Debut

October 18, 2008

The debut issue of Valley Business FRONT is officially out today and the buzz is already getting loud. We put it online Wednesday (www.vbfront.com) and have already had a good bit of comment, but the interest seems to be intensifying. WDBJ-TV did a nice piece on us Thursday and The Roanoke Times had coverage--a little grudging, I suspect--this a.m.

Duncan Adams, an old pal and The Times reporter doing this story, asked me why I thought the region needed another business publication and I said, "It needs a good one, which it hasn't had since August" when Tom Field and I left the Business Journal. The Journal, of course, is owned by The Times. Dunc didn't use the quote.

Tom and I had a critical session on FRONT yesterday and I thought it was truly productive. He's open to criticism and that will benefit both of us. As good as the debut issue is, there were some glaring flaws, which we will fix. No. 2 will be better than No. 1. Football coaches always insist their most improvement in any given year comes between games 1 and 2 and I hope that happens with us.