We’re delighted to say that as of 19 August 2023, Editor Group has been in business for 25 years! To celebrate, we’ve freshened up our branding, relaunched our website and had a stiff drink.
We registered our firm in Sydney back in 1998 as ‘Editor.com Pty Ltd’. It was the dot-com era and we planned to use the editor.com domain (which we owned) for an online editing and proofreading service. I remember going to a small office in Sydney’s Chinatown to pick up our incorporation documents and bringing them home to my wife, Editor Group co-founder and expert editor, Cassandra Butler.
However, the business plan changed pretty quickly after the first year or two when we discovered that online editing and proofreading services had already been commoditised as the first freelancer network sites popped up. (Anyone remember elance.com? It’s now Upwork.)
At the same time, we quickly began winning work by providing business-grade proofreading, editing and writing services to clients ranging from actuarial firms and technology companies to government agencies. Encouraged by this early progress, I left my role as a technology journalist and section editor with The Australian Financial Review in 2000 to join the company full time.
Fast-forward to today and we continue to focus on delivering high-quality editing and writing services to help business and government clients in their sales, marketing, internal communications and investor relations activities, and in their policy and communication processes. This work is a good fit for our skills and has been vital to organisations throughout our history. Even better, it’s interesting!
By serving many of the world’s most successful and innovative companies, government agencies and think tanks, we’ve truly learnt something new every day.
We’ve also found ourselves immersed in many significant changes. These include the digital transformation of economies; the rise of sustainability, ESG, inclusion and climate change as key concerns; the virtualisation of work and societies; the growth of the Asia-Pacific region; government enquiries into social and commercial issues; changes to how we gain qualifications and learn new work skills; and the ongoing rise of artificial intelligence.
As a business, we have grown to a team of 17 full-time staff members plus contractors and partners. We also work across three locations – our original Sydney HQ and offices in Singapore and New York.
This growth has only been possible due to the support of our amazing clients, the many talented people who have worked with Editor Group, and the design firms, researchers and other experts we’ve partnered with over time. A very big thank you to all of you.
But of course, as one of our wisest clients, Danny Gilbert of law firm Gilbert + Tobin, once said, “The house is never built”. Thus, we’re refreshing our branding, updating our website and still striving to be better every day.
We look forward to continuing to help our clients tell their stories and shape the future for years to come. With the economic, social and geopolitical challenges and opportunities ahead, the next quarter-century is sure to be just as interesting as the last.
Grant Butler is the founder and director of Editor Group.
