Business is a social activity

Welcome to the January issue of Virginia Business!  It’s almost unbelievable how fast the new year has come upon us.  Regardless of whether you’ve already had your fill of holiday cheer, 2019 will unquestionably bring more reasons to gather and celebrate.  After all, business is a social activity.  We may not always think of it that way, but commerce is fundamentally about bringing people together for mutual benefit.

One of the things to celebrate in 2019 is that Virginia Business will reach its 10th anniversary as a private, independently owned media company.  Although the magazine was founded in 1986, it wasn’t until September 2009 that we left public company ownership to walk the tightrope of small business independence.  It has turned out to be a pretty good move.

Ten years ago, we were feeling the prolonged effects of the Great Recession.  The internet economy was just a shadow of what it is today; Facebook was still a startup; Uber, Snapchat, Instagram — who knew?  Who would have thought that Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos would be the world’s wealthiest person or that this month’s cover story (see Page 20) would be on Amazon’s HQ2 project coming to Virginia?

It is perhaps tempting to focus on how much has changed, but many things also remain the same.  Technology may be advancing by leaps and bounds, but great products still need the support of great people.  Workplace culture makes a distinctive difference.  High-quality customer and supplier relationships, coupled with a great workforce, reign supreme.  Business is definitely a social activity.

Virginia Business attends and also hosts a variety of events.  Just last month, we hosted a reception for the members of the 2018 Legal Elite at The Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, co-sponsored by the Virginia Bar Association.

Next month, we will be at the Boar’s Head in Charlottesville for our annual Best Places to Work in Virginia awards luncheon, co-sponsored by the Virginia Chamber of Commerce and Virginia Society for Human Resource Management.  (See next month’s issue for a list of this year’s winners.)

Each June we hold our annual CFO Awards, also at The Jefferson. This black-tie gala celebrates top-achieving financial officers in publicly traded companies, private companies, nonprofits and government agencies.  Sponsors include Dixon Hughes Goodman, the Virginia Society of CPAs, McGuireWoods and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Following next November’s elections, we will hold our 13th annual Political Roundtable with a group of political trend watchers focusing on how the results will affect the political climate in Virginia and the nation.  Washington Gas and Shentel have been among our roundtable sponsors.

If that’s not a full enough calendar, Virginia Business also holds Meet the Editors luncheons in various communities across the commonwealth.  In the past two years, we’ve held these in Norfolk, Roanoke, Richmond, Charlottesville and Hampton, all sponsored by Bank of America.  These events are great opportunities to learn about the regional economies of our state, as well as to ask questions about how the magazine puts together its monthly issues.

Check out photos of these and other events in the Out & About pages of each issue of Virginia Business (Pages 8 and 27 in this issue).  Give us a call if you are interested in event marketing opportunities and would like to join our list of sponsors for 2019.
At Virginia Business, we bring people together in print, online and in person.  We appreciate your interest in what we do to stay abreast of business intelligence and economic development on a statewide basis.  In fact, we cannot do it without you.  Here’s to the best of success in 2019!