I was at our Integrated Marketing Awards breakfast this morning, and, to be honest, I generally don’t like awards shows, especially when they’re early in the morning.  My favorite one to date is the one the Art Directors’ Club puts on.  Although I do think our awards programs are great–honoring people and initiatives that nobody else recognizes in a way that only min can–I’ve just never enjoyed almost any awards show.

I did enjoy this morning’s. 

The people seemed interested in networking and interested in seeing each other honored.  It’s damn creative to think about how to orchestrate a marketing campaign that involves a nationwide music tour, online forums, direct mail, and, of course, ad pages.  And, even if you do, to get results commensurate with the effort put in, well, that’s worth recognizing.  Yet, the creativity on this side of the business isn’t given one-tenth the drool that we give people on the editorial side (not that they don’t deserve it…commence back-patting now).

I guess my one disappointment this morning was not seeing more B2B people there.  I think that on the B2B side, we do a better job at integrated marketing than on the consumer side, hands down.  Next year, I’d like to see a lot more B2B entries, and, of course, more B2B winners.

Click here to see our writeup on the event.

And here to see a list of the winners and honorable mentions.

I was having lunch today with a friend in the industry.  We had both been watching some of the B2B deals that have gone through in the past year or so.  While the mega-deal of the year involved the expansion of an already huge Penton Media into the second largest diversified B2B media company in the country, the other two that we discussed saw the formation of two very different kind of companies.

Bill Reilly’s Summit Business Media, although it has plans to get very large, is focused on the service industries–finance, accounting, insurance, etc–exclusively at this point.  And Paul Mackler’s HMP Communications is focused on health.  In fact, last week, Bill Colbert told me for min’s b2b that he, along with VSS, his PE backer, was going to focus on building a single-industry company.  And Ascend Media has recently gone from diversification with Stagnito (health and food) to focus.

Will the new generation of B2B startups aspire to the Reed/Penton/Cygnus model?  Or will they be more focused?

I just finished moderating a panel for min on SEO and SEM. I won’t go over everything that I learned, but I found one point blog-worthy.

According to our panelists, blogs are becoming increasingly important as marketing conduits and content conduits for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that Google gives them preferential treatment. The message is to put as much good content on blogs as possible, and, of course, optimize and market it.

More Information:

- Our panelists were Paul Bruemmer, director of search marketing at Red Door Interactive (a consultancy), Sandor Marik, director of search marketing at CondeNet, and Derek Fulford, search marketing manager at The Weather Channel Interactive.

- For more information on the webinar or to listen to it in its entirety, go here.

- Go to BuzzLogic.com to measure which blogs are the most popular in your industry.

According to one of the many sources inside Stagnito, BNP’s recent acquisition, that have come to me since the closing of the deal, Dairy Field and Dairy Foods are being combined into one publication. I imagine that the publication will continue to be known as Dairy Foods (the BNP title), but I think it would probably benefit from some rebranding, ala a new title, that is if it is going to be a larger, more inclussive magazine. If what is happening is that Field is just being shuttered, then I’d see no reason for a name change.

I’ve also heard that Stagnito’s New Product Review is going to be repositioned. This was the word, however, that Tagg Henderson used when he was telling me about the possible plans for Dairy Field. If the company is going to reposition SNPR the same way it did Field, I’d say it was a good business, move, though a sad one for a long-standing and proud brand.

Last week, when complaints to me from Stagnito employees were at a fever pitch, I thought it prudent to call the company and, first, assess the veracity of the claims, and, second, make them aware that I was hearing a lot of complaints if they were somehow unaware of the unrest. I ended up speaking with Rita Foumia, the HR director at BNP. Here’s what she had to say:

“We aren’t setting up new rules. What we have in place as company policies and procedures we have to enforce for all employees. We’re not going to set up special rules and implement them for Stagnito employees.“

Regarding the abolition of all unofficial telecommuting agreements between managers and employees:

“If they have a telecommuting agreement in place, that’s the way it’s going to stay. If we have someone that doesn’t have a written, formal agreement, then we don’t know about it. We don’t have any documentation on that, and it’s my responsibility to follow up with everybody. Until then, they have to come into the office. The problem is that we have a loty of people working from home whenever they want to, and we can’t have that.”

Regarding taking away vacation days accrued throughout the year and giving employees only five vacation days the rest of the year:

“Ascend had said they were not going to pay out the vacation days of its Stagnito employees. But now, Ascend is paying the unused/accrued vacation. They got their checks today [this was last week], with a letter from Ascend. We gave them an additional five days for the rest of the year.”

Regarding not giving employees the employee manual immediately:

“Our manual is on the intranet. And they all have access to it now. What we didn’t want to do is overwhelm anybody. The biggest concerns they’d have is employment and benefits. We all wanted to make sure that they all got paid the same way they did before the transaction happened.“

And, in summary:

“We’re trying to make it as smooth as of a transition as possible. We have to implement our policies.“

This may all be true, but the fact is, I’m still hearing from my sources that there is widespread unrest at Stagnito. I’ve heard that many employees are actively searching for new work. If so, that’s bad news for BNP.

I regret to inform you that I have just learned, probably along with many of you, the Larry Dobrow will no longer be putting out his popular e-letter, The Magazine Rack. Others have held his banner this year, penning reviews of many magazines we know, and many we don’t, but none have been able to equal him–or even come close.

In a lengthy introduction to Dobrow’s post, Joe Mandese, EIC at MediaPost, made the announcement.

For me, and I’m sure for many of you, Magazine Rack was a must-read not only because of the insightful look in to the editorial focus, design, and content of magazines, but also because I love magazines, and I love reading what other people think about them.

For now, Larry will be missed. I look forward to hear what he will be doing in the future.

First, the news:

Mike Kisseberth is the new CEO of IDG’s PC World and Macworld, according to an announcement late Friday afternoon (9/14).  The position had been filled by interim CEO and CEO of IDG, Bob Carrigan, since the departure of Colin Crawford, who returned to his previous position running interactive sales for corporate.  Crawford had stepped down after Harry McCracken, editor of PC World, was reinstated after resigning the previous week over an editorial disagreement with Crawford. 

Now, the back story:

I am not in the office.  I’m now blogging from Grandma’s.  I’m here for a holiday dinner.  (Why I was checking my email after work on a Friday while at a family event is an issue for my analyst.)  I couldn’t resist writing a bit about this since it is related to the McCracken/Crawford story that I followed pretty closely when it broke, last May.

And, truth be told, I wanted to get the story up online as fast as possible.  (It’s a sad reality, but a reality nonetheless, that the Internet puts huge pressures on journalists to get the story out before anyone else.  I’m not immune.) 

And finally, the commentary:

I don’t know much about Kisseberth, but I’ll try to talk with him next week for a more in depth story in min’s b2b.  For now: he most recently comes from CNet, where he was senior VP of corporate sales and operations.  According to the press release, “during his tenure at the interactive media company, revenue among corporate accounts increased more than threefold.”

Kisseberth will have weird shoes to fill.  Crawford was only CEO for six weeks before stepping down.  Aside from the initial gaffe, Crawford (and Carrigan, McCracken, and Pat McGovern) handled the situation quite well and all came out smelling relatively good.  There was a momentary lapse of confidence in the editorial integrity of the publication initially, followed by swell of good feelings at the outcome.

So what sort of environment is Kisseberth walking into?  One, I imagine, in which the editors rule the roost.  But, in a category with incredibly attentive readers–they followed the McCracken/Crawford story religiously, making it into a national media issue, breifly–that might be a good thing.

From Grandma’s house, signing off. 

Recently, I’ve been getting a lot of calls and emails from Stagnito staffers unhappy with their new digs. I think this is an important story to follow because it–and other M&A activity, especially between strategics–can be a valuable case study in handling human resources during mergers.

Some things that I’ve heard:

- BNP has not provided Stagnito employees with a BNP employee handbook. One of the most important things to communicate to new employees–of any kind–is what their benefits are. I can understand, being an employee myself, why that might cause some anxiety in the ranks.

- Employees are asked to be at their desks by 8:30 AM, and the HR person checks. This reminds me of middle school, and doesn’t seem like the right way to treat a workforce.

- Lunches have been reduced to 30 minutes. Many employees used to like to leave the office for lunch, but the short lunch time (combined with the school-marm like attention to time at desk) doesn’t allow for that.

I’ve also heard that employees think that next week the first set of layoffs will be announced. Tagg Henderson, CEO of BNP, told me in an interview that they did not plan on laying anyone off and did not plan on shuttering any books. I like and respect Tagg, but I find this a little hard to believe. I don’t see BNP keeping Stagnito’s New Product Review or Dairy Fields around for much longer. And that, inevitably, will lead to layoffs.

During mergers, the new managers have to be careful to keep their employees relatively happy and calm. In our business, where virtually every product is a manifestation of the personalities that produce it, you don’t want a cranky workforce.

One aspect of M&A that is often overlooked by those of us that follow it is what happens to the daily lives of the employees that are affected by the moves. Some lose jobs, others get promoted, and many pass through relatively unscathed. In the case of the Stagnito employees, scathed might be more apt.

Word from employees at Stagnito is that Ascend has decided to retroactively not match its employees’ 401k contributions in 2007. For those people who contribute 10-15% of their incomes to their 401k, this is a huge financial blow, and one that was certainly not planned for.

Last week, on the beach, I got an email from Peggy Walker regarding her new pickup of Lori Eppel as VP of finance.  Eppel’s departure from Advantage was reportedly due to her desire to move with her family to Chicago and coincidentally came amidst a small flurry of departures from the company.  And now, she fills a long-time vacancy at Vance.  Congrats to both parties.