Psst. Come closer. Want to double your money? I’ve got a deal for you. No guts? Turn the page now. OK, you didn’t turn the page-Finish Line Inc. stock closed Nov. 26 at $2.94 a share. It’s time to buy. Finish Line is a leader in the outdoor and lifestyle footwear, active wear and accessory field. Basically, the company sells shoes. It has 693 Finish Line stores, mainly in enclosed malls. It also operates nearly 100 Man Alive urban-apparel stores….
In a perfect world, developers and retail brokers would poll community residents to find out which stores, restaurants and services they want. And, then we’d send nice letters to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, or the Cheesecake Factory and Steak n Shake, and we’d tell them that the neighborhood is clamoring for soy milk or a double chocolate shake. That would make things so much easier. In the real world, it’s much more complicated. And the final vote is always…
Remember when securing an enterprise meant investing in an alarm system to protect your inventory and a fireproof cabinet to keep your documents safe? In today’s expanding cyber world, threats to security extend far beyond walls and paper trails. With facilities, employees and customers all over the world, companies offer unprecedented access-but behind that convenience lurks vulnerability. Unless, of course, the corporation has truly managed to secure the confidential information stored online and throughout file-sharing networks. Unfortunately a lot of…
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Maybe it is because no one wants me to help cook, or perhaps it’s due to the stream of college football. Mostly I think I like it because it is such an unhurried, fun, shared day. This year, many of us gathered for Thanksgiving at family homes and we gave thanks for the many gifts life brings us in this nation. What many of us didn’t conscientiously dwell on is how important the simple act…
In an unlucky turn for area ad agencies, Hoosier Lottery officials rebuffed all six bidders for the creative portion of its
advertising account. The rejection of all bidders is an unusual occurrence in the ad industry and it has never before happened
with the lottery account, one of the most lucrative, high-profile jobs in the state.
Creative Street Media Group has come a long way-literally and figuratively-from its humble beginnings 23 years ago. The small video production company has become a corporate conglomerate, with 67 employees in five facilities who handle everything from promotional materials to interactive education. Oh yeah, and they also crank out some award-winning TV shows-like the Emmy Award-winning “Vietnam Nurses with Dana Delany.” For all its progress, Creative Street is not done growing. Any day now, the company will expand its reach…
WellPoint CEO Angela Braly must be thinking to herself, “Enough with the most powerful and influential stuff already!” In the course of the last several months, Braly has been named the 16th-most-powerful woman in the world-that’s in the world-by Forbes magazine, one of the 19 mostinfluential women in central Indiana by IBJ, and the top woman to watch by the Wall Street Journal. That’s heady stuff, to be sure, but I know for a fact that her two school-age daughters…
Building Consona Corp. into a billion-dollar company is well within the sights of CEO Jeff Tognoni. But for now, he’s content with a recent growth spurt that is earning national recognition. Indianapolis-based Consona, formerly known as M2M Holdings Inc., grew at a clip of 131.4 percent last year, landing it on Software Magazine’s annual list of the 10 fastest-growing software firms in the nation. While Tognoni is proud of the achievement, he’s reticent to toot the company horn too loudly….
I’m not an athletic director, but I do get to play one in IBJ. So play along with me: Purdue University should keep Joe Tiller as its football coach. Indiana University should do likewise with Bill Lynch. Add this to what I’m sure is plenty of unsolicited advice directed at Morgan Burke and Rick Greenspan, the respective athletic directors at Purdue and Indiana. They can thank me later. Of course, by the time you read this, the futures of both…
You gotta love Steve Hilbert. He conceived of an idea and had the strength and focus to achieve an extraordinary result that he sustained over a number of years. … He will undoubtedly return to the grand game of entrepreneurship. If given the opportunity, I would be inclined to invest in his next venture. -July 10, 2000 I penned the above prediction in this column on the anointment of Gary Wendt as CEO and savior of Conseco Inc. After Stephen…
An emerging holiday tradition in my family is for the womenfolk to rise very early on the Friday after Thanksgiving to go shopping. The same thing happens across the nation. This event aptly named Black Friday, corresponds to the unofficial beginning of the Christmas shopping season. For the record, I would rather spend the weekend in a chain gang than tag along, but this year I will be encouraging them to shop. Here’s why. The subprime mortgage mess has not…
As Hoosiers, every time we open our wallets and pocketbooks, we should think about going back to school. For the last three decades, Indiana’s per capita income growth has lagged the rest of the country, to the point where the average Hoosier earns less nized for work force development use a combination of state and local dollars and even lottery funds (as in Georgia). Private management of the Hoosier Lottery, as proposed during the last legislative session, could provide the…
Stunning victory a call to change But Ballard shouldn’t forget past The shock has faded and reality is starting to set in. Indianapolis really will have a new mayor in 2008. Republican Greg Ballard’s victory over two-time incumbent Mayor Bart Peterson was more than an election stunner of historic proportions-it was a rare case of voters turning over a city to someone they knew little about. Ballard, under-funded and under-supported by his own party, pulled off his epic upset for…
The Lafayette Square neighborhood is known for its aging mall and the ongoing struggle to keep tenants there and in the surrounding sea of strip centers. But some advocates want to promote a success story: the demographic diversity that has given rise to a plethora of ethnic eateries in the area. Visitors who take a trip through some of the retail centers and outlots off West 38th Street can find the ubiquitous pizza, gyros and sushi-along with more unusual Ethiopian,…
When Indianapolis promoters were deciding what to do to lure leisure travelers to the city over summer break, they decided being short and to the point was the way to go. So, the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association partnered with eight area attractions to produce extremely brief television and radio travel commercials. The resulting ad campaign was wellfunded-with a budget $240,000 more than the previous year-and produced stellar results, including more awareness of Indianapolis attractions, more nights spent in Indianapolis,…
The collapse in value of subprime mortgage securities may look like a Wall Street problem, fueling steep writedowns at some of the nation’s biggest investment firms and costing some corporate titans their jobs. But recent woes at the Indiana Children’s Wish Fund underscore that its tentacles extend all the way to the heartland, even ensnaring the small Indianapolis not-for-profit. The Children’s Wish Fund, which has just four full-time employees, filed an arbitration proceeding this month against Memphis-based Morgan Keegan &…
Power is typically understood by those who wield it and those who operate under it. If I took a survey that asked who the most powerful person in the world is today, there would be two or three common answers. But there is a person who is just as powerful, and perhaps more so, than the few names that immediately come to mind. I am talking about Rex Tillerson, chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil. Up until Nov. 5 (more…
Remote-controlled digital billboards are revolutionizing the outdoor advertising industry nationwide, but a city prohibition
against the medium is preventing a rollout here.
I just got an e-mail from a good friend inquiring about where (his speculation was the Insight Bowl in Tempe, Ariz.) the Indiana Hoosiers would play their first bowl game since 1993. I responded with the same line I’ve repeated often. When it comes to Indiana football, I never look further ahead than the next play. It’s a lesson I learned 40 years ago, in 1967. I was fresh out of high school. It always was my dream to go…
Big Brothers of Indianapolis and Big Sisters of Central Indiana merged five years ago in hopes of mentoring more at-risk children, but turnover at the top of the organization has made it hard to get the ball rolling. The combined agency has had three leaders since the 2002 merger; revenue, which peaked at $2.3 million in 2003, has been up and down; and one-on-one mentor matches-its core activity-also declined. Despite the challenges, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Indiana finally…
