Congratulations to the communications-related honorees of this year’s DBJ 40 Under 40 Awards:
Dennis Huspeni, formerly the real estate reporter at the Denver Business Journal, has joined Grayling PR as director of media relations. He will remain based in Denver.
Congratulations to the marketing/public relations/communications winners of the Denver Business Journal’s 2014 “40 Under 40” award:
Congratulations to Bruce Goldberg, who is leaving the Denver Business Journal to be the first franchisee of Louisville-based One Business Connection. 1BC operates networking, leads and referral groups in Denver and along the Front Range, which are an alternative marketing chamber of commerce made up of local and national businesses, entrepreneurs and sales professionals sharing referrals, ideas and business expertise.
A farewell event for Bruce will take place from 5:30-7:30 p.m. this Friday, Nov. 8, at the Denver Press Club.
Congratulations to Timi Aguilar of Aguilar Public Relations for being named one of the “Outstanding Women in Business 2013” by the Denver Business Journal. Aguilar was recognized in the Communications, Media and PR category.
Congratulations to GroundFloor Media, which was placed second overall in the Denver Business Journal’s 2012 Best Places to Work awards. Winners were chosen based on employees’ responses to a confidential survey about the organization’s leadership, planning, benefits, culture, training and development, as well as overall employee satisfaction. GroundFloor scored 99.63 out of a possible 100 percent, making it the second-highest ranking among all 40 finalists in four categories.
Congratulations to 5280 Associate Publisher Remy Spreeuw for being named a finalist for the Denver Business Journal’s Outstanding Women in Business awards.
The Denver Business Journal is going multi-media with the debut of “DBJ TV” this Sunday at 10:30 a.m. The program, a joint-venture with CBS4 that is hosted by Mark McIntosh and features Boots Gifford, showcases the DBJ’s annual Best Places to Work awards.
Congratulations to Elizabeth Jumel, who appears to be the lone public relations representative in yesterday’s “40 Under 40” awards presented by the Denver Business Journal.
Denver Post publisher MediaNews Group is laying off 17 employees as part of an outsourcing strategy, according to the Denver Business Journal. The employees are part of MediaNews’ Prairie Mountain Publishing Co. division that publishes the Boulder Daily Camera and Longmont Times-Call. The 17 positions are mostly advertising design and production positions that apparently will be moved off-shore to India and the Philippines.
Print circulation at The Denver Post continues to fall, and web traffic continues to increase, according to the Denver Business Journal. The specifics:
Congratulations to JohnstonWells’ Gwin Johnston and the Denver Business Journal’s Bruce Goldberg for being two of six inductees tonight into the Denver Press Club’s 2011 Hall of Fame class. Gwin founded JohnstonWells as a single mother 40 years ago and built it into one of Denver’s most successful and well-recognized PR firms. And Bruce may be Denver’s favorite curmudgeon, recognized for his work as associate editor of the DBJ and his tireless support of the Denver Press Club.
The Denver Business Journal has hired Heather Draper to cover the banking/finance/professional services beat. Draper, a former Rocky Mountain News and Dow Jones reporter, most recently was marketing/communications manager at the GLBT Community Center of Colorado. She replaces Renee McGaw, who left the DBJ to become the Director of Communications at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer.
The Denver Business Journal is accepting nominations for its annual “Best Places to Work in Denver” awards. The deadline to submit your company or agency is Friday, August 13.
The Denver Business Journal is out with its annual nominees for Outstanding Women in Business, and there are a number from the world of public relations and advertising:
Winners will be announced at a DBJ luncheon on Thursday, Aug. 26.
The Denver Business Journal profiled Linhart Public Relations as part of its “Beating the Recession” series, and Linhart is sounding an optimistic note for 2010. The firm, which now employs 18, expects 2010 revenue to increase 16 percent to $3.5 million. Enough growth for Sharon Linhart to talk a little veiled trash:
“In comparison to other firms, I’d have to say we’re doing very, very well,” said Sharon Linhart, the company’s founder and managing partner.
Of course, that is not exactly how Aldo Svaldi’s Denver Post article this morning described it. Before running across the word “bankruptcy” for the first time in the third paragraph, it was described as a “pact,” “deal,” “new ownership structure,” “restructuring plan” and “agreement.” Clearly there is no need to buy Svaldi a thesaurus for his birthday this year.
Of the bankruptcy agreement, Media News chairman and chief executive William Dean Singleton said, “It gives us one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry.” Sadly, he may be right.
If you are interested, the Denver Business Journal also covered the Post’s bankruptcy agreement.
If you have restaurants or retail stores as clients, you should know about ShopWatch, a relatively new Denver Business Journal blog that is written/edited by Boots Gifford. The blog covers “openings and closings of restaurants and retail stores, relocations, and major business strategy changes like remodels and major reworking of product offerings.” Don’t bother pitching minor menu additions or holiday “specials.”
Sort of, according to Forbes. The Denver Business Journal has the details.
The Denver Business Journal has launched a new blog that features many of its reporters, including Mark Harden, Bruce Goldberg, Greg Avery, Boots Gifford, Bob Mook and Renee McGaw.
If you don’t subscribe to the Denver Business Journal, you should. It covers Denver business at a depth that you simply won’t find anywhere else in town. And for the month of October, the DBJ is offering $20 off its one-year subscription. Call or email Jan to subscribe (303.803.9280 or jwambolt@bizjournals.com).
UPDATE: No, this is not an ad. I did not receive anything tangible or intangible from the DBJ for posting it. I’m just a fan, and think you should be, too.
Is your agency a great place to work. Or can you trick people into thinking your agency is a great place to work? If you said yes to either of those questions, you have another couple of days to nominate yourself for a Denver Business Journal “Best Places to Work” award.
Ernie Bjorkman is in the news again this week, but it isn’t a New York Times profile or a guest appearance on Oprah. He and his wife are listed in the foreclosures section of the Denver Business Journal, with U.S. Bank foreclosing on his home in Englewood that carries a $367,470 balance. I stand by my last comment on the subject:
Could someone please explain to me how former KWGN/Channel 2 anchor Ernie Bjorkman can make the rounds on national media talking about his financial struggles after losing his anchor job? Today it was the Oprah Winfey show. The guy made $250,000 a year and within five months of being out of work he has to borrow $1,000 from a friend to cover his car payment. Seriously?
Congratulations to Dovetail Solutions, which recently won the Denver Business Journal’s Small Business Partners in Philanthropy award.
Fresh off the success of InDenver Times, MediaNews CEO and Denver Post publisher William Dean Singleton told his employees that the company “cannot continue to give all of our content away for free,” and that the company will stop offering free online access to its 53 daily newspapers and will instead develop an online subscription model. Mark Harden at the Denver Business Journal has the details.
First, the good news: The Denver Post is now the 11th largest newspaper in the U.S., thanks to Scripps’ decision to shutter the Rocky (and the JOA’s ability to automatically switch Rocky subscribers to the Post). The bad news? The Post is already down 17.4 percent compared total Rocky/Post subscribers, making it tough for the Post to maintain its goal of keeping 80 percent of Rocky subscribers.
Mark Harden at the Denver Business Journal and Michael Roberts at Westword have examined the numbers and what they mean.
The Denver Business Journal profiled Turner PR this week, noting that, “While many businesses struggle to survive the recession, Turner PR is doing something surprising: expanding its clients and staff. The Denver company, which also has offices in New York and Los Angeles, has picked up six high-profile clients since November and is looking to hire a new social media specialist.” New clients include Eddie Bauer and Hotel Teatro. I’d point out that much of that growth has followed Turner’s hiring of Jordan Blakesley and BrieAnn Fast, but they are far too modest to want me to do that.
The Denver Post’s business “section” is two pages today. You can subscribe to the Denver Business Journal here.
Last week, it was the Wall Street Journal that discovered Twitter. This weekend, it was the Denver Post. And the Denver Business Journal is now on Twitter: http://twitter.com/denbizjournal.
Former Rocky Mountain News reporter Ed Sealover has landed at the Denver Business Journal, covering a mix of tourism and hospitality, airlines, DIA, retail, the brewing industry, and legislative affairs. One down, 200+ to go.
Did CBS4 and the Denver Business Journal steal the idea for their series “Beating the Recession” from ColoradoBiz and KMGH/Channel 7? ColoradoBiz editor Mike Cote thinks that might be the case, and he’s not too happy.
In her first DBJ bylined article, PRSA Colorado President Gina Seamons makes the argument that investing in public relations during tough economic times can be a powerful competitive advantage:
“Businesses can’t afford to leave customers behind during the recession and then find new ones after the economy rebounds. The cost to acquire a new customer is five to 10 times greater than the cost of retaining an existing one, according to research by Bain & Co.”
In what might be the final nail in the coffin of the Rocky Mountain News, Denver Newspaper Guild’s Tracy Simmons tells the Denver Business Journal that the union’s contract with the Rocky would be binding on any new owner if the newspaper is sold.
“In the event of a successor or an assignee, [the contract] is binding,” Simmons said. “You get the employees, you get the contract. So our position is that absolutely, the contract goes with the employees.”
Congratulations to the DBJ’s Mark Harden, who is transitioning to become the publication’s new media editor, effective Jan. 5. Mark will be responsible for expanding the Web site’s features, and his old “media and marketing” beat will be filled by a yet-to-be-hired reporter. Until then, keep pitching Mark.
Congratulations to GroundFloor Media and JohnstonWells, both of whom were named by the DBJ as “Best Places to Work in Denver.”
Over the past year, I have received a lot of questions about who I am. I have been accused of working for GroundFloor Media, GBSM, Linhart and JohnstonWells. And more specifically, I have been accused of being Steven “Steve” Silvers, Paul Raab, Dan Welch, Ramonna Tooley, Donna Crafton, Bruce Goldberg (just learned that one yesterday), Matt Wagner, Melissa Hourigan, Andrew Hudson, and (my favorite) Bill Husted.
For the record, none of those guesses is right. So why am I telling you this? Because Bruce Goldberg at the Denver Business Journal has figured out who I am and will disclose it Friday in his Street Talk column. So until then, I’ll enjoy my last few days of anonymity.
Women and Hispanics are bearing the brunt of Colorado’s weakening economy, according to an analysis of BLS data by the Denver Business Journal.
Bruce Goldberg at the Denver Business Journal recognizes Pete Webb and his agency’s 20th anniversary.
We gave you our assessment of last week’s PRSA Gold Pick awards earlier. Here is the Denver Business Journal’s take.
We were amused when we first read that PRSA CEO (and MGA president) Jeff Julin sent registered letters to the McCain and Obama campaigns requesting that they commit to “a clean and fair campaign.” Julin’s letters read, in part, “The use of innuendo, incomplete information, surrogate messaging and character attacks, whether in political discourse or other forms of commercial free speech, raises serious concerns for our organization.”
These letters beg the question: Is Julin just grandstanding, or is he a pollyanna who is woefully ignorant of our country’s 200+ year history of brutal, negative campaigning. Think McCain and Obama are bad? Try Jefferson and Adams. Democracy has always been a blood sport.
But our amusement level went up today when we read Mark Harden’s Denver Business Journal follow-up article on Julin’s efforts. Apparently no one at either campaign is taking the letters seriously, and PRSA is now flailing about “trying to identify contacts [with the campaigns] who could run it up the flagpole.” Replace “run it up the flagpole” with “return our phone calls or emails” and that sounds about right. The lesson: Being irrelevant is bad enough, but proving it so publicly is worse.
Mark Harden at the Denver Business Journal has taken a hard look at the latest ABC audit of the circulations of the local dailies and found that the Denver Post’s numbers aren’t quite as good as it might seem. The Post actually “trails the Rocky by about 6 percent in sales of full-price weekday copies,” but has been inflating its numbers with “sales of its discounted ‘electronic edition’ as well as copies distributed to hotel guests and sales to ‘third parties.’ “
Today is the last day to nominate your agency for the Denver Business Journal’s fifth annual “Best Places to Work” award.
Mark Harden at the Denver Business Journal talks to various public relations executives in town about the rumors of a Post/News consolidation, and quotes perspectives from Schenkein’s Leanna Clark, Story + Welch’s Jeremy Story, GBSM’s Steven Silvers, Linhart’s Paul Raab and Cutter Communications’ Lisa Cutter.
The Denver Business Journal reports that Colorado added 31,500 jobs over the past year, while the number of Coloradans who are unemployed also grew.
The Denver Post’s and Rocky Mountain News’ latest earnings report isn’t going to quell rumors that one of them will acquire the other and convert it to an online-only offering soon. The papers saw their Q2 earnings drop 78 percent –- from $6 million to $1.3 million — in Q2 2008 compared to the same period in 2007. A “slumping advertising market” is to blame, according to the Denver Business Journal, which also calculated that the two papers lost money during the quarter.
The Denver Business Journal reports that “the number of Coloradans who lost their jobs through mass layoffs more than doubled” from April to May.
The macro-level economic data continues to trickle in, and the numbers aren’t comforting. Colorado’s rate of economic growth slowed to 2 percent in 2007, down from 3 percent in 2006 and 4.5 percent in 2005, according to estimates released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Colorado’s 2007 growth rate was near the median, ranking 22nd in the nation.
Molson Coors will provide the ethanol that will fuel a fleet of GM flex-fuel vehicles at the Democratic National Convention. While most ethanol is created from corn, Molson Coors’ ethanol is produced from “waste beer,” also known as Coors Light.
Congratulations to VolumePR’s Elizabeth Robinson, JohnstonWells’ Kathryn Wilson and Comcast VP of Public Relations Cindy Parsons for being named to the Denver Business Journal’s 2008 list of “40 Under 40.”
A reader emailed us that the Denver Business Journal has dropped its annual ranking of Denver PR agencies because it no longer trusts the numbers provided by the agencies and is tired of hearing complaints from those challenging other agencies’ numbers. Representatives from PRSA and several of the larger agencies in town are reportedly going to meet Thursday to discuss how they can change DBJ Publisher Neil Westergaard’s mind.
The Denver Business Journal covers the activities that the “seasoned” Sharon Linhart and her downtown Denver task force have planned for the 1952 2008 Democratic National Convention in late August. Among them:
Bruce Goldberg’s column in this week’s Denver Business Journal includes a list of the Top PR Gaffes from Story + Welch’s Jeremy Story. On the list are The Cartoon Network, Microsoft, J&J and Boulder’s own John Mackey. If you are not a subscriber, the list is on his blog here.
More than 5,000 Coloradans filed for unemployment benefits due to mass layoffs last year, and approximately half of those received their pink slips in the fourth quarter. With those kind of numbers, you would think office rents would be stable or decline slightly. But rents in downtown Denver actually rose 26 percent in 2007, which represented the nation’s seventh largest jump.
If you have ever wanted to combine your twin loves of NASCAR and candy bars, nirvana is a mere six days away. Thursday, Jan. 10, is the official launch date for Dale Earnhardt Jr’s “Big Mo” candy bar. Denver-based VolumePR is handling the public relations for the launch.
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