Success is relative.

With the view of the future just out of focus, college students wonder what their reward will be for pouring over textbooks.

For NIU alumnus Tim O’Malley, hard work and patience is directly related to the position he holds today. O’Malley is president and publisher of Concierge Preferred Magazine.

“I had an idea for this product that I thought there might be a need for,” O’Malley said of the publication he created.

The magazine helps visitors and tourists find Chicago’s hot spots..

“There was a niche open,” O’Malley said. “Nobody was serving the active visitors. We built a product around that niche.”

Despite being a self-sufficient entrepreneur, O’Malley has not forgotten his days at NIU. Having worked for the Northern Star while attending NIU, O’Malley acquired his start from a place many students find themselves today – at the bottom of the proverbial ladder, climbing up.

Although the 1989 alumnus experienced his first taste of journalism at the Northern Star, it was not the pre-paved path that sparked his interest.

“I was always interested in media,” O’Malley said. “I always wanted to do my own thing. I just didn’t know it’d end up being a magazine.”

After graduation, O’Malley worked for the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, employed for four years at each publication. He then moved to Where Magazine, a Los Angeles-based magazine distributed to hotels and other visitor venues, where he spent three years. Then he moved to the magazine TravelClick, an electronic venue, for the next two years.

O’Malley has been fortunate to work in a field for which he clearly has talent and passion. However, with any time investment, bumps and dips on the road to such success are expected.

“I started a division [at TravelClick] that just didn’t work,” O’Malley said. “It didn’t really work out, so that was a struggle until we decided to close it down.”

After the TravelClick experience, O’Malley learned when to let go of a failing project. He also knows how it feels to see a project rise into the public eye. He is now in a top position of leadership and entrepreneurship.

Looking back, O’Malley has taken his lessons from NIU on work and ethics with him to the top of the mass media spectrum. O’Malley was certain he wanted to pass along one of these lessons to students.

“Be careful how you deal with people,” O’Malley said. “You may work for them or with them someday. Somebody told me that and I’ve never found truer advice. It’s amazing how many people you run into from school. It’s really a small world.”