You and I are creatures of habit. We’re humans; we like routine. It makes us secure and comfortable. I bet you take the same route to and from work. You drink the same kind of coffee every day. I know I do.

But I do like to change things up once in awhile. That’s one of the reasons I like to travel around Wisconsin. As the editor of a statewide business publication, I think it’s critical to do this anyway. The end result can be a new idea for a story.

Take our cover story on Marinette Marine. It’s one thing to read about a shipbuilder; it’s another thing to actually stand there and see the immense scope of what a shipbuilder’s yard looks like. When John Hill pitched this story earlier this year, I thought it was a great idea. The recent news about the military contracts aside … I’d caught a glimpse of the facility as I drove through Marinette this past June.

I recently had another opportunity to drive across and diagonally through Wisconsin, from my own home in southeastern Wisconsin to just across the Wisconsin border into Minnesota. The interesting thing about this drive, from an editorial standpoint, is that it really reflects the economic and developmental diversity in our own Wisconsin backyard. This route takes me from the urban enclaves of Milwaukee and Madison, to one of our biggest tourist hotspots in the state, past a few cranberry bogs and onto one of the areas that never ceases to interest me: The stretch of I-94 that starts at about Osseo and continues the state border.

Okay, astute readers probably realize that’s not a random starting point. Color me guilty: The Norske Nook is located in Osseo and their pie is delicious.

I think this stretch, along with I-90 coming up from Illinois to Madison as well as others around the state, is indicative of the future of Wisconsin. I’m always interested to drive through there, to see what’s new because those are areas where I don’t expect things to be happening. I like those “where did that come from?” moments, when I see a new development, business or change coming up on the horizon as I drive.

Perhaps what made this trip interesting is that we’d just published Maura Keller’s article “No More Minneconsin” in the October issue. As I was driving through that region, I was thinking about her story and realizing that, yes, this is an area that is quite exciting and we need to be at the forefront of helping to spread the word about it.

We’ve just finished working on our editorial calendar for 2010, and one of our focuses is to bring more of those stories to you, about people and companies and places that we don’t hear about so often throughout the entire state. But we need your help because, though I’d like to, my personal and professional travels don’t take me to all the nooks and crannies that make up Wisconsin. If your company sends out formal press releases, please add us to your mailing list. If you think your company is doing something exciting and innovative, drop me an email directly at crweditor@crwmag.com.

By Laurie Arendt

Laurie Arendt is editor of CRW. She can be reached at crweditor@crwmag.com