Canadian Business Media decides to get back into member services for b2b sector

After three years in which it solely concentrated on administering the Kenneth R. Wilson Awards and appeared to get out of the membership business, Canadian Business Media (CBM) -- previously Canadian Business Press (CBP) -- has announced it will once again be a membership service-based trade organization. In a release it says

"In order to boost and sustain a vibrant, supportive organization within the business-to-business publishing industry, CBM is launching an array of initiatives concerning marketing, promotion, communication, education, networking and recognition.

"This will be achieved through a variety of first-rate training sessions, networking events, Q&A forums, interviews, webinars and tutorials, including some member-only activities and resources. CBM will also continue to produce the Kenneth R. Wilson Awards, a recognition program celebrating outstanding achievements in business-to-business magazine content."

In addition, the organization will be launching a B2Blog for B2B Publishers.

The board of directors of the resurgent organization is headed by John Kerr, CEO of Kerwill Publications Limited, Treasurer James O. Hall, President & COO, Keith Communications, Inc., and directors Alex Papanou, President, Annex Newcom LP, Michael Swan, President of Swan Erickson Publishing Inc., and Kevin Brown, President of MediaEdge Communications.

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KRW b2b awards are playing 2nd fiddle, says publisher, and he's boycotting them

Rumblings of discontent among people in the Canadian business and trade press about  this year's Kenneth R. Wilson Awards have now bubbled to the surface with the wide circulation of an e-mail by Jim Glionna, the president of Newcom Business Media Inc.who says he's boycotting the event.Newcom publishes Today's Trucking, Canadian Technician, Truck & Trailer, Transport Routier and Plumbing & HVAC.  

The KRWs have been a standalone event celebrating excellence in business-to-business publishing until this year when, for the first time, the two events are being held on the same evening. The KRWs are being held in the late afternoon, then share a reception before the National Magazine Awards in the evening.

Here's the text of Glionna's e-mail which has been sent to a large number of people in both business and consumer publishing:

Dear Publishers and Editors:

I am quite concerned and upset by the way in which KRW Awards are being presented this year.

Whether intended or not, the optics are not good.

The KRW Awards for excellence in B2B journalism are clearly playing second fiddle to the National Magazine Awards. Great journalism should neither be judged on the target audience it serves nor by the amount of revenue generated by the magazine in which it appears. Great journalism is great journalism… period!

For the first time in 18 years I will not be attending the 2012 KRW Awards presentation. Nor will any of our editors and publishers be attending.

My protest does not end here. I intend to do whatever I can to change the current situation. In all fairness B2B writers, publishers, and designers deserve to have their best work portrayed as being just as good as their colleagues who toil in the popular press. 

If anyone would like to assist me in this effort, I’ll take all the help I can get.

Yours truly, Jim Glionna

The background to these developments is complicated and is best followed by reading related posts from the past few years:

• Canadian Business Press to become a foundation, concentrating on awards program
• Magazines Canada grows by 45 new member magazines, including two b2b groups
• Revised b2b awards to have "magazine of the year" and internet categories for first time
• KRW trade magazine awards will go ahead in 2010
• Canadian Business Press discontinues MagsU, becomes a partner in MagNet
• Canadian Business Press buys the Magazines University name
• Magazines Canada ranks swell by 37 titles, including Rogers stable of b2b titles
• Rogers trade books decline to enter KRWs
• Rogers pullout costs CBP 20% of membership revenue
• Rogers b-to-b titles pull out of Canadian Business Press

Canadian Business Press names board

The Canadian Business Press (CBP) held its annual general meeting in Toronto on June 29 and elected its board for the next year.

Three new directors were elected for three year terms:

• Kevin Brown, President of MediaEDGE;
• Laura Dunphy, President and Publisher of Salon Communications Inc.
• Doni White, Circulation Director of IT World Canada Inc.

Elected to serve a second term were:

• Chair – John W. Kerr Jr., Chief Executive Officer, Kerrwil Publications Ltd., Toronto
• 1st Vice-Chair – James O. Hall, President, Keith Communications Inc., Mississauga
• 2nd Vice-Chair – Mark Vreugdenhil, Publisher, Newcom Business Media, Toronto
• Past Chairman – Alex Papanou, Vice-President, Business Information Group, Toronto

The rest of the board, serving the remainder of their three-year terms, are:

• Jeff Brownlee, Publisher, Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters
• Bruce Creighton, President, Business Information Group, Toronto
• Lee Ann Knudsen, Publisher, Landscape Ontario Horticultural Trades Association, Milton
• Terri Pavelic, Publisher, Promotive Communications, Aurora
• David McClung, President, Baxter Travel Media Inc., Toronto
• Michael Swan, President, Swan-Erickson Publishing Inc., Oakville

 The meeting recognized three retiring directors:

• Michael Atkins, Chairman of IT World Canada Inc.,  who served 25 years
• Brian Light, Past President of Salon Communications Inc., 14 years 
• Rosanna Caira, Editor and Publisher at Kostuch Publications Limited, six years

Canadian Business Press moves annual general meeting back a month

The Canadian Business Press (CBP) has rescheduled its annual general meeting, moving it from before the MagNet conference marquee event on June 1 at the Windsor Arms Hotel to the end of June.  Karen Dalton, the CBP executive director, says the organization needed more time and moved to June 29th: 

We have undertaken a strategic planning exercise and wanted to give ourselves a few more weeks to prepare to present the plan to our membership at the AGM.