YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The uncertainty arising from the worldwide economic and political turmoil is stressful. The disruptions this uncertainty is bringing to business and personal life can be overwhelming.
The pandemic. Worker shortages. Supply chain logjams. The biggest rise in prices in 30 years. Nearly empty store shelves and lines where cashiers are sparse. The social media beast blowing up civil discourse with brutal attacks by its algorithms. The red-blue divide so angry and so deep.
Then there are the children, who lost a year of school and extracurricular activities. They still haven’t caught up and are the flash points for parental (and culture) wars over masks, vaccines, books in school libraries, and what dark aspects of American history should not be taught.
If all this seems too much, it is.
When we block the bombardment from our minds, some solace comes from knowing that how we behave as members of society and the actions we take as business and community leaders are all that we can control.
So how’s it going for your company and your employees? We are confident that you’re holding your head high, dealing with the new normals, the disruptions, as best you can.
When we tell your stories of survival, adaptation, innovation, growth and transformation, all the confrontational, negative noise that emanates from sources we cannot control is momentarily mitigated. By recognizing the collective and individual strengths of purpose among those this newspaper serves, we celebrate what’s working in these uncertain times and why.
Which brings us to Growth Report 2022.
Since 1986, The Business Journal has started the new year by asking our readers, advertisers and the business community at large to submit their growth reports. We distribute story guidelines that list the type of information we’re seeking and disclose that all submissions will be edited for news value and available space.
As digital and social media news platforms evolved, our request for stories reached wider and wider audiences. Essentially, the Growth Report ran out of space. Last year we were tasked with cramming 280 story submissions into 144 pages – the most we can print, staple and mail. After each story submission was edited for publication, it had to be cut down – depending on when it arrived – sometimes drastically. This left us short of fulfilling our mission. Some companies and organizations voiced displeasure at how little space their stories received.
So we’re making a big change in Growth Report 2022 to be more inclusive, to publish more information from the stories you submit. We will publish GR1: Economic and Community Development Edition on Jan. 15 and GR2: Business and Industry Edition Feb. 15. Story submissions will be segmented by category.
We look forward to telling your story.