial team behind the specialist magazine.
IT&I Magazin Nr. 20 - "Kreatives Chaos und qualmende Köpfe – Ein Blick hinter die Kulissen der PROMOS PRESS Redaktion"

The magazine  


The first issue of “IT&I – Informationstechnologie und Immobilien” (Information Technology and Real Estate) was published in March 2000 under the slogan “Hintergründe für Praktiker” (background information for practitioners), and thus took the first step on its ongoing journey to report on the latest developments in information technology, provide details on real estate applications and to link these with the specialist topics of the real estate business in a useful manner. Over the past 15 years, what started with twelve pages back then has become established as a specialist magazine for our readers. A total of 564 pages have been published with 254 contributions in the form of overviews, analyses, case studies, success stories, commentaries, interviews and tutorials. These are practice-oriented and reflect theoretical concepts as well as the current status of development, which is why numerous guest authors from the field have also had their say.  


Since 2014, the specialist magazine has been available as an ePaper – an environmentally friendly online edition, if you will. This allows you to flick through the pages on your screen, search for specific terms, seek out individual pages or articles, enlarge and print texts and save the magazine in PDF format. With this version, which is identical to the printed magazines, our readers benefit from the advantages of digital reading and operating convenience.

IT&I im Zeitverlauf – Die Titelbilder der Ausgaben 4, 6, 13, 17, 18, 19
Figure 1: IT&I over the course of time – the title pages of issues 4, 6, 13, 17, 18, and 19. Since 2005, the magazine has grabbed people’s attention with photography by the publisher Jens Kramer.

The readers  


Our specialist magazine is published every six months in a subscription service, as both a printed and an online edition. But who reads IT&I? The more than 3,000 subscribers include managers, decision-makers and users from the following sectors:

  • Housing industry (municipal and private)
  • Commercial real estate
  • Property management
  • Maintenance and construction
  • Management of real estate used for personal purposes
  • Finally, the readership is rounded out with people who are interested in real estate IT applications.  


The topics  


A look back at 15 years of IT&I reveals all manner of developments in information technology. But which topics do we remember particularly well and which highlights garnered the most attention? The perennial favourite in reporting was and remains the topic of processes. Be it the increased effectiveness that can be realised with information technology, digitisation or the more recent topic of mobility – process optimisations are the most discussed topic in our magazine.

Figure 2: The spread of topics in 20 issues of IT&I.

The editorial team  


What actually goes into the making of IT&I magazine? The employees on the editorial team put the magazine together by hand with great care and a love of detail. From the initial idea until it arrives in the hands of the readers, there are many steps before a complete magazine is ready. Work on a new issue starts at a very early stage. At PROMOS PRESS, the work doesn’t stop with publication of IT&I. Shortly after the current issue is published, the staff begin collecting the topics for the next issue and arranging them to form an appealing mix. Following this, expert authors are addressed regarding the topics in question and commissions are awarded if the editorial staff are not planning to research and write the articles themselves. Once the articles have been allocated, the real handwork begins – copywriting. Around one and a half months before publication, things start hotting up. Alongside the editing, page planning for the magazine starts. In what sequence will the articles appear? Which articles are to receive how much space? Which topic will be used as the hook for the editorial and how will the various items be placed? As well as editorial planning, the graphics and layout teams are closely involved in the work at this point. Approximately two weeks before publication, the print data is sent to the printers and, almost simultaneously, the distribution phase starts in which address data is determined and prepared. While the printers are printing the magazine on large print sheets, cutting them to size and binding them in a multi-stage process, the editorial team creates the online edition of the magazine. Only a few days before publication, the printers deliver 4,000 copies to the PROMOS business premises, where they are finally prepared for delivery. An exception is the autumn issue of IT&I, which is published with a print run of 12,000 copies for the EXPO REAL.

Informationstechnologie und Immobilien (IT&I) Ausgabe Nr. 37 / Mai 2024

Would you like to receive our magazine regularly? 


Our specialist magazine “IT&I – Informationstechnologie und Immobilien” is published every six months and informs you about the background and basics of current topics, details about applications for the real estate industry and the latest IT developments relating to specialist topics for the real estate industry. Sign up for the online or the printed edition here!

Every time we pick up a freshly printed copy, we are just as pleased as if it were our first issue. IT&I magazine has become a beloved tradition with a future. We will thus continue providing you with relevant information for real estate-related IT applications over the coming years. We are looking forward to the next 20 issues of IT&I with you by our side!
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