Informal staff lunch yields great ideas

Coined “Great Ideas” luncheons, the gatherings are set to take place approximately once per month on Fridays, our only day without an imminent printer deadline looming. One representative from each SBJ department (editorial, production/creative services, circulation, advertising and administrative) will attend each meeting. In this way, a front-line staffer will never have his or her immediate manager at one of the lunches. I will always be present to facilitate, take notes and pick up the check. We are planning to keep going until we have included everyone, and then start all over again.

I’m sure many other companies have conducted this kind of meeting. It may not be a unique concept, but it is an experiment for us. And the first edition was great fun. I figure that if we enjoy the lunches, the lunches will help us accomplish many of the goals that we are working for around here. I am finding that most of us (including myself) don’t want to keep doing a job that doesn’t yield some pleasure, at least part of the time.

My job as publisher is to hire and retain the best staff, along with planning for the future. Now, after 25 years of publishing Springfield Business Journal, planning for the future is not getting any easier. I need all the help I can muster.

So far, we have remained relatively small and family-owned. This offers some inherent advantages, we believe, but additional growth provides more opportunity for individual career development.

At our first Great Ideas lunch, the conversation seemed to center around the summer and SBJ’s new Web site. The new site, which is under construction, is set to make its debut in conjunction with our anniversary celebration and the Economic Impact Awards banquet in late July.

I depend on younger staff members to advise me and the management team on everything about the Internet. I do not check Internet news as soon as I get up in the morning. In fact, the Internet is not even close to my primary source for news, but it is for a growing number of people, and SBJ is going to have to provide this on an intensive and interactive basis if it is going to continue to interest younger readers.

This came through as forcefully as the Thai spices in our spring rolls at Bangkok City. As a result of our luncheon conversations, we all have assignments to pursue widening the Business Journal’s Internet community.

Finally, we spent at least the last 20 minutes of our mid-day time together discussing the possible reinstatement of SBJ’s business lunch restaurant reviews. These were always popular in the past, but somehow they slipped away from us. Now we are figuring out a way to get them and keep them going again.

Just so the Great Ideas lunch would not be considered only great talk with no real results, we decided on assignments for follow-up, and the notes that I took between bites were published via e-mail.

Sometimes it’s hard to experiment with new cuisine and get going on great new ideas, especially as I get older, but my new commitment to explore with our staff has sparked enthusiasm for the adventure.

Dianne Elizabeth is president and publisher of Springfield Business Journal.