You should never work with anyone who gives you a headache or stomach ache.
Don’t finance your customers unless you are a bank.
When things are slow, do an all-office clean-up. Not working in a pig sty is a morale booster.

These are just a few of the 201 “great ideas for small businesses” espoused by author Jane [...]

Filed under: Events, Journalism, Public Relations | No Comments »

Four Knoxville media heavyweights agreed on one thing Thursday when discussing the impact of “new media” on their businesses: they don’t have a clue what’s going to happen.
Jeff Lee, general manager of WBIR, the number one TV station in the market, Bruce Hartmann, president and publisher of the News Sentinel, Knoxville’s daily paper, Ed Brantley, [...]

Filed under: Journalism, Media, New media, Public Relations | 3 Comments »

Wanna see a good fight? Read this post thread on The Blab.
Few things get people angrier than the subject of dog poop - and people who don’t clean up after their dogs.
Earlier this week, I wrote about an “almost perfect” weekend we had in downtown Knoxville. I left out one part - the “almost” part. [...]

Filed under: Downtown, Events, Knoxville | 3 Comments »

On Sunday, I saw the best example of target marketing I’ve seen in a long time.
Was it a fantastic Web site? An impressive e-mail program? An attention-grabbing TV commercial or direct mail campaign?
No. It was three guys in grungy clothes hauling a 700-pound Steinway grand piano down a long steep flight of stairs. And hauling [...]

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Music of several varieties. Dinner at a favorite restaurant. Impromptu cocktail party at our condo. Shopping at the Market Square Farmers’ Market. Manicure at a downtown salon. And friends, friends, friends.
Though drizzly, this past weekend was a showcase of joyful downtown Knoxville living.
Friday evening brought a crowd into the Bistro on Gay, a pleasant [...]

Filed under: Downtown, Events, Knoxville, Music | 4 Comments »

As Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam, a Republican gubernatorial hopeful, campaigns across the state he, of course, always starts his speeches by thanking his audience for attending. When Haslam was speaking recently in Fayette County in West Tennessee, he noticed that a large number of cotton farmers were in the audience. “Thanks for being here,” Haslam [...]

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Venerable newspaper publisher and editor John Seigenthaler, retired from the Nashville Tennessean, joined with Chattanooga Times Free Press publisher and executive editor Tom Griscom for an after-dinner chat at The East Tennessee History Center Tuesday night. Introduced by former U.S. Senator Howard H. Baker Jr., the two seasoned journalistic leaders were asked to speculate on [...]

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The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s last Pops concert of the season featuring Peter Cetera this past Saturday was a sell-out. Sales are strong, too, for the season finale of this year’s Moxley Carmichael KSO Masterworks series this coming Thursday and Friday.

The Symphony’s fiscal year ends May 31 and, judging by the financial reports at last week’s [...]

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Knoxville said goodbye to Kristopher Kendrick Wednesday night with a packed funeral at downtown’s St. John’s Cathedral featuring an array of Knoxville notables. Kristopher would have loved it.

Sharon Pryse eulogized Kendrick as a “great neighbor.” He lived in her guest house for years before moving into the former Dulin Gallery of Art, which is next door to her on Kingston Pike. She described how he supported her during the illness and death of her first husband and how he buried her beloved dog when the dog drowned. Although he rarely accepted her invitations to dinner, she said he readily agreed to come for weekend breakfasts at 6 a.m. “I look forward to being your neighbor again in heaven,” she concluded.

Kendrick’s best friend, Jane Bailey, whom Kendrick referred to as his

Filed under: Downtown, Historic preservation, Knoxville | 3 Comments »

My husband, Alan, and I lived in downtown Knoxville for a little more than a year, mostly in 2008, while we were remodeling our “real” house in the suburbs. Probably the question we were asked most frequently was, “Doesn’t downtown need a grocery store?” Our answer: “Not really.”
In “real life” we live in Sequoyah Hills. [...]

Filed under: Downtown, Knoxville | 7 Comments »