Who has the most influence
As I write this column, myself and my colleagues on the Leicester Mercury business desk have just completed a magazine profiling the 200 most influential people in Leicestershire.
The 60-page publication, which comes free with the Leicester Mercury next Tuesday, was a challenging project.
But it wasn't just the scale of the task which was daunting – deciding who made the cut was difficult, indeed very difficult at times.
The list of the final 200 was drawn up after consultation with business and community groups over the past few months.
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But many of the entries had to come down to opinion, with me given the casting vote.
I know there are going to many people who will be disappointed they or someone they know has not been included and I'm preparing myself for the phone calls and letters in the days following publication.
Magazines ranking the most influential people nationally and globally have become quite the rage in recent years, with good and bad examples.
Some of the worst are those which are full of employees of the magazine or newspaper which produces the listing. You will be pleased to know this one only contains two people who work for the Leicester Mercury, and neither of them are me.
The other thing which is different to other similar publications is that it is not ranked by order of influence.
The names appear in alphabetical order because we felt it would be too difficult, and contentious, to create a ranking.
However, I think it is generally accepted Leicester's mayor Sir Peter Soulsby, Leicestershire County Council's leader-elect Nick Rushton and Next chief executive Lord Simon Wolfson would be in the top 10.
The focus for our magazine will not be who makes the top spots but who makes the cut at all. And a list of 200 is not that many people.
However, I believe it represents the core of movers and shakers in the city and county and provides a little bit of an insight into what makes them tick.
The Most Influential People in Leicestershire magazine will be out on September 11.
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