Tuesday was my 12th anniversary working for ALM.  Twelve years ago--on March 9, 1998--I started working for what was then known as American Lawyer Media.  It was about two months after the merger of the former American Lawyer Group with the NY Law Publishing Company, and just before the acquisitions of LegalTech and the Pennsylvania Legal Media Group.  So I came on board at just the point where our company began to take shape as the leading publisher in the US of current news and information for the legal profession. 

I've been thinking all day about the changes in the company since I joined.  The office moves, the new product launches, and the move from almost entirely print to a mix of print, online, events and data.  The company is quite a bit bigger today than it was 12 years ago -- financially, by staff count, and certainly by the number of products we produce and markets we serve.  And I'll admit that I take a lot of pride in those accomplishments.

But really what I've been thinking about all day are the people I've worked with at American Lawyer Media/Incisive/ALM over the past dozen years.  Uniformly smart and committed, it has been the people at this company who have kept me engaged and energized during these years.  Journalists who have been committed to improving the practice of law and access to justice.  Business folks, equally committed to serving our customers and finding ways to ensure our success in the marketplace.  And yes, even a kaleidoscope of investors who, in their own way, cared about how best to move this company forward and constantly pushed us to better performance.  All of those people -- many still with us, some not -- have made coming to work here for 12 years highly worthwhile and a real learning experience.

So, to all of my colleagues past and present, thanks for all you have taught me over these dozen years.  I'm looking forward to all you have to teach me over the next dozen.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Joan Farrell, the National Magazine Group's Design Director, just sent out this note about awards won for art, design and photography in recent months.  Kudos to Joan and all the winners!

***

I am very pleased to let you know that the art department has won several awards in three competitions in the past few months. This week we were notified that The American Lawyer has won two awards in the Communication Arts Illustration Annual and has been listed as a finalist for an additional four pieces. This is a national competition with over 7000 entries in eight categories. There were over 1500 entries in the Editorial category, with approximately 300 finalists and only 80 winners. The winners will be published in the CA Annual, coming out in May 2010.

Winners:

The Global Issue: Field Reports (gatefold), October 2009. Series of illustrations by Kristian Olson.

The Company's Lawyers (Bar Talk lead story), October 2009. Illustration by Jean-Francois Martin.

Finalists:

The Global Issue: The Great Game, October 2009. Two illustrations (Cover and inside) by The Heads of State.

The Change Agenda: Testing the Waters, December 2009. Two illustrations by Shout.

The Boy Wonder, June 2009. Illustration by John Ritter.

A Way Forward: Counterterrorism Policy in America, September 2009. Illustration by Aleks Sennwald.



We also won four awards in the Creativity Annual Awards in December, two for editorial photography and two for illustration:

Gold Award: Pro Bono, July 2008. Series of five illustrations by Mick Wiggins.

Silver Award: Saving Anthony Harris, March 2008. Photograph by Max Gerber.

Honorable Mention: Nice Work, January 2009. Photography by Siddharth Siva.

Honorable Mention: 20 Days That Shook the World, November 2008. Illustration by David Plunkert.

The winners will be published in the 39th Creativity Annual coming out this month.


And finally, we were awarded the gold Ozzie award at the Folio Show for editorial photography:

Gold Award: Saving Anthony Harris, March 2008. Photograph by Max Gerber.


Congratulations to everyone on the team for this well deserved recognition of hard work in an extremely competitive field. We should all be very pleased and proud of this impressive showing.

//   Joan

Posted by Bill Pollak at 2:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This morning American Business Media announced the finalists in its annual Neal Awards competition, which recognizes the best in business journalism.  Our publications garnered 12 finalists from 6 of our publications, a terrific showing.  As Aric Press noted this morning, what makes our 12 finalists noteworthy is that they are spread among six ALM titles and across our print and online platforms.  "Even in a difficult year, or perhaps especially in a difficult year, it's heartening to see recognition of the excellent work that's done daily, weekly and monthly in our newsrooms".

Neal Awards finalists can be found here:

http://tinyurl.com/ygvy7oy

Winners will be announced at an awards luncheon in New York on March 11th.  Congratulations to all of our finalists!

Posted by Bill Pollak at 2:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wishing everyone at ALM a joyful Holiday Season and very Happy and Healthy New Year!  May you have time to spend with family and friends, to read a good book and relax, and reflect on all that is good in your lives. 

Best Wishes to All,

Bill

Posted by Bill Pollak at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Our Marketing Department has released this year's corporate holiday e-card for us to send to our clients, contacts, business partners, or whoever else would be appropriate to receive it.  It can be found here:

http://alm.com/09/happyholidays.html

Congratulations to Pat France, our Creative Director George LePera and his team of creative wizards for this very clever execution.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 6:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On Tuesday I spent much of the day in an ALM board meeting reviewing our current performance with the board, sharing with them a presentation on our strategic plan, and then giving an overview of our 2010 budget.  All of those are important topics, which I will cover in future posts.  But first, it seems to me that you might want to know who's on our new Board of Directors.

Just to review, ALM has two primary investors--Apax Partners, a private equity firm, which has the controlling interest in the company, and Royal Bank of Scotland, which holds a minority share.  Under the various agreements signed back in August, Apax is entitled to two regular board seats plus can appoint the chair.  RBS is entitled to one regular board seat.  In addition, ALM management has two seats--Eric Lundberg, our Chief Financial Officer, and myself.

At this point, a chair has not been appointed though I anticipate that one will be in the next few months.  That is likely to be what is known as a "non-executive chair", meaning someone who works for neither ALM nor Apax, but has signficant experience with media and/or information businesses. 

Apax's appointed directors are Stephen Grabiner and Marcelo Gigliani.  Stephen is a senior partner of the firm who leads its Media practice and also heads up Apax's London office. He has deep experience in the media sector, including having led The Daily Telegraph prior to joining Apax.  He was the chairman of the Incisive Board, so knows ALM extremely well.  More on Stephen's background can be found here: 

http://www.apax.com/en/team/stephen-grabiner.html

Apax's other director is Marcelo Gigliani, a member of their Media practice based in New York.  He also brings extensive experience in the media sector, having worked on many of Apax's media deals in both Europe and the US.  Because he is based in NY, he will likely be our day-to-day contact as well with Apax.  More on Marcelo's background can be found here:

http://www.apax.com/en/team/marcelo-gigliani.html

RBS has appointed Roger Meltzer, a senior partner with DLA Piper in NY, to fill their director's slot.  Roger is the Global Chair of the firm's Corporate and Finance practice.  And he is an avid and long-time reader of The American Lawyer, with good familiarity with many of our other publications.  More on Roger can be found here:

http://www.dlapiper.com/roger_meltzer/

In addition at any given meeting there will be other observers and participants from Apax, RBS and, of course, ALM.  Plus we will be scheduling presentations for the board on an as needed basis covering specific parts of our business, new products, investments, etc., which will involve still more members of our team.  It is in all of our best interests for our Board to get to know our management team and understand what we are doing and why we are doing it.  We need their support for our business and investment plans so that we can move forward with the on-going transformation of ALM from a traditional B-to-B media company into a full-fledged participant in the information services sector.  I think we are off to a very good start.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 7:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By now you should have received my note concerning Open Enrollment for our benefits plans, which will begin next week. As I've said in previous postings, this was a particularly difficult year to be negotiating over benefits costs, and I think our Benefits team really did a terrific job with favorable results.  Obviously, the change from one health insurer to another can be disruptive, but we have done a great deal to minimize the inconvenience for the vast majority of our staff.  And the change from one provider to another was literally worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings, so well worth the challenge.

We also listened to staff needs.  A number of people posted comments on this blog or sent me notes about moving from Single and Family coverage to a three tier system reflecting Single, Employee plus One, and Family coverage.  And so, with help from our consultants, we were able to re-engineer the way we divvy up employee premium costs to accomodate that change.  I know that will be helpful to many of our employees, with an offsetting reasonable cost increase to those who are insuring families.  For the future, that change will make our premium rates more competitive in the marketplace.

But the unrelenting increase in overall healthcare costs, plus our own claims experience over the past few years which has not been favorable, means that the cost of receiving healthcare will continue to increase for almost everyone.  Going to the doctor will cost more--which doesn't mean you shouldn't go, but it does mean that preventive care and living a more healthy lifestyle becomes even more important

Because of our move to Cigna and other changes in the benefits package, I urge you to attend one of the information sessions which will be held in all of our offices around the US.  Don't just assume that you can rollover whatever you did this year into next year--there are new and important choices to be made, and no one but you can make those decisions.

If you have specific questions, you should probably hold them for the information sessions and ask our benefits professionals.  But if you have comments on the overall process, feel free to post them below. 

Posted by Bill Pollak at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We do a lot of terrific work at ALM.  But today one of our staff members at 120 Broadway apparently reached his limit on one particular topic and shared his concerns with our friends at Gawker.  No, not about our financial performance or our recent spin-out from Incisive.  His concerns were about a much more fundamental topic:  men's room cleanliness.  You can read our anonymous bathroom critic's comments here:

http://tinyurl.com/yz97qn4

Okay, I feel suitably shamed.  So keep reading those newspapers--but let's clean up after ourselves so our anonymous critic can focus on more important things.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 6:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're in the final stage of our discussions with our consultants and health insurance providers, and will wrap up our 2010 benefits planning in the next two weeks.  That will give us time to prepare for the annual Open Enrollment period in November.

As I suspected when the process started back in August, our terrific HR/Benefits team of Felicia White and Tom Kiley--with a great assist from our consultants at PricewaterhouseCoopers--have done a great job in the negotiations.  In the process, I've learned a few things about health insurance that I thought I would pass along.

1.  There is absolutely no question that competition in the insurance industry is a good thing and keeps prices down. As I listen to the discussions in Washington about healthcare reform, I don't know whether the public option or exchanges or some other mechanism is the best way to go--but fostering competition is a powerful way to reduce insurance premiums.  And those who live in states with monopoly insurance providers would do well to have additional options available to them, if only as a negotiating tactic.

2.  As health insurance costs rise, the biggest increases are going to be seen in the most expensive plans.  At the same time, the incentive to move into so-called catastrophic insurance plans, which feature low premiums and high deductibles, is going to grow over time.  Right now relatively few members of our staff are in our CMP Plan.  As the other plans go up in cost, there is no question that the CMP Plan will look more attractive to more members of our staff, particularly those who are light or even moderate users of health care services.  I encourage everyone to look seriously at the CMP Plan when the time comes next month, and really think about what level of health insurance you and your family really needs.

3.  At the same time, the total insurance premium we pay (70% by the company, 30% by employees) is a function of actual healthcare claims.  When claims go up, the total premium needs to go up in order to cover those costs.  When claims go down, the argument for reducing the premium is much stronger.  As pointed out in an earlier post, our history of healthcare claims has not been good, and that works against us as we try to keep our benefits increases down.

As a company, we have been relatively passive about wellness programs, and I think that will need to change.  Some companies are instituting disease screening programs to provide early identification of health problems and allow for preventative care.  Others are rewarding those who actively address healthcare issues, whether through smoking cessation or weight-loss or other programs.  I don't know yet what's right for ALM, but we need to address overall healthcare claims if we are to keep our health insurance premiums at a reasonable level.

There'll be more to say about our specific plan once the loose ends are tied up, and there will be plenty of time during Open Enrollment to address questions.  Until then, I hope you stay healthy!

Addendum (posted 10/16):  This article in today's Washington Post expands on the direction of corporate wellness programs.  http://tinyurl.com/ygpts6v.  Some are clearly more expansive than others and, as I said above, we need to figure out what the right approach would be at ALM.  Clearly we are not the only company that needs to find a way to reduce overall health costs.  And the idea of focusing more energy on prevention rather than treating disease is an attractive one.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 2:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Bruce Wasserstein passed away yesterday at the age of 61.  He was the Chairman of our Board of Directors from 1997 until we were sold to Incisive in 2007.  Although he was best known as an investment banker and master dealmaker, he had spent several years practicing law and had a genuine interest in journalism and the arts.  No doubt his primary reason for acquiring American Lawyer Media was to make money for himself and his investors, but there was more to it than that--he was genuinely interested in the quality and sophistication of our news content.  Many of his good friends were partners at major law firms, and he cared deeply about how well we served their needs and reported on their work.  He was smart enough to know where the boundary line was between suggesting story ideas and meddling in the editorial arena, and in my experience he never crossed that line.

Most importantly, he was the most energetic and creative boss I have ever had.  His brain seemed to work non-stop, and in meetings he was so excited and filled with ideas that he could barely sit still.  Rather than sitting quietly in a conference room chair, he would often wander around the room while sharing his latest brainstorms--even wandering out of the room at times, still talking, but also hunting for cookies or whatever else provided all that energy.

His mantra when presented with any new idea from the American Lawyer Media team was always the same:  "More, Bigger, Faster".  He didn't believe in marketing research, other than phoning up some friends to ask what they thought of an idea.  He believed in being bold and moving quickly.  No matter what we presented, Bruce wanted us to do in a week what we thought might take a few months.  And, always, he wanted us to think bigger.

In 1999, at a time when others were launching websites, Bruce encouraged us to launch a newspaper for the deal community, a group which no one was really talking about until that time.  Bruce was all over that project, pushing us to think bigger about the kind of news and information that community would require, and urged us to consider not just the US audience but Europe as well.  And when we argued to launch as a weekly newspaper, he insisted on The Deal being a daily, a much more complex (and expensive) undertaking but also considerably bolder.  The Deal, which we spun out as an independent business after a year, just celebrated its 10th Anniversary and seems well-entrenched as a leading information provider to the dealmaking world.

I learned a lot from working for Bruce, but nothing more important than the idea of "More, Bigger, Faster".  Big corporations act slowly, pass all ideas through committees, do endless marketing research and take baby steps for fear of making a mistake.  Bruce made sure that ALM's culture was more entrepreneurial--try a hundred different things knowing that some will succeed and some won't.  And, always, think bigger abiout what you are working on.  Good lessons, as valid today as they were 10 years ago.

RIP 

Posted by Bill Pollak at 7:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was pleased to see that almost 40% of you took the time to respond to the training survey we sent out last month.  Your feedback will be very helpful as we select training courses in the future.  And the strong response reinforces my belief that despite budget limitations we need to find ways to continue offering our employees meaningful training and development opportunities. 

The results also reminded me that our assumptions about what our employees need and want aren't always correct.  For example, when I reviewed the responses I wasn't surprised to learn that many of you wanted to learn more about Social Media Best Practices but I certainly wouldn't have predicted that a course about the Company and its Products would be so in demand.  But that's why it's so important that we continue to solicit this type of feedback from our employees.  

Our HR team is still analyzing the survey results and will use the results to develop a long-term training strategy designed to introduce new courses each year.  The first priority will be deciding what topics to focus on in 2010.

The final strategy will be shared with you once it's completed.  Until then here's a look at some of the results, divided between those topics of most interest to managers and those of most interest to the rest of the staff:

:

Manager Top 5 Choices

General Skills

1. Business Writing
2. Effective Listening
3. Building Team Effectiveness
4. Managing Change
5. Time Management, Organization & Prioritization

Industry Skills

1. ALM - The Company and its Products
2. Social Media Best Practices
3. Understanding Web Metrics
4. Learning About Your Customers
5. Using the Marketing Database

Staff Top 5 Choices

General Skills

1. Excel
2. Managing & Growing their Career
3. Effective Negotiation Skills
4. Effective Listening
5. Communicating/Working with Different Personality Types

Industry Skills

1. Social Media Best Practices
2. ALM - The Company and its Products
3. Expanding News Coverage Through Use of Multi-Media
4. Understanding Web Metrics
5. Learning About Your Customers

Additional Topics Suggested by Respondents

• General finance (e.g., budgeting/forecasting/roi)
• Reporting and Writing Skills
• Graphic/Web Design and Interactive Programs
• Outlook Skills
• Microsoft Programs
• Sales Training

I will be back to you with additional details once the training agenda is complete. 

Posted by Bill Pollak at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Congratulations to our colleagues in Philadelphia for garnering three Schnader Print Media Awards, given by the Pennsylvania Bar Association. That's a record one-year haul for our staff! Kudos to Senior Staff Reporter Gina Passarella who won first place for Beat Reporting in the daily newspaper category; News Editor Peter Hall who won first place for Beat Reporting in the weekly newspaper category; and Editor-in-Chief Hank Grezlak who won second place in the Editorial/Commentary competition. Keep up the good work!

Posted by Bill Pollak at 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Rob Steinbaum wears many hats in our company. He is the long-time publisher of the New Jersey Law Journal, the Group Publisher responsible as well for the Connecticut Law Tribune, and our overall senior publisher among all of our newspapers. Through his work with the New Jersey Law Journal, he has also become one of Newark's most ardent boosters both internally and externally. And every other year, Rob dons his tuxedo and becomes the impresario of a major fundraiser for the nonprofit New Jersey Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. This year the talented lawyers of the Garden State put on a production of "Bye Bye Birdie" at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.

We always tell our publishers that we want them to become part of the fabric of the community they serve--it would be hard to find a better example than Rob Steinbaum.

Here's Rob on stage introducing the performance:

Rob and George Dillehay celebrating the fundraiser's success:

All pictures are courtesy of Sarah Tilotta. More of her photos can be found here:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/stilotta/sets/72157622453955814/

Posted by Bill Pollak at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Carolyn Elefant has been blogging for law.com's Legal Blog Watch for the past three-and-a-half years. She's decided to give it up and move on to other things--like her legal practice. But before leaving, she posted this final note and I thought it was worth passing along. In it, she says some wonderful things about our values as a company and about the people at Incisive/ALM with whom she has worked. It's exactly what I would want a freelance journalist to say about us, and I'm pleased that she did so.

We wish Carolyn all the best for the future. Here's her final post:

http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2009/09/my-last-day-at-legal-blogwatch.html

Posted by Bill Pollak at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As I mentioned in my post the other day about our Exit Interviews, one area of needed improvement within the company is in the training and development arena. On the training side, our challenge has always been to figure out what kinds of programs would be of most value to staff members. That's why its important for everyone to fill out the survey which Felicia White distributed this morning--that will give us a good picture of what people think their own training priorities might be. And, for those who are managers, the survey will tell us what skills improvement programs you think your team would benefit from most.

The survey can be found here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=mBYfb6hl5PAX70Dqaq_2fY2g_3d_3d

Please take a few minutes and fill it out. Thanks.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our HR Department interviews all those who leave jobs at ALM. And every quarter they compile the results of those exit interviews and provide me with a summary. In general, the results don't change much from quarter-to-quarter, but some of the findings are worth noting:

1. Not surprisingly, there has been a dramatic drop-off in the number of those voluntarily leaving positions at ALM. Given the state of the economy during the first half of the year, with new jobs tougher to find, that makes sense to me.

2. Those who leave have generally positive things to say about ALM. Almost 90% of those who left would recommend ALM to their friends as a good place to work. And over 90% would be willing to work for the company again in the future.

3. Among those who leave, the majority (59%) have been with the company for less than 2 years. Fully 88% of those who leave have been with ALM for 5 years or less.

4. Why do they leave? It generally comes down to moving for a higher level job or promotional opportunity elsewhere. Relatively few left to take the same level job at higher pay. But a significant minority left to change careers or for personal/family reasons unrelated to the job, or to find a more flexible work schedule.

5. Our exit interviews show that there is still room for improvement in providing training and development opportunities. Given that those who are leaving are generally only with us for a few years, it would seem that we need to work on how we can create more promotional opportunities at earlier career stages.

6. The majority of departing employees were extremely satisfied with the relationships they had with their manager, co-workers in their department and employees in other business groups. Those satisfaction levels have not changed from previous quarters.

7. And while most employees voiced satisfaction with their immediate manager, they also shared some dissatisfaction with our Reward and Recognition programs. And our benefits programs in general received rather mixed reviews, with a higher percentage than in the past expressing dissatisfaction with our Health Benefits and Retirement/401K plan. Those will be especially difficult issues to address given the current economic climate, but we need to keep them in mind for whenever the recovery begins.

These exit interviews are helpful to us in providing insight into the company's strengths and weaknesses. And they help us to identify where we have work to do and how to prioritize our various HR initiatives. In this case, the story is a pretty good one, but there's always room for improvement.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 1:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our colleagues in the San Francisco office will be moving to new quarters this weekend and we wish them much success in their new space. For those keeping track, the new office can be found at:

1035 Market Street, Suite 500
San Francisco, CA 94103

This will be the third office we've had in SF since I joined the company. When I started, The Recorder (and only The Recorder--I don't think law.com was with us at the time) was in an older building that featured a cooking school next door. The smells in the office were terrific. And I was told that, from time-to-time, our staff got to sample some of the chef's delights that had been created (though I never experienced that). I know we have some veterans from The Recorder on staff--what do you remember about those offices?

Best of luck on the move!

Posted by Bill Pollak at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

As noted in a recent posting, we are now beginning our negotiations with United HealthCare over our insurance rates for 2010. The opening salvo from UHC was pretty discouraging, but I suspected that our terrific Benefits team would be able to bring some sanity to the discussion. And I'm pleased that already we're seeing positive results, with the latest quoted rate increases now in the 15-18% range -- still outrageously high and unaffordable, but better than where we started. This is a lengthy process and we still have a long way to go.

One result of these discussions is that UHC has provided us with the background information they use to determine what our premiums will be. The most important variable, not surprisingly, is what our claims experience has been, or what they call our "utilization rate". They look to see what our claims have been--for doctor visits, hospital stays, pharmaceuticals and other kinds of claims--and use those to figure out what we should pay in premiums to cover future claims and, presumably, their profit margin. I'm no defender of insurance companies, but I can understand their rationale for using the past to try and predict their future costs for insuring our staff.

According to this data during the past year our claims increased by slightly over $1.4 million, an increase of 29%. Since one of the main drivers of our healthcare rates is how much our claims go up, understanding our utilization experience makes it much easier to see why our initial proposals came in so high and why containing premium costs going into 2010 is going to be so challenging. In analyzing the utilization data further we found that we had not only had unusually high plan utilization over the past 12 months overall but had also experienced an unusually high number of “high cost” claims which are defined as claims over $50,000. Below are additional statistics from the past year which should further clarify why we are facing a rate increase and the relationship between our plan utilization and plan costs. I found this data very informative and hope you will as well.

- We had a total of 25 “high cost” claims, an increase of 56%

- The average net amount paid per high cost claimant was $144,000

- Our net amount paid per employee per month for high cost claims is about 69% over norm

- Inpatient hospital admissions increased by almost 35% and the average number of days in the hospital increased by 24%

- The average amount paid per hospital admission increased by almost 24%

- In network utilization decreased by about 2% to 92%

- Covered expenses per employee per month increased 25% to $419.77 from $336.17, which is about 14% above the norm

- The average net amount paid per claimant increased 49% from $2,576 to $3,832

In the short-run, there is very little the company can do to impact the above. People get sick, they go to the doctor or hospital, they incur medical costs, and the insurance is there to cover them. But we need to consider in the long-run what we can do individually and collectively to reduce these costs.

One approach attacks the problem through wellness programs, smoking cessation and weight control programs, and other ways in which the company can gently but firmly encourage and even reward healthier lifestyle choices and behaviours. Another approach uses the design of the health insurance plan itself to reduce overall insurance costs via adjustments to co-payments and deductibles and other plan design modifications. We clearly have some choices to make in order to get next year's rates down to an acceptable level, and our Benefits team is looking at all options.

I would love nothing more than to blame the high cost of health insurance entirely on the insurance companies. But we clearly have to take some responsibility ourselves for the costs we incur for our collective healthcare. Every time we light up a cigarette, skip a regular check up, allow our weight to drift higher than we know it should, or visit an out-of-network physician when an in-network doctor would have done just fine, we boost our collective healthcare costs.
And, ultimately, the insurance companies will make sure we pay.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 1:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Last week our New York offices celebrated what has become an annual Summer Community Outreach Day. Around 30 of our colleagues participated, spending time cleaning up Fort Greene Park, helping out at two animal shelters, and serving dinner at the Community Kitchen in upper Manhattan. As Felicia White said in summing up the day, "the activities may have only lasted a few hours but the positive impact of everyone’s efforts will last far longer."

My thanks to everyone who participated. I know we do similar Community Outreach Days in our other offices--when you do so, please drop me a note and let me know about them. And photos are always welcome.

Speaking of photos, here are a few from last week.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 8:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For those interested in a more indepth look at what has gone wrong with our Health Insurance System, I highly recommend this article from the August issue of "The Atlantic Monthly" by David Goldhill called "How American Health Care Killed My Father". Notwithstanding the title, it is a really good explanation for how our system of health insurance has gone off the rails.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care

Pay particular attention to the section which explains the difference between Comprehensive Health Insurance and Catastrophic Health Insurance. Most members of our staff have signed up for the former type of insurance, which we offer as either "Core Plus" or the "IN Plan". We also offer a Catastrophic Plan, called "CMP", which costs considerably less in terms premiums and comes with a Health Savings Account as an option.

You'll want to pay attention to those differences, because I think they go right to the heart of the problem discussed in my previous post--the extreme increase in the cost of healthcare insurance which we have been experiencing. My suspicion is that over the next year or two the cost of Comprehensive Health Insurance is going to become prohibitively expensive for most employees, and more and more of us will be motivated to choose the CMP Plan or something like it in order to keep our insurance costs lower. We'll see if I am right in the coming months.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I’m sure I’m not the only person on our staff trying to follow the healthcare policy debate going on in Washington and around the country. I know it’s important and I want to try and understand the various options and plans. But I can’t help feeling, as I listen to the talking heads scream at each other on CNN, Fox and MSNBC, that they’re all kind of missing the point.

This is the time of year when we begin our negotiations over the cost of next year’s health insurance. The process involves going to our current health insurance provider (United Healthcare) as well as the others with whom they compete, providing stats on our employee population, claims experience and the like, and then waiting to hear what they come back with. And then, with help from our outside benefits consultants, we figure out what to do.

Yesterday I received a note from Tom Kiley, our Director of Benefits in the HR Department, bringing me up-to-date on the state of those negotiations. He informed me that UHC had come back with a proposal to raise our benefits cost by 28% compared to this year. Yes, you read that right—28% on an annual bill that’s already in the ballpark of $6 million.

Now I’ve been through this dance enough times not to take that opening bid too seriously. I know that Tom and our consultants are very good at what they do and will find ways to whittle down that increase, even if it means we have to take our business elsewhere. But still. In a year that featured the worst economic downturn in any of our lifetimes, and at a time when the general rate of inflation is in the low single digits, it seems almost impossible to imagine how our health insurance rates could go up by anything approaching 28%. How they could propose that with a straight face is beyond me.

Let me put that proposed increase into perspective. Although we’re just starting to do our budgets for 2010, at this point it seems pretty clear that our revenue increase for next year will likely be very modest—maybe 1 or 2%. So that would be a total revenue increase of maybe $2-3 million. A 28% increase in the company’s share of the health insurance cost would use up about half of those increased revenues. That’s money we would like to use for other things, like salaries, bonuses, investments in new technology and the development of new products, just to name a few. Having to spend that money on higher health insurance costs doesn’t seem like a very productive use of our cash.

By the way, I don’t think there’s anything special about our company when it comes to the cost of our health insurance. I suspect every other company of our size will have the same problem and will be asking the same questions—what do we do to limit these increased costs? How much can the company afford to pay without damaging other parts of its business? How much can our employees afford to pay, whether in the form of premium deductions from their paychecks, increased deductibles or higher co-pays? And, while we’re at it, what can we do to limit the size of future increases? None of these are easy-to-answer questions, but that’s what we and others like us will have to grapple with in the next few months.

And that brings me back to the healthcare debate in Washington. These discussions about death panels and public options miss the real point. The real point is how best to control the rising cost of health insurance. Finding a way to reduce costs is the best way to keep health insurance affordable for those who now have it, and will make it easier to bring those who don’t into the system. Letting costs rise by 28% or even 18% is a surefire way to hurt the small and midsize companies which provide employment to so many Americans, and will make having insurance less affordable for the employees who share in paying those costs. That’s what I’d like to see being discussed in Washington.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 6:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's a great story from Kris Fischer, editor-in-chief of the NY Law Journal, that illustrates the value of our relationships with news sources and those who help us access them.

"On Thursday during the Senate’s vote on Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation, Mark Hamblett (our courthouse reporter) called to say the judge was with a crowd in the courthouse in the 8th floor conference room, and that Rick Kopstein (our staff photographer) might want to try to get a shot.

Rick hustled up there and because the court officers know him, allowed him into the party. He was the only reporter to get shots of her immediately after the confirmation.

We used our favorite and then released a bunch of photos to the Associated Press. Photos with credit to 'Rick Kopstein/New York Law Journal' appeared in papers all around the country—the LA Times, the Richmond Times Dispatch, Amarillo Globe News and a slew of papers in Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, New York and the Virgin Islands. We have a great collection if you want to see them sometime!

It was a great scoop for Rick and the NYLJ."

Some "scoops" come from just being in the right place at the right time. But often, what seems like a lucky break comes after years of building relationships, getting known and trusted by sources and those with access to people or information. If those court officers hadn't known Rick for years as our staff photographer, would they have let him into that conference room? Probably not. And that's what made the difference.

I don't care if you are a reporter or a salesperson, investing in relationships is what determines if you get into the conference room--or on to the media schedule--when the moment of decision comes. Luck has very little to do with it.

Congratulations and thanks to Rick and the NYLJ team for illustrating that important point.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As we begin to plan for 2010 and beyond, we have two strategic priorities.

On the one hand, this is likely to remain a challenging advertising sales environment, particularly as it relates to law firm and display advertising. While we expect that traditional print advertising will continue to be an important part of our revenue mix, online and events will undoubtedly represent a growing proportion of the total. As advertisers become more sophisticated in their own use of the web, including social networking, video, search advertising and various forms of lead generation, we need to enhance our offerings to the advertising/marketing community. And we need to find ways to economically reach out to a broader group of advertisers—at small and midsize firms or companies—to help them market to our valuable audience.

At the same time, we are investing at a greater pace in the technology needed to create and market more user-supported products, including enhancements to existing websites and new research-based products. The need to generate new revenues from our audience will challenge our marketing skills and require greater sophistication in how we sell our products—to individuals as well as to groups. Maintaining our customer and prospect databases in ways which will enable more targeted marketing has become more crucial than ever. And, of course, supporting our customers with high quality customer service has never been more important than it is right now.

Those two priorities, in turn, depend on our ability to generate the quality of content which our audience expects and to do so in ways which enable flexible publishing across multiple formats. With that content we can republish and repurpose to meet the needs of multiple audiences, creating new products for distribution across our entire database.

After discussions with Jack Berkowitz, George Dillehay and Kevin Vermeulen, we have decided to reorganize the Legal Media Group to allow us to focus on each of the above priorities.

Kevin Vermeulen will assume responsibility for all advertising, sponsorship and exhibition sales, while retaining responsibility for our conference groups, including Insight Information in Canada and continuing legal education. Where we have up to the present time maintained separate sales teams in NY for print/online and event sales, we will now combine those groups under Steve Lincoln so that we speak with one voice to our clients. Steve will continue his responsibility as Group Publisher of our National Magazines with oversight responsibility as well for our newspaper ad sales teams, and will report to Kevin. Henry Dicker and his event team will join Steve’s group.

One of Kevin and Steve’s first responsibilities will be to expand our telesales group, in order to enable us to more efficiently contact and serve small and mid-size advertisers. Once that group is set up, we anticipate that it will encompass as well several of our existing telesales operations, including the custom publishing group and the expert witness team.

George Dillehay will add responsibility for Law Journal Press, Law Journal Newsletters and the recently established Substantive Law Products group to his existing oversight of the newspaper businesses, the MA3000 products and the audience development group. All of these groups derive a substantial portion of their revenues from subscription sales. All rely heavily on direct marketing and, hence, depend on the quality of our customer and prospect databases for their success. One of George’s first responsibilities will be to expand our Group Sales efforts whereby we sell multiple products at a combined price, including print and electronic, to our clients. As part of this reorganization, Sara Diamond and her team will report to George.

Jack Berkowitz will focus on new business development and content generation and, in particular, the ways in which we develop and use content outside of our traditional print and online publications. Jack’s responsibilities will include our Research group, the Law.com team, as well as Licensing. Aric Press and Kevin Iredell, and their respective teams, will report to Jack. Jill Windwer will continue reporting to both me and Jack, as she has been doing. In addition, Michael Hochberger will join Jack’s group as head of Content Generation, helping us to manage both the flow of content within our company as well as sourcing content from third parties. One of Jack’s primary tasks will be to oversee our numerous New Product Development and Business Partnership initiatives to ensure that we are taking full advantage of the investments we have made in technology and people as we continue growing our business.

I am confident that this rearrangement of responsibilities will allow us to focus on the challenges ahead in all areas of our Legal Media business. Please let me know if I can answer any questions.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Robert Carr is GlobeSt.com's bureau chief based in Chicago. For the last six months, Robert has been in Kabul, Afghanistan where he has been deployed as part of his Naval Reserve unit. I recently sent him a note asking if he would provide an update on what he is doing and how the world looks from where he is based. I also couldn't help asking if he had anything to report about commercial real estate in Kabul for the benefit of his GlobeSt colleagues. Here's his response:

Bill-

I’m a public affairs officer at the International Security Assistance Force (read: NATO) Headquarters base in Kabul, Afghanistan. My main job is working in the secret NORAD-esque operations building to cover what’s going on throughout the country and shape proactive and reactive public affairs coverage. I also answer media queries on events, and arrange media embeds.

One interesting takeaway is how we’re using social media. We’ve started a U.S. Forces Afghanistan Facebook page www.facebook.com/usforcesafghanistan to help get our word out…all of our press releases get uploaded to this page, and if you’re a “fan,” you receive the press releases as part of your regular updates. Though we put up about two-three per day, people do not seem to be tiring of them, and they provide dozens of comments of feedback to each one. Also, we are on Twitter, and have an official USFOR-A Twitter feed, as well as our commanding officer has a Twitter feed where he posts his thoughts. Further, we notify people (including media) using Twitter that we’ve uploaded a new press release.

We were rather surprised how well this has worked. There has been a limited marketing plan, but we’re noticing that others who see that their friends have signed up also sign up with our page – an Internet “word of mouth” if you will – giving us more than 16,000 fans since our page went live two months ago. The Facebook page also drives traffic to our Web page.
I think that success has some lessons learned for our Web publishing business…regular, limited posts on social media (not overwhelming) have really increased our view count, and it’s interesting to see how many people are willing to be a “fan” of a certain group…which gives the group an ability to get right in front of those eyes on a constant basis. These people frequently provide comments to our posts, valuable feedback that seems to be 5 to 10 times more than what is posted after a blog post.

Real estate situation in Afghanistan – Well, I guess you could say that the occupancy could use some growth. It’s at about 0%. There are companies building various plants throughout the country, but the security for those facilities is immense, as it needs to be.

As for other observations…it’s a dangerous place. We’re doing our best to hold, shape and build…we’ll see what happens as we get past this summer offensive and the August elections.

I definitely look forward to returning to Incisive. It’s very good to hear from people back home.

Navy Lt. Robert Carr
U.S. Forces Afghanistan
PAO Operations Chief

Posted by Bill Pollak at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This posting is for those in our organization who find themselves involved with recruiting and hiring new talent, particularly entry-level reporters, sales people, marketers, etc. It can be difficult to assess entry-level talent, and to know how someone will grow in our organization. Sure, they may be qualified for the job you are filling right now--but will they be able to step up to work on higher level projects or to take on a leading role for something we may do in the future?

For those who like sports metaphors, here's a blog post by a fellow named Brian Grey comparing the challenges of recruiting in business to those faced by talent scouts in Major League Baseball. It turns out that baseball scouts and media company hiring managers face the same difficulties--how to know when an unproven but apparently talented individual will grow into the kind of talent we need to move our business forward?

http://briangrey.com/blog/2009/05/24/scouting-for-talent-in-baseball-and-business/

At the other end of the hiring spectrum, where we are hiring more experienced and generally higher level managers and editors, we recently made a small change in our interview regimen. For selected positions, we've decided to make sure that our VPs from around the company participate in the interview process and provide feedback to the hiring manager. I'll do some of those interviews as well. The question I want those secondary interviews to answer is whether the proposed new hire has the skills to work in concert with their peers in other departments and whether they have the potential to someday expand their role in the organization. We're looking not just for people who can play one particular role, but who have the skills to grow as our needs change and will work well with others along the way. That's the talent we need to recruit if we are to ensure our success into the future.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We are getting close to the time of year when we have traditionally conducted our Performance Reviews. Typically, we send out forms and guidelines by the middle of May and ask that the reviews be completed by July 1st. This year will be no different. Every employee is entitled to honest feedback about how they are doing, where they have shown great strength and what they can do to improve in areas of weakness. And every employee is also entitled to let their manager know how they would like their career to develop, so there can be a discussion about skills development and career growth opportunities.

Ideally, those Performance Review discussions would be accompanied by a salary review, so we can reward strong performance and encourage those who need improvement. As you already know, based on input this past February from a wide array of staff members and much discussion on this blog and elsewhere, we decided to freeze our salaries as part of our overall cost savings plan. But the lack of salary reviews does not mean that Performance Reviews are any less necessary or important. Our best performers deserve to hear from us about how we value their efforts, and how we might help further their development. And our weaker performers also deserve our honest feedback, so they know beyond doubt what we expect of them and where they need to show improvement.

One of the rationales we used for implementing the salary freeze as well as the furlough program was the idea that those collective actions on the part of all Incisive employees would minimize the need to reduce staff. But, to be clear, none of us have accepted a reduction in pay for the sake of keeping weaker performers employed here. In fact, our collective sacrifices virtually require management to take a hard line on performance--to ensure that the jobs we are saving are filled by hard-working, high-performing, and valued individuals. The Performance Reviews are designed for that purpose.

An article in Wednesday's NY Times about the impact of furlough programs underscored the issues that such programs raise. The article quoted John Sullivan, a professor of management at San Francisco State University, as saying, "firms use furloughs instead of layoffs because they lack the courage to look individual employees in the eye and terminate them... In my view, managers get paid to make tough decisions, not to avoid them.”

Let's not avoid those tough decisions. Most of the people on our staff who will receive Performance Reviews undoubtedly deserve to be praised for the work they are doing. I would suggest that we be lavish in that praise and thoughtful about the feedback we provide. It has been a challenging year throughout the company, and I am very proud of the way in which our team members have risen to those challenges. In a year in which we cannot provide our best performers with the usual financial rewards, it becomes that much more important to provide feedback that will lead to skills improvement and career development.

At the same time, let's be honest with those who are not meeting our expectations. If we can help them to improve their performance--great, let's put a program together and help them to succeed. But if not, then let's help them out the door so someone else can come in and knock our socks off. The hard truth is that the rest of us deserve no less.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're at the start of journalism awards season, and our colleagues in Philadelphia have reported our first big wins of the year. For starters, The Legal Intelligencer has won the John V. R. Bull Freedom of Information Award for Shannon Duffy’s articles and editor-in-chief Hank Grezlak's columns on the 3rd Circuit’s practice of having secret dockets…a practice they stopped as a result of The Legal's coverage. According to Hank, "What’s cool about the FOI award is that, unlike most of the awards, it is not broken down by division and is a competition against every newspaper in the state. Most of the specialty awards went to the Philly or Pittsburgh papers. We’ve never won a specialty award in the Keystone Press Awards before." Wow!

In addition, senior staff reporter Gina Passarella has won first place for Series Reporting for her business of law series, “Rainmakers & Rainchasers.” Again from Hank: "It’s a great honor for (Gina) and for The Legal. The Keystone awards are tough for us to win, in large part because our stuff is sophisticated and there is a heavy bias toward general circulation papers for these. Having said that, this is a big category and it’s impressive that Gina won for her business of law coverage."

Meanwhile, The Legal Intelligencer's sister publication, The Pennsylvania Law Weekly, picked up two awards. Editor Peter Hall and Reporter Leo Strupczewski were awarded first place for General News for their story on the conviction of Judge Joyce, and Peter received a first place award as editor for a niche publication.

According to Hank, this is more total awards for our Philadelphia newsroom colleagues than we have ever received in the past. Congratulations for the awards, but also for the terrific work which lies behind all this recognition.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 6:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last Wednesday our colleagues at The Legal Intelligencer in Philadelphia were honored by the Philadelphia VIP (Volunteers for the Indigent Program) for their exemplary commitment to pro bono legal services. This is not a journalism award, but a recognition of the support that the entire Legal Intelligencer team has given to one of Philadelphia's primary providers of pro bono legal support. At a time when more people than ever need legal assistance--because their home has been foreclosed on, other debts need to be negotiated, or due to the loss of a job or other circumstances--it is great to see our publications doing their part to enhance access to justice.

Serving our community is an important part of our core values, and promoting pro bono work among our legal audience is clearly one way to fulfill our corporate obligation to the greater good. Congratulations to the entire staff at The Legal.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This intriguing photo was sent to me by the irrepressible Mischelle Grant (center of photo), our Advertising Director at The Daily Report in Atlanta. She and her troops have launched "Operation Needmo" which Mischelle describes as "an organized effort to train and motivate the Atlanta sales team to bring in more revenue NOW". The military garb signifies the team's respect for our Armed Forces and the hope that they can "adopt the principles of discipline, determination and teamwork" to achieve their goals.

"Operation Needmo" will run for two months, and early results look promising. The team has already booked $10,000 in new business for February, and look to be over budget in the display category for the month--no mean feat in these times. As a show of solidarity, Mischelle reports that the team has agreed to wear some part of their uniforms while working in the office over the next two months.

Those sales directors who think they "need mo" sales (and who doesn't?) are welcome to contact Mischelle directly to learn more about "Operation Needmo". And from the rest of us, here's a big Salute to Mischelle and her troops...as she put it so well in her note to me: Onward and Upward!

Posted by Bill Pollak at 7:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Yesterday there were two personnel announcements about which I wanted to make note.

First, Pat France announced that Christian Georgeou, Marketing Assistant in the Corporate Marketing Department, has been promoted to Marketing Manager in the Interactive Marketing Group. He'll be working with Matt McGowan and Angela Mann on our ClickZ/SEW/SES businesses. Christian has been my comrade-in-arms with this blog and, in particular, has been looking at usage statistics to let me know which of my posts are widely read and which ones, alas, are not. Congrats to Christian on his terrific promotion!

Second, we announced yesterday that John Mason, our VP-Operations for the last two years, will be leaving Incisive at the end of April. As many of you know, John has been making the daily commute from suburban Philadelphia to his office at MetroTech in Brooklyn--a grueling journey. Having decided to keep his family in the Philadelphia area, he has also decided that now would be a good time to find a job closer to home. We will certainly miss him. John came to his present position from his role as President/Publisher of our Philadelphia publishing group. He has brought a good deal of order to our capital investment process, helped us through the transition to new ownership and then the move to new NY office space, and leaves us well set up for the next stage of our investment in our digital publishing infrastructure. Eric Lundberg has begun a search for a Chief Technical Officer who can combine John's administrative/managerial skills with deep experience in digital and publishing technologies. In the meantime, John will be working with us for another two months and I hope those who know and work with him will take a moment during that time to wish him well. I know that I do.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 9:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't believe in purely "objective" journalism. I believe that as a media company our duty to our readers and users is more than just to report the facts. I think we have an obligation to use our publications for the public good--to promote values that we believe in. Those values include encouraging lawyers and law firms to set aside time for pro bono work, to improve access to justice for those in our society who cannot afford it. And those values also include promoting a more diverse workplace, so that there are no glass ceilings preventing anyone of ability from getting ahead.

But there's no question that requiring firms to provide us with their pro bono or diversity statistics--and holding up one set of firms for admiration and another for critique--imposes an obligation on us as well. We cannot very well criticize law firms for their lack of diversity, for instance, if we don't 'fess up to our own performance.

For years we've been collecting statistics on diversity at ALM and now we do it for Incisive North America. In general, over the last two or three years, our numbers have been pretty stable, with some improvement in selected categories. I thought you might want to see how our diversity figures looked for year-end 2008.

Overall, Incisive North America is 52% female and 48% male. And we are 29% minority and 71% white.

We are slightly more diverse at the lower salary ranges than we are at the higher ones. So, for instance, among those who earn between $30,000 and $50,000, the breakdown is 59% female and 41% male. And 36% minority and 64% white.

Compare those numbers to the stats for those earning between $50,000 and $100,000. That group is 48% female and 52% male, and 24% minority vs. 76% white.

Honestly, I don't know what these numbers "should" be, and I haven't been able to find good comparisons with other similarly sized media businesses. But my gut reaction to these statistics is that we have more work to do in bringing women and minorities into higher paying jobs in the company--many, but not all, of which are management positions. We've made some progress over the last five years in that regard, but we cannot stand still.

Looking at the outside world, we know that there's a danger that the current recession will cause firms like ours to put aside values like diversity as we focus on finding ways to reduce costs. That would be a mistake for us, just as I think it is a mistake for the law firms and others who we cover. Values do not change because of economic circumstances. If improving the diversity of our workforce at all levels was important before, it is at least as important now. We need everyone's talents and skills brought to bear on helping us to meet the many challenges we face--we cannot afford glass ceilings or other impediments that may keep some voices from being heard.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 4:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Anyone who has been reading this blog over the last few months knows that I am a believer in the growing importance of social media--Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others. Lately I have become especially bullish on Twitter as both an editorial and business tool--more on that in a future post.

I also know that growing numbers of us are using these tools not just for business purposes--for instance to promote our publications, drive traffic to our websites, or provide added value to our conferences--but also for personal reasons. A number of media organizations have recognized that there can be a potential conflict between business and personal use of these new tools, and have begun to set ground rules. So, for instance, we wouldn't want one of our journalists to use their personal blog to editorialize on a subject that they are supposed to be covering objectively for our publications. Or to post a personal comment on Twitter that could be mistakenly confused as coming officially from our company.

A few months ago I asked our HR Director, Felicia White, to develop a policy on personal use of social media, primarily so that there would be no confusion about where the line is between business and personal commentary. She's been working with our Editorial Director, Aric Press, and others to develop such a policy and will soon be distributing it. I think it is pretty straight-forward and common-sensical. But if you have questions or comments about it, I hope you will share those with me.

So if you want to blog about gardening, Twitter about your cats, or rekindle high school romances on Facebook--go for it. But if your comments overlap with Incisive's editorial or business interests, or could be construed as creating a conflict of interest--think before you post. And if you have any doubts, talk to your editor or supervisor before your words go out to the world.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 6:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This morning American Business Media released the list of finalists for the 2008 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Awards. I am so pleased to see that four of our publications--ClickZ, Legal Times, Texas Lawyer and The American Lawyer--have been recognized for the high quality of their work. The winners will be announced at a luncheon on March 19th. As far as I'm concerned, all of our finalists are winners and I hope you will join me in congratulating them.

Here's the press release we put out this morning with more details about our finalists:

INCISIVE MEDIA’S CLICKZ, LEGAL TIMES, TEXAS LAWYER AND THE AMERICAN LAWYER NAMED AS FINALISTS IN NEAL JOURNALISM AWARD COMPETITION

NEW YORK (February 3, 2009) – Incisive Media today announced that four of its publications, ClickZ, Legal Times, Texas Lawyer and The American Lawyer, have received seven finalist nominations in six print and online categories of the 2008 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award competition. Approximately 100 finalists were selected from more than 900 entries. Established in 1955, the Neal Awards recognize and reward editorial excellence in business-to-business publications and are considered the industry’s most prestigious editorial honors.

ClickZ, Incisive’s online network for digital marketing news, information, commentary, advice, opinion and research, was nominated as a finalist in the “Best Online Article or Series” category for its “Campaign 08” series, profiling and analyzing online campaign efforts by both political parties in the recent presidential elections. Senior editor Kate Kaye provided groundbreaking coverage, including tracking of digital advertising spending by the candidates.

Legal Times was named a finalist for “Best News Coverage” in its revenue category for “The Transition.” In the immediate aftermath of the election, the Legal Times editorial team created a comprehensive package of articles assessing the impact of the election on the legal community — from the Supreme Court and the Justice Department to the federal agencies and Capitol Hill. The nine-page package of articles was published in the Nov. 10 edition.

Texas Lawyer was selected as a finalist for “Best Single Issue of a Newspaper/News Tabloid.” In its April 28, 2008, issue, the Texas Lawyer editorial team investigated and analyzed the 2007 finances of the highest-grossing law firms in Texas. The issue also included a moving look at the tragic suicide of a South Texas lawyer and how depression impacts the legal profession; a survey listing the 100 largest firms in Texas; and a piece on a Texas attorney general proposal to stop strip clubs from employing minors.

The American Lawyer received four finalist nominations in three categories. In the “Best Single Article” category, the magazine was selected for both November’s “Target Practice” by senior writer Susan Beck, profiling the ongoing legal problems created for law firm Mayer Brown by one of its clients, a now-disgraced commodities trading firm, and for September’s “After the Fall,” by staff reporter Nate Raymond, analyzing the rise and subsequent crash of the nation’s oldest law firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. The magazine’s November issue, featuring an up-to-the-minute special cover report on what the stock market crash and financial meltdown meant for the nation’s largest law firms, was named as a finalist for “Best Single Issue of a Magazine,” while The American Lawyer’s “Bar Talk” section, a collection of news and analysis stories, graphics and humor, was named a finalist for “Best Department” for the second consecutive year.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 2:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It was great to be away in South Africa and Namibia, watching the wild animals, seeing the extraordinary scenery and meeting some incredible people. My family and I had a wonderful time. I highly recommend a visit to that part of the world if you get the opportunity.

Thought you might like to see at least one picture from our trip. The leopard (above) was in the Mala Mala Game Preserve. No symbolism to the picture, I promise...my daughter took it and I thought it was a good shot.

And I was pretty good--though not perfect--about staying away from computers and email. Harder to do than you might think.

I'm still getting back up-to-speed about how our businesses have been doing over the past few weeks. I've heard a number of very positive success stories, but also some continuing challenges. More on both subjects in the days ahead.

Bill

Posted by Bill Pollak at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've always liked the first week in January, and rarely more so than I'm enjoying this one. Having made it through all the calamities of 2008, it feels like a fresh start, a clean slate, and a new beginning. Maybe it has something to do with the inauguration of a new, young President in a few weeks, or the fact that the stock market made it through the first couple of days of the new year without doing anything crazy. Or maybe it's that there are so many terrifically interesting news stories to cover, starting with the Madoff saga but including important issues impacting the future of the law firms many of us cover and the continuing ups and downs in the real estate industry. And finally a sense that our long discussed investments in web technology--a new CMS, content tagging and other essentials--are finally getting off the ground.

Or maybe it's just that I'm going on vacation for two weeks and looking forward to bidding adieu to the Wall Street canyons for a little while.

I'm going to do something that I haven't done in years...go on vacation and NOT take my computer. That's right, I'm going to disconnect from the net, unplug from the blogosphere and detach from the world of Twitter and other social media diversions. Just me, my family, lots of books and, of course, my cell phone (just in case). That means no further contributions to this blog for a few weeks. Enjoy the quiet...I know that I will.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here's my final post of 2008. I've enjoyed keeping this blog and hope it has improved our transparency as an organization, allowed those who don't know me well to get to know me better, while providing a forum for idea-sharing on a variety of topics. I'm looking forward to 2009, with its challenges and its opportunities, and I'm sure plenty to write about.

As you look back on the past year and plan for the next one, here's a quote from Jim Collins, author of "Good to Great" that you might want to keep in mind. He was asked to identify a longtime belief about which he had changed his view:

"I used to believe that the critical questions in life were about “what” — what decisions to make, what goals to pursue, what answers to give, what mountains to climb. I’ve come to see that the most important decisions are not about what, but about who. The primary question is not what mountains to climb, but who should be your climbing partner. If you want to have a great life, the most important question is not what you spend your time doing, but who you spend your time with. First who, then what – life is people."

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year.

Bill

Posted by Bill Pollak at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I know that quite a few people at Incisive will be heading out on vacation beginning today, so I want to take the chance to wish everyone a very happy and healthy holiday. With many of us soon to confront the task of making our New Year's resolutions, I thought the following story--forwarded to me by a friend--might provide some inspiration:

Big Rocks: Are you taking care of the ‘big rocks’ in your life?

A time management expert was speaking to a group of business students and, to drive
home a point, used an unforgettable illustration. He stood in front of this group of high-powered overachievers and said, “Okay, time for a quiz.” He pulled out a one-gallon, wide-mouthed mason jar and set it on a table in front of him. Then he produced 12 fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, “Is this jar full?”

Everyone in the class said, “Yes.”

“Really?” he said. He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he
dumped some gravel in and shook the jar, causing pieces of gravel to work themselves
down into the spaces between the big rocks. He smiled and asked the group once more, “Is the jar full?”

By this time the class was onto him. “Probably not,” one of them answered.

“Good!” he replied. And he reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He
started dumping the sand in and it went into all the spaces left between the rocks and the
gravel. Once more he asked the question, “is this jar full?”

“No!” the class shouted.

Once again he said, “Good!” He grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked up at the class and asked, “What is the point of this illustration?”

One eager student raised his hand and said, “The point is, no matter how full your
schedule is, if you try really hard, you can always fit some more things into it!”

“No,” the speaker replied. “That’s not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is, if
you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”

What are the big rocks in your life? A project you want to accomplish? Time with your
loved ones? Your faith, your education, your finances? A cause? Teaching or mentoring
others? Remember to put these BIG ROCKS in first or you’ll never get them in at all.

So tonight, or in the morning, when you are reflecting on this short story, ask yourself
this question: “What are the ‘big rocks’ in my life or business?" Then put those in your jar
first.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pictures courtesy of Rick Kopstein of the New York Law Journal:

Posted by Bill Pollak at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Most of the time, I love the fact that we work for a company with offices all over North America plus London and Hong Kong. But this is one of those times when I find it a little frustrating that I can't personally go around to everyone at Incisive North America to personally wish you a Happy Holiday and extend my thanks for all you have done for our company.

Last night was the Holiday Party for the New York offices (now down to just two, with the Real Estate group's move this past weekend to 120 Broadway). I think we finally found the perfect party venue--a beautiful space, plenty of room for standing, sitting or dancing, and terrific food. My thanks to John Klein and Alie Vidal from our Conference Group for making the arrangements, and to all those who helped convince me that we should go ahead and hold the party rather than let the restaurant keep our deposit. I think it was the right decision.

I noticed several people were taking pictures last night. If you have any that you would like to share, please send them to me so I can post them for all to see.

For those in our other offices, who I know are having their own holiday celebrations, you should know that in past years I have generally refused to make a speech at these NY parties. I never wanted to interrupt the good time people were having, and certainly didn't want to get between any member of our staff and the dance floor!

But last night I did say a few words and, had we all been together, here's what you would have heard me say:

Thank You.

Thank You for your accomplishments in 2008 and all you will accomplish in 2009.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 8:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In my staff note on Friday, I listed as one of our initiatives creating a program so that staff members could take up to an additional week of vacation on an unpaid basis. That would save the company up to one week of salary for each volunteer, while allowing those with an interest in supplemental time off a way to get it.

The HR Department will shortly circulate a note explaining how to take advantage of this new program.

A number of people have subsequently asked me about adjustments to work schedules--working 10 hours per day for four days, or working five days but with one at home. To be clear, those are not money-saving ideas for the company and right now that's where I'm primarily focused. Some have argued that there could be cost savings from those ideas but those are fairly small compared to the potential costs of having to support additional home-based workers, for instance. And I worry that flexibility for one group becomes additional work for others--those left in the office. We need to be very careful how we proceed.

Still, I understand the appeal of such schedules and have asked the HR Department to take a look. In the end, those discussions really belong with department heads who need to decide if such flexible schedules can be accomodated within the requirements of getting our work done.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 8:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As you know, we've just completed our annual Open Enrollment process for next year's benefits. Not much has changed.

The IN Program remains our most popular health insurance option, with 460 employees signing up for it, up slightly from this year's 441.

Core Plus is second, with 240 of our staff electing it, down a bit from this year's 248.

And the CMP plan remains a distant third, with 38 of our employees enrolling in that plan, up from 31 in 2008.

Over the longer term, we believe that the Core Plus plan will become prohibitively expensive and will continue to decline in popularity. On the other hand, we think that changes in regulations concerning the CMP plan--and particularly the ability of participants to put money aside into Health Savings Accounts--will make that option more attractive in the future.

I'd like to thank Felicia White, Tom Kiley and our magnificent HR team for their oversight of the Open Enrollment process this year. Offering and supporting a competitive benefits program is important to all of us, not just for our own health and well-being, but to ensure the company's ability to attract and retain a highly professional staff.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 5:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here's a note sent out this morning by James Hanbury, CEO of Incisive UK and Asia. It is a reminder that we work for a global company, and what happens in one corner of the world can impact us in unexpected ways.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 8:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The headline says it all. We have much in this world to be thankful for and I hope you will take the time in the coming days to reflect on all of those gifts.

Wishing you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Bill

Posted by Bill Pollak at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The media trade magazines are saying nice things about the work we are doing.

Last week Ad Age published its list of the Top Media and Marketing Blogs--the Power 150.

http://adage.com/power150/index.php?start=0&sort=total&order=desc&kwd

Two of ours made the list: Search Engine Watch Blog and ClickZ Blog. Congratulations to the editorial teams in our Interactive Marketing group who manage those powerful blogs!

And this morning at a breakfast hosted by Min Magazine, I was identified as one of min's "21 Most Intriguing People in Media".

http://www.minonline.com/news/9195.html

Now, let's be honest, "intriguing" is not a word that would normally be used to describe me. Even my mother, who normally says nice things about me in public, would not use the word "intriguing" to describe her son. So in my remarks I was careful to make it clear that the award was really for Incisive Media, not me, and I accepted it on behalf of the many, many intriguing people who work here and have made us a success. Congratulations!

Posted by Bill Pollak at 1:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We recently awarded five of our staff members with Core Value Recognition Awards, and I wanted to share their accomplishment with everyone. I'm proud of the way each of these individuals went above-and-beyond to meet the needs of our customers. And, as with all those who have received Core Value Recognition Awards, I love the fact that their nominations were endorsed not just by their supervisors but by their peers as well.

So here's to our latest crop of Core Value Award winners:

Andrea Boden, Art Director, Connecticut Law Tribune
John Bringardner, News Editor--Legal, Law.com
Shannon Green, Reporter, VerdictSearch
Alyson Palmer, Reporter, Fulton County Daily Report
Geneva Ware, Business Office Supervisor, New Jersey Law Journal

Congratulations and Thanks!

Posted by Bill Pollak at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I posted a comment yesterday in answer to a question on one of my other posts. But because it's buried at the bottom of several comments, I realize it might not be noticed. And the topic--our 401K retirement plans--is an important one so I thought it was worth repeating.

Kelly Lindner at Texas Lawyer asked whether our company "should abandon the requirement of paying into a 401K during this time or make it voluntary for a period of time?"

I don't know about other companies, but Incisive has no such 401K participation requirement. We do initially enroll all new employees in the 401K because we strongly believe that everyone should be saving for their retirement. But any employee--new or otherwise--can reduce the percentage of their salary being contributed to their 401K or withdraw from participating altogether. This is not a mandatory program.

That being said, I would urge everyone to keep on putting money aside for retirement. Most of us simply cannot count on the social security system to support us after we stop working. The 401K allows a convenient way to save, with an automatic return on the investment through the company match. And there are tools and advice available on the JP Morgan website to help participants figure out how best to invest given their retirement goals. Just go to www.retireonline.com.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We're getting close to the annual Open Enrollment period for our health benefits. A note describing our plans and the process for signing up will be distributed shortly, and then Felicia White and Tom Kiley from HR will be making themselves available over the next few weeks to help everyone through the process.

For those who have heard me discuss the health insurance fiasco in this country, you'll know that this is not my favorite time of year. As in the past, our health insurance provider came at us with another completely outrageous price increase proposal. Through a lot of work by Felicia, Tom, Allison Hoffman and our insurance consultants, we were able to knock that down to an increase that almost approaches reasonableness. But getting there forced us to tinker with some parts of the program and to make choices about how to allocate those increases.

During 2008, health benefits will cost a total of $5.7 million for all of our employees. Thanks to our negotiators, that overall cost will rise 4.2% next year--more than we would like but a lot less than it could have been. The company picks up just over 70% of that cost, with employee semi-monthly premium payments covering the remainder. We check every year what other companies are doing to make sure that we are being competitive, and find 70/30 to be a pretty typical split for the mid-size US media companies.

One of the principles we use in figuring out what employee premium costs should be is that those who make the most should pay the most. I guess some politicians would call that "socialism"--to us, it is just a matter of fairness. We'll continue with that practice during 2009.

We offer several different health plans, and I would encourage you to look at them carefully. Several years ago we introduced the IN Plan, designed to keep premium costs low for those who primarily use in-network physicians. Put simply, the more employees sign up for IN and stay in-network, the lower our insurance costs. So we do what we can to keep those premium rates as low as possible and encourage as many as can do so to sign up for it. Meanwhile, with out-of-network costs going through the roof, those who sign up for Core Plus are going to see much more substantial rate increases as the years go by. That plan is already expensive and is going to become even more so in the future.

We also offer the CMP plan for those who want the lowest possible insurance premiums. If you are young, single and healthy, with relatively minimal annual healthcare costs, you should seriously look at this plan. In addition to potential expense reductions, it also allows for a Health Savings Account--kind of like the 401k we offer, but for health expenses.

In addition to the coverage choices we make as individuals, our costs also reflect the collective health of our organization. That is, when health insurance claims go up, then the insurance company looks to increase everyone's premiums to make sure those costs are covered. When claims go down, we all see savings in future premiums. One reason that UHC wanted to raise our premiums so much this year is because our claims have gone up by a great deal in 2008.

One way to keep our healthcare costs down is for our staff to stay healthier. That's one reason why the HR Department started its "Wellness" initiative, to make sure everyone has the chance to learn tips about things like reducing stress, eating healthier, smoking cessation and the like. Please take advantage--not only will those wellness strategies keep you healthier, but they will also keep our future insurance premium costs down. And don't forget your annual check-ups, to make sure that any small problems are caught and dealt with before they become big ones.

Posted by Bill Pollak at 7:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On Wednesday evening I joined 530 tuxedoed and evening gowned Washington lawyers--many abuzz about the Congressional debate on the Wall Street bailout that was then in full swing--for the 30th Anniversary celebration for Legal Times. David Brown, Editor and Publisher, led the gala in a celebration of the 90 DC lawyers who have made a real difference in the life of the city and the nation over those 30 years. There were videos, some brief speeches, and a lot of pride.

Here's how the Blog of Legal Times covered the event:

http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2008/09/legal-times-30t.html

Congratulations to David and his entire team on a fabulous evening!

Posted by Bill Pollak at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was struck by a quote I read from Professor Mary Quigley, a professor of journalism at NYU:

“Nowadays it’s essential for journalists to blog."

We have quite a few journalists on our staff. I know that some of them blog, either on their own or as contributors to group blogs. But I don't think that all of our journalists blog, and I don't think that mandatory blogging is part of our job description for reporters and editors.

So here's a question for the journalists: Is blogging essential? Should we require new hires to demonstrate blogging skills before they can become our reporters and editors?

Posted by Bill Pollak at 10:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Yesterday's NY Times had a story about airlines beginning to offer internet connectivity. And, yes, that's our Kevin Vermeulen (SVP of our Event and Tradeshow Divison) featured alongside his son (also named Kevin) right there illustrating the story.

Kevin reports that he was flying from New York to Los Angeles so he could attend LegalTech at the end of June, and then take a family vacation. Little did he know that his flight would be the first to feature internet service--for free, at least on that flight.

They seem to be intently studying the computer screen...no doubt reading a particularly interesting story on law.com!

Posted by Bill Pollak at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)