Tag: Philadelphia Business Journal

This column about Technical.ly was spiked by the Philadelphia Business Journal

Ahead of the fifth annual Philly Tech Week back in April, consultant and Drexel University chairman Stan Silverman, who writes a regular column for the Philadelphia Business Journal, decided to write about Technical.ly and my work there.

Unfortunately the Business Journal’s leadership flexed its editorial discretion and spiked the story. It wasn’t the first time we heard something about us was dropped by the publication — Silverman told me he never had a column idea killed like that before by his editor.

One can’t know exactly why but one might come to assume it’s a rather petty swipe at us, as they see us as a kind of competition. I hope we can all appreciate the irony that during this very same Philly Tech Week, we happily included and helped to promote a Business Journal event, their IT awards. Oh it’s too perfect.

I guess it’s just the difference between the open web and ugly legacy tendancies.

Read Silverman’s column, which he published on his personal site, here.

Those are similar ledes: faint praise from the Philly Business Journal

Hey, ledes are often pretty formulaic. That much we know.

We also know that Technically Philly has aspired to grow more broader coverage of its community.

Now, they may not be the same and there may likely be no influence; I just thought this was quaint. Honestly, what it may best show is that we’re on the right path with Technically Philly.

From a former colleague and friend Peter Key:

If a lot of extremely strangely dressed people start showing up in the area in the next few months, it could be a sign that philanthropy in the region is increasing.  — Philadelphia Business Journal lede on July 9, 2010

From a current colleague and friend Sean Blanda:

If you see DunkTank co-founder Blake Jennelle walking around Center City with a cowboy hat, cowboy boots and a fake beard, rest assured he hasn’t gone completely crazy. — Technically Philly lede on June 17, 2010

Your life as a press release

Last month I posted about my fulfilling internship with the Philadelphia Business Journal from the spring. Then I offered advice about attracting attention to your press releases.

I got some great clips there and learned more about newsroom dynamics, but I also got a taste of nine to five life. Business reporting didn’t get me out of the office much, and most often I was pouring over hundreds of those press releases and choosing one each week to profile.

I remember thinking then and came about it again. Is my life worth profiling, chosen by some idiot 22-year-old intern?

I’m scared of the answer.

Photo from UtahWebServices.

My internship with the Philadelphia Business Journal

With the editorial staff of the Philadelphia Business Journal on May 5, 2008.

Last Thursday, during a week revisit to Philadelphia, I shared happy hour with a few friends from my internship with the Philadelphia Business Journal, with which I had a great six month-internship the last semester of my college career.

With a little work, I got tons of solid clips and great experience (detailed below) with the Journal, and so I thought it was worth pointing that out.

The primary responsibilities of editorial interns with PBJ, owned by American City Business Journals, are to keep up their pages that follow the region’s philanthropic community, profile business leaders and all managerial movements in and around the city. While I pitched other stories of greater size, these base-level jobs never offered anything more than a few hundred words. Still, I worked hard to make them worth reading – if only to keep me focused and interested.

The internship meant a lot more than all of that, though.

Continue reading My internship with the Philadelphia Business Journal

JoAnne A. Epps: new dean of Temple University Beasley School of Law extended interview

As filed – without edits – for last Friday’s edition of the Philadelphia Business Journal. This is the extended interview.

Name: JoAnne A. Epps
Title: Dean, effective July 1
Company: Temple University Beasley School of Law
Education: Trinity College, bachelor’s degree, 1973; Yale University School of Law, 1976
Career History: associate dean of academic affairs, Temple Law (1989-present); professor, Temple Law (1985-2000); assistant U.S. attorney, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (1980-85); deputy city attorney, City of Los Angeles (1976-80)

What do you see being the biggest pending change in legal education in the coming years?

I think one of the big changes in legal education is going to be to ensure legal education fully prepares our students to be practicing lawyers. We’ve had the same educational model for nearly a century. All legal educators will be asking themselves how we can improve on that model.”

Do you think law schools need to add more classes to prepare students for the business aspect of practicing law? Or does that take away from legal education?

I’m not entirely sure that law schools must include a course on the business of practicing law, althoiugh I do think it is important that students do acquire that education. I am not against it, but I don’t think that it’s urgent or mandatory. I am of the view that what’s needed is more introduction to practicing law, not introduction to the business of practicing law, including the handling of moral and ethical dilemmas, understanding how to take our place as leaders in the community, understanding collaborative problem solving. For all of that law schools are ideally suited. Part of my hesitation in thinking of the business of practiing law is that we can intellectualize that topic and we can seek to help our students, but the practicing part will be a better teacher than we can.

What effect does the high cost of law school education, specifically the prohibitive loans students are saddled with, have on students making choices about which school to attend and what career path to pursue afterwards?

Continue reading JoAnne A. Epps: new dean of Temple University Beasley School of Law extended interview

Linda Rosanio: raising money for Susan G. Komen with Mama Nancy Catelli meatballs

As filed – without edits – for last Friday’s edition of the Philadelphia Business Journal.

IF PHILANTHROPY ALWAYS HAD this much to do with meatballs, everyone would get involved.

Looking for a new way to raise money for Susan G. Komen Philadelphia Race for the Cure, Linda Rosanio enlisted her mother “Mama” Nancy Catelli to sell her homemade meatball sandwiches in the cafeteria of the Star Group, a marketing and communications company in Center City.

“I don’t think she realized how many sandwiches she would have to make,” Rosanio, who is CEO of the company, said of her 82-year-old retired mother.

Continue reading Linda Rosanio: raising money for Susan G. Komen with Mama Nancy Catelli meatballs

Last major Philadelphia Business Journal clip… for now

YESTERDAY THE LAST OF my clips for the Philadelphia Business Journal during my internship, which ended May 5, appeared. Read it below as I filed it.

Delaware County Community College has launched $60 million in renovation and new construction to better outfit its Marple Township campus for science, technology engineering and math programs by 2009.

The community college broke ground on a 105,000-square-foot science building and a 32,000-square-foot technical building on April 18. Its mission is to reconnect students with a regional business community increasingly in need of skilled labor.

“We complain about outsourcing, but what you need to do is keep these companies from going overseas. They don’t have a skilled workforce,” said Dr. Jerry Parker, president of the community college. “We need to increase young people coming up through high school going through science and technical fields.”

Read the rest here.

I am currently traveling. This was forward-posted on May 6.

Susan Barnett: bringing local news to CBS 3

As filed – without edits – last week for today’s edition of the Philadelphia Business Journal.

YOUR LOCAL TV NEWS usually isn’t all that local.

Anchors travel from market to market, like Susan Barnett did, geography be damned.

She had worked in Miami, Pittsburgh, West Virginia and Champaign, Ill. But the new co-anchor of CBS 3’s 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts has finally landed the big spot in her native region.

“You have to travel all over the country and earn your stripes, especially when you come from a huge city like Philadelphia, it is hard to get here at all,” the Bucks County native said. “Making it to this level is really the ultimate for me.”

Barnett grew up in Levittown, graduated the University of Delaware and now lives with her husband in Delaware County, but does her job better here because she’s done it elsewhere, she said.

“The Philadelphia news style was ingrained in me,” she said. “But, in my travel, I got to see how news is reported around the country.”

Continue reading Susan Barnett: bringing local news to CBS 3

Rae Scott Jones: helping St. Joseph's keep up with the Scott-Joneses

As filed – without edits – for yesterday’s edition of the Philadelphia Business Journal.

WHAT YOU WANT TO SEE are students in the supermarkets.

That’s a healthy level of community involvement Rae Scott-Jones might tell you.

Scott-Jones, who was named assistant vice president for government and community relations at St. Joseph’s University, has lived in the school’s Wynnefield neighborhood for nearly a quarter century.

“I want more students in the community. I think that’s important because we all live here. The more we interact the more we are likely to get along and develop some understanding. We are less likely to antagonize individuals than groups,” she said. “We live and work here. It’s critical that we live and work here together.”

Continue reading Rae Scott Jones: helping St. Joseph's keep up with the Scott-Joneses

The Sons of Ben: Philadelphia soccer fans benefiting Chester

As filed – without edits – for today’s edition of the Philadelphia Business Journal.

BRINGING A PROFESSIONAL SOCCER TEAM to Chester may have little to do with bringing professional soccer to Chester.

In February, Philadelphia was officially granted Major League Soccer’s 16th franchise, to be played in a 20,000-seat, soccer-specific stadium that is leading a major waterfront renovation in Chester. The Sons of Ben, a group of soccer fans eager for Philadelphia to join the growing league that formed in January 2007, led the excitement that surrounded speculation preceding the announcement. Now that their mission to bring the world sport to the city has been completed, they’ve taken to bettering the community of 36,000 that will house their still unnamed Philadelphia soccer franchise.

“Once it was announced that the stadium would be in Chester and the funding would be all set, we reached out for a way to get involved,” said Bryan James, Sons of Ben president and founding member.

Continue reading The Sons of Ben: Philadelphia soccer fans benefiting Chester