It was an honor to be nominated

As the editor of a business-to-business journal, I have two feet firmly planted in different industries. One, obviously, is veterinary medicine. The other is the business-to-business (or B2B) media profession. Most of my time and effort is focused on the veterinary side of things. But every once in a while, as was the case last week, I plunge into the B2B world and find out what's shaking with my fellow trade-publication editors.

The purpose for this recent visit to Planet B2B was to find out whether Veterinary Economics and dvm360.com had won honors in the Jesse H. Neal Business Journalism Awards-the business media's version of the Pulitzers. Veterinary Economics was a finalist for Best Educational Content for its July 2009 cover article titled “The forgotten feline.” And dvm360.com was up for Best Web Site. Plus, our sister publication DVM Newsmagazine was a finalist in two categories: Best Article Series and Best Single Issue.

Well, sad to say, Veterinary Economics didn't win the Neal for “The forgotten feline.” But I have to tell you that when they flashed our cover on the projector screen, the entire room full of editors, some of whom were crusty, hard-bitten former newspaper types, let out a collective “Awww ... ” the likes of which I'd never heard before. So I would say we got the popular vote.

The happy news is that dvm360.com did win for Best Web Site and was even a finalist for the Grand Neal, the big daddy award selected from among the winners in all the categories. Because every editor in the Ad- vanstar Veterinary Group works incredibly hard on making dvm360 .com the top veterinary site in the profession (by light years, if we're being perfectly honest here), it was particularly gratifying to be able to accept that award on their behalf. Also, Dan Verdon, editor of DVM, accepted the award for Best Single Issue for the July 2009 edition. So all in all, it was a successful day.

And I have to offer an enormous thank-you to all of you who share your ideas, challenges, success stories, expertise, and big hearts with us so we have stuff to print and post. We couldn't do it without you, so these awards (and near-awards) are just as much yours as they are ours!