Sign In
Free Newsletter
Recent Articles from Bernie Niemeier
A library of business intelligence
Admittedly, many of my personal business memories start from more than just a short while ago — pre-internet days to say the least. Now that everything is online, we don’t hear much about libraries anymore, except maybe in the case of public schools. Politics aside, I’m delighted people are still interested in reading words on […]
Reimagining the corporation
Welcome to the New Year! 2023 is a new one indeed. Business as usual isn’t so usual anymore. Tech companies are downsizing faster than local daily newspapers. Starbucks baristas are the new trend in organized labor. Amazon’s growth is slowing. Global consumption and supply chains can no longer be taken for granted. Twitter is, well, […]
Business is better
Over the past several months, there’s been a bit of a buzz about the direction of the global economy. In conversation, many business leaders will express deep concerns about inflation and the onset of recession. Yet, when asked about their financial performance, most all of them say, “Business is going great!” Within these conversations lies […]
Full speed ahead
No other region of Virginia moves the entire commonwealth forward like Hampton Roads. Sure, Dee Cee is about technology, government contracting and national politics. And Richmond is about politics that are generally more local. Hampton Roads, on the other hand, is about the military and commerce. The ports, the railways, interstates, tunnels, trucks and air […]
2022 Virginia 500: The power of leadership
Power is one of those things that can sound great until you have it. It’s a be-careful-what-you-ask-for kind of thing. Power without leadership often goes awry, leading to unfortunate outcomes. The kind of power that works well requires leadership, good stewardship and a genuine concern for the well-being of an entire team. Many of us […]
Higher gas prices are needed
The U.S. inflation rate, which reached 8.6% in May, is at its highest point in 40 years. In 1982, it was just over 6%. Since then, the U.S. inflation rate has hovered mostly in the 2% to 4% range. The inflation rate is determined by changes in the cost of a fixed basket of 80,000 […]
Sound investments
Let’s simply call it a magazine publisher’s reality check. When news reports of supply chain disruptions and record backups at West Coast ports began to appear last year, I immediately thought, “What’s going on at the Port of Virginia?” When I leave downtown Norfolk, it is almost always via the Midtown Tunnel. Emerging from the […]
Rethinking labor
Back in my big company days, large newspapers were heavily unionized. After railroads and before high tech, newspaper publishers were the media barons of the day. The business was capital intensive, requiring once-in-a-generation investments for big presses and printing facilities. It was also high on fixed costs, with payroll being the largest expense before newsprint […]
Media matters
It’s hard to have a conversation about anything in the headlines, especially anything to do with technology or politics, without some blame being assigned to “the media,” as if there were one enormous unified communications cloud shaping all our collective thoughts. That would be enormous for certain, but the media is perhaps more consolidated than […]
It’s time to thrive
Here we are in December, approaching the end of 2021. Most business leaders would say with some certainty that this year was better than 2020 — and thankfully so. Yet, as much as we’d like to say that COVID times are behind us, the return of cold weather and the indoor season keeps things uncertain. […]
