"People don't want to be marketed to; they want to be communicated with." As I look over my notes for today's again-excellent SIPA 2020 Day 2 sessions, that quote from Jeson Jackson, audience development manager, Education Week, stood out. Because even though so much of what we are doing now is in response to the pandemic, there will be a carry over of successful ideas and methods.   And that will be one of them. If a theater I like simply asks me to buy a 2021 subscription, I might hesitate. But if they communicate with me and engage me in a conversation between four or five of their diverse actors and directors for next year, I'm probably in.   Day 2 keynote speaker, Krystle Kopacz, CEO of Revmade, talked about "echoes for the long term" that she is hearing now. "Overall what I'm seeing is we're heading to some type of reordering. How can we be more important to buyers so we're not cut off? In my mi ...

Remote working continues to be a debatable issue. Many editorial departments for B2B publishers—Lexipol and Bobit Business Media’s Trucking Info to name a couple—are run without main offices, better to attract and retain the best writers. But other publishers—I recall Marijuana Business Daily—require some degree of coming to the office each week. In a fascinating and comprehensive SIPA webinar titled Remote Employees: When to Do It and How to Optimize the Arrangement last October, Heather Farley, COO of Access Intelligence, and Dan Fink, managing director of Money-Media, gave great insights on the work-ins and work-outs of remote work. One are where they agreed was on managers working remotely. Money-Media may be a bit more emphatic, but both executives see flaws in it. "Currently, our policy doesn't allow managers to be full-time remote when their team is located in a central office," Fink said. "We do allow managers to work part ...

In the SIPA webinar a couple weeks ago on managing remote working with Heather Farley, COO of Access Intelligence, and Dan Fink, managing director of Money-Media—see the whole SIPA webinar library here—they spoke about the importance of keeping employees engaged in meetings.

Towards the end of a fascinating and comprehensive webinar on Tuesday on remote working—after all the details of what makes a good remote-working relationship had been laid out—Heather Farley, COO of Access Intelligence, and Dan Fink, managing director of Money-Media, agreed on why all those details are worth doing.

A recent article in Fast Company listed the favorite productivity secrets of a few well-known CEOs. Let’s take some of those and add a few SIPA leaders to the mix. Keep one day a week free from meetings. Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz has implemented a company-wide “No Meeting Wednesdays” (NMW) rule. “The high-level goal of NMW is to ensure that everyone gets a large block of time each week to do focused, heads-down work,” he writes on the company blog. Create conditions for success. "You need your staff to collaborate to create products that can grow platforms," said Tim Hartman, CEO of Government Executive Media Group. "Create a culture to build trust and collaboration, and breaking down silos... Think ambitious experiments and trust each other. If you look around and don't see that, you have a problem." Define your mission. Knowing what your mission is is critical, said Heather Farley, COO of Access Intelligence. “Und ...

"[Director Sam] Mendes is known for creating 'a safe room' for rehearsals. 'People are free to have a bad idea. Frequently the bad idea illuminates where the great idea is,' [producer Scott] Rudin said. 'Sam makes the room embracing, warm.  He's very open about what he perceives to be his own mistakes. If he doesn't know something, he's entirely comfortable asking the questions. That makes people feel incredibly well protected.'" —A recent New Yorker profile by John Lahr on award-winning theater and film director (Oscar winner for American Beauty) Sam Mendes.

Like many industries that date back awhile, business valuation has a lot of older white men. Towards the end of an honest, funny, hopeful and proud women's leadership panel at SIPA Annual 2018 in June, Lucretia Lyons, president of Business Valuation Resources, related a story.

At a SIPA Annual 2018 session on Creating a High-Performance Culture Across Your Company, executives Brian Crotty of OPIS, Heather Farley of Access Intelligence and Christopher Mairs of Leeds Equity Partners spoke about identifying star potential in their employees. “The first thing is you give them a task that gets done and you never hear about it,” said Crotty. “Then you give them more and more. They take feedback well, seek it out and become risk takers. They’re willing to get out there, fail and learn from it. It’s also a person that other employees gravitate around—that’s the one I need to keep an eye on.” Farley recalled a junior reporter who was researching metrics on his articles and setting his own goals. “It’s usually apparent who’s engaging at that level and wants more [responsibility]. It’s hard though. I had  a young marketer who I loved—we gave her pay increases, title changes, bu ...

In a full-screen video on Financial Times division Money-Media's homepage—with the headline, "Why should you work for Money-Media?" above it—New York City looks fast-paced and beautiful. We hear from various employees about the career-growing opportunities, trust and camaraderie bursting forth in their brick-laden office. Then we see laughter and food at staff gatherings, a softball title and comfortable meetings.

I just decided not to renew a certain subscription that I had to a cultural institution. In their last letter to me, they said here's what you'll be missing and listed a few benefits. That makes sense—I recall Jim Sinkinson telling us to remind subscribers of what they would be losing if they don't renew. "Great renewal copy threatens a loss—of security, well-being, opportunity, or all three."