Challenging economic times force all of us to focus. At FM, our focus, now more than ever, is on what we do best – create media experiences that are valuable to our publishers, their audiences, and our brand marketing partners.

Given our journalistic heritage, we don’t want to bury the lede: Today FM is restructuring parts of our business, and as a result, we are saying goodbye to a small number of our employees. Also as a result, we are adding several positions in strategic areas where we see growth in the coming year (more on that in a minute).

FM operates within a complex and evolving ecosystem consisting of independent content creators, engaged media consumers, and marketers who want join those creators and consumers in conversation. And while the economy is in deep recession – one that has left nobody unscathed – the media business is also in a historic transition from models based on mass distribution to models based on social interaction. The recession is certainly a challenge, but is also an opportunity – an opportunity to help our partners accelerate their businesses in the midst of that transition.

In the past three years FM has helped define the practice of what we call “conversational marketing.” Sure, we sell banner ads, but our business quickly became more than consolidating the back office work of selling and flighting advertisements. Instead, we began working with our publishing partners to create media that did more: it engaged audiences in new ways, added value to people’s lives, and in many cases, completely reinvented the concept of what “marketing” could be.

Over the past year, it became increasingly clear that the majority of our business was in the execution of these more complex media programs. So when the economy began its nose-dive last Fall, we reached out to our marketing and publishing partners to ask what they wanted from us. Most told us that they need us now more than ever. They value above all else our ability to create highly engaging, cost effective media experiences that allow marketers to connect with their customers. It’s high-impact marketing, but it’s also time-intensive and nuanced work. We are realigning much of our staff to support the marketers and content creators who make these programs sing by expanding our Strategic Programs and Major Accounts teams. Unfortunately, it also means that we need to lose some staff in our more traditional advertising support business.

And while we lament the loss of, and are tremendously thankful for, the work of colleagues who are leaving us, we also look forward to the opportunities ahead. We are bringing on more developers and strategic publishing talent, and in the coming weeks and months we will be announcing several new partners who will be joining us in the work that lies ahead.

Change is often difficult, but whenever possible we hope to be the instigators of that change. Armed with extraordinarily talented staff, investors, and partners, we pledge to keep our focus, and get back to the work ahead.