Does Live Trump Online?

My May 10 editor's note:

One of the first questions I got after we produced our prototype of Capital Business was "Looks great, but can you really sustain this week in and week out?"

"Sure," I responded confidently, though I would be lying if I said I had not wondered the same thing.

But just a few weeks into this new project, I no longer harbor any doubts. Of all the challenges that lie ahead of us in getting this new paper launched, finding news is not one of them.

Everywhere I go it seems stories are falling out of the sky, just waiting to be told.

On Wednesday, I stopped by the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce's big procurement conference and expo at the Universities at Shady Grove complex in Rockville. Some 700 people registered for an event that included 33 workshops with procurement officials from various government agencies.

It didn't take long for me to fill my notebook with story leads.

I even found an interesting tale in the conference itself.

Gigi Godwin, president and chief executive of the chamber, said the group organized the conference because even though the county ranks No. 2 (behind Fairfax) in the number of small companies doing business with the government, "there was nothing like this event on this side of the river."

So the Montgomery chamber has been busy revamping its programs to make up for the omission. The new emphasis has already produced some revelations. Earlier this year, the chamber held a conference in conjunction with the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Hundreds and hundreds of businesspeople showed up. Godwin said she was so impressed with a presentation by NIST Director Patrick Gallagher that the chamber decided he should be given its "Visionary" award this year, the first time a federal official has been selected. NIST, it turns out, is responsible for producing the national protocols for cybersecurity, health IT and smart grid technology.

"We've seen the future and it is NIST," Godwin said.

It's a funny thing about such events. They seem as popular as ever, even in the age of e-mail newsletters, Webinars and social networking sites gone wild. For despite all those virtual connections, face-to-face networking is still the lifeblood of the business world.

"That's the secret sauce," Godwin said. "People like to do business with people they know and trust. And what better way to get to know someone than to meet them in person."

We're doing a lot of networking here at Capital Business, and it is an incredibly energizing experience.

A Print Grunt On TV

I took a turn on TV to talk about Capital Business. At the time, it felt to me like I was talking way too fast...

Capital Business Launches

WaPo's new business publication is live. You can see the result here.

As you can see in my first editor's note, I finally truly appreciate the life of a start-up entrepreneur!

By Dan Beyers
Monday, April 19, 2010; 24

It was the first day after we had gotten the green light to create a new weekly local business publication and my mind was racing. There was a mission statement to craft, staff to hire and people to see. The IT department wanted to meet pronto. Our meetings team wanted to talk about a launch event. We still had not settled on a proper name. And then . . .

Wham!

I smashed into the back end of a car on Interstate 95.

No one was hurt, thank goodness. The driver of the other car, an Internal Revenue Service manager, could not have been nicer as we exchanged insurance information. Perhaps that was because, while his car had a small dent, my front end was a shambles.

"Are you sure it's safe to drive?" he asked.

It had to be, I thought. I have a day full of meetings.

And that's when I realized that there really is nothing so consuming as getting a business off the ground. As I related my experience to others around town, I got only knowing smiles.

Dean Violagis, vice president of research at the real estate data firm CoStar Group in Bethesda, told me about how he helped the company build its first database, literally driving around Washington in 1989, writing down information about the office buildings he encountered.

"It was all basically done by hand," he said.

There was no satellite global positioning systems in those days, no geocoding. "I literally took out a map and put a dot on it," he said.

Violagis thought the company a little crazy when it asked him to take a photo of each building he documented. What would it do with the boxes and boxes of slides he accumulated?

To realize that work would one day form the basis of the computerized repository of real estate information that CoStar has become famous for is inspiring.

So is hearing Violagis talk about CoStar's efforts to extend its brand into new markets. The entrepreneurship never ends, even if the techniques of gathering data are now more advanced. "Every city, we have to start over again," he said.

Launching a business can be so daunting, the challenges so numerous, that friends and colleagues can be pardoned if they seem a little skeptical.

Gary Shapiro, president and chief executive of the Consumer Electronics Association in Arlington, remembers a time back in the mid-1980s when he and the late Ron Brown, who would later become commerce secretary, were sitting on a bus in Tokyo listening to David Rubenstein talk about his vision for a merchant banking firm that would one day become private equity giant Carlyle Group. At the time, the three men were all lawyers, fighting to protect the legality of the videotape recorder.

"Ron and I laughed at David, thinking he was just being fanciful," Shapiro said. "But then he did it."

Capital Business plans to tell many more stories like that in the weeks and months to come, for it strikes me that one of the things uniting our diverse business community is the entrepreneurial spirit stirring in companies big and small. The upheaval brought on by the recent economic downturn has a way of focusing the mind and encouraging people to consider new possibilities.

I pulled my wounded car into my downtown parking garage and smiled at the look on the attendants' faces.

"What happened?" one asked. "Are you okay?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

Never felt better.

New Gig

I'm off on a new adventure. The Washington Post is starting a new weekly business publication called Capital Business and I am its very first editor. This is really a dream assignment, being given a blank sheet of paper to re-imagine a business newspaper.

We're trying to create something that feels fresh, newsy and informative.

For now, we're putting the pieces in place, hiring a staff, and playing with designs all in a mad scramble to launch on Monday, April 19. Frankly, we've been operating at such a frenetic pace that I've had to cut back on my other interests but hopefully I'll be able to establish a new routine soon enough.

You'll find a sample of Capital Business bundled with your Washington Post for a few weeks. We hope you subscribe for $49 a year, about what some people pay for an expense account lunch.

Don't hesitate to let me know what you think.

UPDATE: You can find an interview with me on the new project here. Here's a story about our first hire from the Washington Business Journal.

Is This Thing Still Working?

Whoo boy. I've been thinking I should fire up this old blog again after ignoring it for so long. Lots has happened since I last was here. For starters, WaPo is undergoing an extensive reorganization and my job has changed. I'm no longer local business editor. I'm now what we call a topics editor for business, health, science, and the environment.

As local business editor I assigned stories, edited them when they came in and oversaw their publication in the newspaper and online. Under our new structure, we have split the traditional assignment editor job. I don't typically initiate coverage any more but, as topic editor, I oversee a team guiding that content onto our many platforms, whether it be the newspaper, online or on a Blackberry, iPhone or some other mobile device. I also work with our interactivity teams to figure out how to generate more reader participation.

This new job is a lot of fun because I get to play a larger role in thinking about our online content than I did before, when the print and online newsroom operated as separate entities.

Here's a few of the projects we've recently completed to give you an idea of some of the things we are trying:

The first is our new Climate Agenda package, where we plan to aim much of our coverage on global warming and the coming policy debates in Congress and around the world. As part of that package, we launched the Planet Panel, a discussion group where readers can debate climate-change issues with scientists, activists and industry leaders. Another element of our special report is a cool interactive graphic we've built showing the change in global emissions over time. This graphic also serves as an index of sorts for climate news from around the world, focusing first on the G-20 nations.

Speaking of the G-20, we recently built a special report page on the G-20 economic talks in Pittsburgh to put in one place all out stories about the recent G-20 and UN meetings. This is a kind of one-off thing to help readers better see all we are doing on an ongoing news event.

Similarly, we have been busy updating our Swine Flu page, adding news coverage as it happens and a Q and A addressing safety concerns about the vaccine.

We've also built a special report page for our series on the consequences of the current economic crisis.

These are just some examples of the things I've been personally involved in. The paper has also launched a new local news section that is experimenting with a number of changes to deliver news and engage readers.

Let me know what you think.

A Visit To The Evil Empire

Cross off another must from the bucket list. On July 2, we finally got to Yankee Stadium for a game, won by the Yanks 18-7 over the Rangers courtesy of a grand slam and many errors. Former wOes Sidney Ponson started for the Yankees and was chased from the game, behind 7-5. We gave an Os cheer during the anthem, but found ourselves cheering the Yankees, the Giambino, and Hip Hip Jorge in the end (whodathunkit?) This is the final season in the old ballpark but the team promises to move its ghosts over to the new place next door. There are only 38 games to go.



Here's the AP summary for the game, from WaPo:

Giambi, A-Rod power Yankees to win over Rangers

By DAVE SKRETTA,
AP Sports Writer

NEW YORK (AP) Hank Steinbrenner demanded to see more offense, and Jason Giambi and the New York Yankees obliged.

If only it were that easy all the time.

Giambi hit a grand slam and drove in a season-best six runs, Alex Rodriguez added a three-run shot to move another notch up the career home run list, and New York pounded the Texas Rangers 18-7 Wednesday night to avoid a series sweep.

The Yankees had been struggling at the plate, scoring just seven runs and batting .172 in losing three of their last four games, prompting the club's co-chairman to say things were "getting ridiculous."

"We've got to start hitting," Steinbrenner said earlier in the day in Tampa, Fla. "They've got to start waking up."

Consider the Yankees wide awake.

Rodriguez scored four times, the last coming on his line-drive homer to right during the Yankees' season-high nine-run seventh inning. It was Rodriguez's 535th homer, moving him past Jimmie Foxx for 14th on the career list and within one of Yankees Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle.

So did Steinbrenner's edict have anything to do with the scoring outburst?

"I wish," Giambi said. "They could yell at us every day for all I care."

Milton Bradley and Chris Davis each hit two-run homers for the Rangers, who are 0-7 after taking the first two games of a three-game series. Josh Hamilton also drove in a pair of runs.

Edwar Ramirez (2-0) picked up the win in relief for the Yankees, whose bullpen pitched four scoreless innings after the Rangers chased former teammate Sidney Ponson.

Derek Jeter's run-scoring single in the eighth gave every Yankees starter a hit. Seven players in pinstripes drove in runs, including youngster Brett Gardner with his first career hit during New York's big seventh inning.

"All of a sudden their bats just woke up and we had nothing to neutralize them," Rangers manager Ron Washington said.

Giambi sparked New York's offense with one big swing in the third.

Johnny Damon was aboard with a one-out single when second baseman Ian Kinsler botched a fielder's choice grounder by Jeter. A-Rod walked to load the bases, and Giambi drove a 2-1 pitch from Luis Mendoza into the upper deck in right to give the Yankees a 5-3 lead.

It was Giambi's 18th homer of the year and 13th career grand slam, and the big designated hitter rewarded a standing ovation by stepping from the dugout and tipping his helmet.

"The kid just made a little mistake," Giambi said of the hanging sinker. "I'm glad I could come through tonight and pick up the ballclub a little."

Bradley and Davis put the Rangers back ahead in the sixth with their two-run homers, knocking Ponson from the game and giving Texas a 7-6 lead.

Short-lived, as it turned out.

Rangers relievers had given up just nine earned runs over their last 27 1-3 innings coming into the game, but they gave up that many in the seventh inning alone.

Bobby Abreu doubled and the next four batters also reached off reliever Warner Madrigal (0-1), who was making his big league debut. By the time Gardner drove in Robinson Cano, the Yankees had gone back on top 11-7.

"That's what our lineup is capable of," Gardner said. "Tonight we broke it open."

Starting in place of slumping center fielder Melky Cabrera, Gardner swiped second and scored on Damon's base hit. Abreu walked to reach base for the second time in the inning, and A-Rod lined a shot to right that never got much higher than the outfield wall.

Warner wound up with a forgettable debut: one-third of an inning, six runs, five hits and a walk.

"I told him, 'Keep your head up. It couldn't have been much worse,'" fellow Rangers reliever Jamey Wright said. "Looking at that lineup, it should happen every now and then."

Kinsler, who leads the American League in batting, singled and scored in Texas' three-run third to extend his hitting streak to 15 games.

Ponson, the rotund right-hander from Aruba whom the Rangers let go early last month because of off-field problems, gave up seven runs and nine hits in five-plus innings in his second start for New York.

"Well, we came in here and took two of three from New York," Washington said, putting a positive spin on an ugly night for the Rangers. "I don't think when we arrived here anybody gave us a chance to do that."

Notes: Rangers SS Michael Young left the game after the third inning with a mild left groin strain. He's day to day. ... Brandon Boggs started in LF for Texas in place of struggling David Murphy. ... Rangers RHP Scott Feldman will skip a turn in the rotation and start Tuesday against the Angels.

Len Retires

When I started at the Post, Ben Bradlee was still boss but Len Downie ran the daily story meetings in a self-assured manner that was a wonder to behold. He announced plans to step down on Monday; here's a clip of his remarks: