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Something phishy
About seven or eight years ago, I was sitting at my desk one morning when I received an urgent text from my then-boss. She was holding a meeting, according to the text, and needed me to purchase $1,000 in electronic gift cards as a giveaway to the attendees as soon as possible. Needless to say,
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Commentary: Adjusting to a new shipping reality
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Ocean shipping patterns established during the first year of the pandemic have taken root, and it’s time for shippers to adjust strategies for the long term. That was the takeaway from the first in-person Trans-Pacific Maritime (TPM) Conference in three years, presented in Long Beach, California, in March by IHS Markit Ltd. (now S&P Global
Sound investments
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Let’s simply call it a magazine publisher’s reality check. When news reports of supply chain disruptions and record backups at West Coast ports began to appear last year, I immediately thought, “What’s going on at the Port of Virginia?” When I leave downtown Norfolk, it is almost always via the Midtown Tunnel. Emerging from the
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Rising to the challenges
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Last summer, as I was eating dinner at a Norfolk bar with a group of my Lead Virginia classmates from far Southwest Virginia, one of them asked what decision makers in Richmond thought about their region. “Most of them don’t think about it at all,” I replied bluntly and not a little sadly. During my
The bigger picture
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Welcome to the 10th edition of The Big Book. Virginia Business Publisher Bernie Niemeier had the inspiration for this annual issue more than a decade ago when he was retrieving his mail and noted the heft of Vanity Fair’s jam-packed annual Hollywood issue. “Why can’t we have a big book like this?” he thought to
Rethinking labor
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Back in my big company days, large newspapers were heavily unionized. After railroads and before high tech, newspaper publishers were the media barons of the day. The business was capital intensive, requiring once-in-a-generation investments for big presses and printing facilities. It was also high on fixed costs, with payroll being the largest expense before newsprint
Media matters
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It’s hard to have a conversation about anything in the headlines, especially anything to do with technology or politics, without some blame being assigned to “the media,” as if there were one enormous unified communications cloud shaping all our collective thoughts. That would be enormous for certain, but the media is perhaps more consolidated than
It’s time to thrive
Published
Here we are in December, approaching the end of 2021. Most business leaders would say with some certainty that this year was better than 2020 — and thankfully so. Yet, as much as we’d like to say that COVID times are behind us, the return of cold weather and the indoor season keeps things uncertain.
Higher values
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About 30 years ago, I was a volunteer for a local group of marketing professionals that was launching its Marketer of the Year awards. Publicity was needed. Working in marketing at the local paper, the task fell to me to pitch the event to the newsroom. In those days, the news business was fairly balkanized;
Magical thinking
Published
Listening can be difficult; that’s often an early lesson learned and hopefully one paid better attention to as life goes on. I’ll admit that’s been the case for me. Listening is especially important in business. Customers, co-workers, suppliers and vendors all have points of view that are worthy of consideration. Listening is probably the most