Before we turn off the lights on what’s been a, shall we say nicely, “challenging” 2020, some much-deserved congratulations are in order — today, we’re pleased to unveil the winners of this year’s Best In Business contest.
Go here for the full list of 18 winners and runners-up, and be sure to pick up a copy of our 13th annual Book Of Lists — packaged with today’s print edition (Dec. 30, 2020) for our dedicated subscribers — to read more about each of this year’s first-place awardees.
After not holding a Best In Business contest in 2019 due to various changes occurring internally with the NNBW (highlighted by our sale in August 2019, as well as the hard work everyone took on to prepare for us to revert back to a weekly publication in February of this year), we were quite excited to pull off a reinvented and much more inclusive version of the contest this year.
In particular, NNBW Associate Publisher Melissa Saavedra and Sales & Circulation Assistant Sandra Peña deserve a tremendous amount of kudos for the extraordinary job they did to conduct a successful contest this year.
All told, we received roughly 10,000 votes this past summer/fall in our 18 categories, including nearly 3,250 unique voters.
I know I speak for the entire NNBW team when I say it’s been supremely fulfilling to see such great support from our readers and advertisers to ensure a bright spotlight is shone on our business community during this most unpredictable of years.
We can’t wait to get things rolling next year on what we hope will be a bigger and better Best In Business contest. In the meantime, be sure to congratulate all of this year’s wonderful winners!
Speaking of next year, 2021 is nearly upon us, and that means some changes are in store for the NNBW, the biggest one being a new website.
We’re in the process of working out all the bugs and should be ready to launch sometime in January.
Aside from some various cosmetic changes and a few added bells and whistles, things aren’t changing too much — you’ll still be able to read daily business news updates and feature stories, subscribe to e-newsletters, and view the digital version of our paper each week, among other features.
That said, there are two important changes coming that I want to note — the return of our paywall, and a different format for commenting on our stories.
For the latter, after several years, we’re cutting ties with Facebook as our third-party commenting engine, a move that in my opinion is long overdue as the social media giant faces continuing scrutiny for the way it runs its business, not to mention the propaganda it allows to be published seemingly willy-nilly.
Instead, once the new site launches, you’ll be able to comment directly on stories, whether by your own name or a pseudonym — though to be clear, we will moderate comments and swiftly delete ones that cross the line — so long as you’re a subscriber to our publication.
That last point brings me to the second change coming once we launch our new website next month: We will once again charge a small fee to access our content.
Back in March, when the pandemic took hold in Nevada, we lifted our paywall at the NNBW, as well as at our sister publications in Northern Nevada — The Record-Courier in Minden-Gardnerville and Nevada Appeal in Carson City (which also includes online content for the Lahontan Valley News in Fallon).
As we noted in the spring, we did this as a commitment to the community to ensure important content during the ongoing health crisis was easily accessible.
However, nearly a year later, it’s time to bring back the paywall. Newspapers and media are essential business, and despite various cutbacks this year due to the pandemic, we continue to publish content on a regular basis.
Like any business, we rely on revenue to keep the lights on, and that revenue typically comes in two forms: advertising and subscriptions.
To our current subscribers, we at the NNBW send our sincere thanks for your continued support. And if anyone else wishes to sign up, just visit nnbw.com/subscribe and check out our affordable annual rates.
And of course, if subscribing isn't your thing, you can also donate to us and/or one of our sister publications. If you wish to donate, go here, or call a Customer Service Representative at 775-882-2515 to learn more!
Other than that, it's full steam ahead for 2021, and our mighty — albeit lean — team at the NNBW is looking forward to working hard to publish plenty of compelling business news and feature stories in the weeks and months to come.
The year 2021 will mark the NNBW’s 19th year of existence. It’s pretty wild to think that we are already faced with covering a second recession in less than 20 years.
Hopefully by this time a year from now, we’re celebrating the beginning stages of yet another exciting economic rebound.
Kevin MacMillan is editor of the Northern Nevada Business Weekly. Email him at kmacmillan@nevadanewsgroup.com.
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