Fresh ideas, right words.

• Position: EDITOR'S NOTE - Editorial

When you have been an editor of a publication for over three decades it is hard to publish on a topic that you have not yet addressed at some point over that lengthy tenure (in September 2015 I started my 35th year as editor of Directors & Boards). We always bring fresh authors with fresh views to all of our board leadership issues, but to come up with a totally fresh idea is a rarity in an editor's life.

I am happy to report that this edition has one of those jewels. We take a look at "Reference Checking of Board Candidates: Why? When? How?" We have done a lot on how to get on a board, including crafting a board resume and acing the board interview, but we have never done anything on the dos and don'ts of board reference checking. When I ran the idea by a longtime corporate board member, the initial reaction was, "It's surprising how little of that is done." Enough said! You will find our advisory on page 28.

And in examples of fresh angles on evergreen topics, our cover story on board mentoring expands on a role of the board that has been touched on in past articles but not directly fleshed out (page 21); and Dennis Cagan, one of our stalwart thinkers and writers on board leadership (derived in part from sitting on 50-plus boards) explores the dynamics of board recruiting with this singular twist: "What You Won't Find in a Director Search Matrix" (page 34).

On the occasion of my anniversary with the journal, I am mindful of a story told by the late San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen to George Plimpton for Plimpton's oral history of Truman Capote (Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career, published in...