In 2005, I was in the market for a new job following a five-year stint as the managing editor of another business-to-business technology publication. I was lucky, because among the publishers to which I’d reached out was RFID Journal, a then-young B2B magazine covering radio frequency identification and related technologies under the umbrella of the Internet of Things. That’s how I met RFID Journal’s founder and editor, Mark Roberti, who invited me to join the team he was building.
Mark had been reporting on business and technology since 1985. His articles had appeared in Business 2.0, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, The Industry Standard and other publications, and he’d served as InformationWeek’s managing editor. Throughout this portion of his career, Mark had come to recognize how vital a technology RFID was fast becoming in a wide range of industries for its ability to dramatically improve efficiencies, visibility, asset tracking, inventory management and supply chains. And so Mark took a bold move: he launched a publishing company out of his house, solo. RFID Journal officially debuted in 2002, and for a while Mark wrote all the content himself.
As far as I can tell, the first article was “Is Low-Cost RFID for Real?” It’s a great time capsule providing a snapshot of the tech world two decades ago. Mark described how he’d first heard the term “Internet” in 1992, how he’d predicted the ‘Net would fundamentally alter the way businesses operate, and how he’d spent a day discussing RFID with Kevin Ashton, then the Auto-ID Center’s executive director, to learn about how the technology would change the world. Kevin is one of two people, along with Peter T. Lewis, often credited as having coined the term “Internet of Things,” and Mark has spent two decades educating readers on why the IoT is so important.
“There are so many business problems that could be solved if every item had a tag that could identify the item (not just its manufacturer and category, as a barcode does) without being scanned manually,” Mark prophetically wrote in that article, and he has since been proven right. “One large consumer packaged goods manufacturer told me—as long as I didn’t identify the company—that at any point in time, it has about a billion dollars in goods that can’t be located. That’s billion with a B.”
Thus began a journey that Mark has described as the highlight of his career: turning his one-man garage business into a growing, breathing, vitally important hub for the entire RFID and IoT world, which has expanded to covering real-time location systems, Near Field Communication, Bluetooth Low Energy, LoRaWAN, digital twins and other connected technologies commonly used in retail, manufacturing, healthcare, defense, aerospace and many other sectors. Whether in our online articles, in our past print magazine or at our events, RFID Journal has remained a trusted, credible resource, all because Mark had the vision to recognize how the wind of change was blowing and had decided to see where the currents would lead him.
Mark Roberti
Editors Paul Prince and Andrea Linne joined Mark’s editorial team in the early days, along with art director John Hull and reporters Claire Swedberg, Mary Catherine O’Connor and Beth Bacheldor. I was added in year three as managing editor, as RFID Journal was becoming central to the rapidly growing RFID arena. Mark also brought in editorial director of events Debbie Hughes, sales directors Alan McIntosh and Matthew Singer, marketing director Sonja Valenta, and others, enabling RFID Journal to grow throughout the past two decades into something far more than just one person sitting at home, typing on a desktop.
These days, Mark is regarded as the industry’s thought leader, and as a respected writer, editor and businessman. “Mark Roberti spent the last 21 years educating end users about the benefits of RFID technology,” Debbie Hughes says, “and how they could improve their efficiencies and deliver measurable financial results. The vendor community owes him a debt of gratitude for his tireless efforts to make sure they had a forum to attract and retain customers. Without him, RFID adoption rates would not be where they are today.”
Alan McIntosh mirrors that sentiment, adding, “On more than one occasion, exhibitors have taken me aside at RFID Journal LIVE! to tell me that the RFID market would not be where it is without Mark Roberti. The RFID Journal articles, reports and conferences helped them to sell a compelling and complex technology. The tipping point for RFID use in many sectors is now in sight, and it is in no small part due to RFID Journal and Mark’s unique vision, leadership and perseverance.”
As you might have heard, Mark has decided to retire and spend more time with his family, an achievement to which most people aspire. Claire, Debbie, Alan and I—the remaining members of RFID Journal’s early team—are happy for Mark as he heads into retirement, as are those who joined the team after RFID Journal’s acquisition by events company Emerald. Mark’s accomplishments as the publication’s founder and editor are innumerable, and though he cannot be replaced, we will do our best to uphold his legacy of excellence by continuing what he began.
“It has been an honor and a privilege to serve the RFID industry for the past 20 years,” Mark told me in an email. “I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to support companies around the world seeking to deploy RFID successfully and to work with solution providers creating amazing RFID products. The industry is poised to grow dramatically over the next five years, and I look forward to watching that happen.”
Congratulations, Mark, on your retirement and on a job very well done. RFID Journal and the industry thank you for the foresight and insight you have shared since the magazine’s inception, and I personally thank you for your friendship and guidance. As that wind of change carries you to the next leg of your travels, we all wish you nothing but smooth sailing.
Rich Handley has been the managing editor of RFID Journal since 2005. Outside the RFID world, Rich has authored, edited or contributed to numerous books about pop culture. You can contact Rich via email.