Penton Media Reviews

Pros

Flexible, respectful management. Nice working environment.

Cons

Not as commmitted to editorial quality as a publisher should be.

Advice to Senior Management

None

Pros

time flexability
great people to work with

Cons

no vision from Senior management
low compensation

Pros

Flexible work schedule, no one looking over my shoulder, medical and vision benefits are not bad

Cons

no career development, once you have a position you are stuck, no raises, there is a silly company moto that is in no way followed, product quality suffers if will make just one more dollar, no investment in the future.

Advice to Senior Management

invest in your people and products, sometimes you have to spend money to make money. dump the loser magazine.

Pros

Still have some strong properties (publications, data, events) in decent markets.

Cons

Financial structure of company has been out of balance for almost 10 years so corporate has had to continually reduce overhead over that time and products have suffered from too few resources.

Advice to Senior Management

Need to find additional investors in company or sell off components.

Pros

Strong talent/peers
Interesting portfolio of products
Some excellent, leading-edge thinking in pockets of organization

Cons

Lack of stable vision at the top
Not enough practices-sharing and communications among different business/product lines
Too pervasive of a (negative) old-school publishing mentality

Advice to Senior Management

Innovative, stable vision and execution
Foster much better communications among different product lines

Pros

Compensation & Benefits good. Work Life Balance very good. One of the most dedicated set of employees especially those that have been around for a long time

Cons

No raises, loss of 401K, loss of tuition reimbursement, Senior management does not communicate with the people doing the work; More executives than employees...too many heads, not enough tails

Advice to Senior Management

Get Rid of a few senior VP's. Penton problems will not be better without changes at the top

Pros

Decent benefits (except 401k)
Excellent rank & file employees (what's left of them)

Cons

The company is basically a ponzie scheme waiting to unfold. The executive and senior mgmt level is a joke and really are completely out of touch with b-to-b publishing!! Every quarter, management tries to force feed some new initiative down the salesforce pipeline just hoping one ridiculous idea will stick. The CEO has done nothing but brought in her old cronies at a Sr. VP level and when they run this 100 year old company in to the ground, they'll all move on and get their golden parachutes and find a new company to destroy. Basically there's 3 senior managers/executives to every one dedicated worker. This company has too many senior managers fail "upwardly"...Blimblick. There is absolutely no sense of job security and no possible chance of advancement. I have seen it all over the past 15 years. Boy do I miss Intertec.

Advice to Senior Management

What's the point of offering advice when they're so arogant that they're not going to listen to it.

Pros

good health/dental/eye benefits, some great people work here, relaxed dress code, casual atmosphere

Cons

always worried you will be laid off, no sense of support

Advice to Senior Management

stop buying other companies and invest in current employees

Pros

Easy commute.
Great benefits.
Shorts-n-Sandals Day
Everything else I have done or will do will seem like Nirvana

Cons

HR SR VP is known as Dr. Death (guess why)
Senior managements all-black uniform makes them look like renegade Bob Fosse dance company from Fire Island.
Fear prevails as layoffs abound.

Advice to Senior Management

Fire up the flux capacitor and go back to the future...

Pros

benefits are okay. salary is fair

Cons

ever since the new CEO came in a few years back, we have been trying to figure out the vision and value proposition we are bringing to the marketplace. The CEO's policy of zig zagging with inane acquisitions with no organic internal growth makes me wonder how dhe got there in the first place. It certainly was not her business acumen.

Advice to Senior Management

get rid of present CEO