Business Insight Zone

Please pardon the programming interruption — the BIZ blog has been on a short hiatus while yours truly took a family vacation. Now I’m logging in from Denver, at the annual meeting of the Special Libraries Association. The SLA audience includes many Hoover’s power users, which is great for those of us staffing the Hoover’s exhibitor booth; these folks are also great for me to talk to one-on-one, because many of the librarians share my information-junkie ways. (As you’ll figure out from reading Hoover’s company overviews, or from reading the Bizmology blog, many of my Hoover’s editorial colleagues fall into this same category.)

During my week of vacation, I mostly avoided the news, so here are some of the themes that struck me when I caught up on my business reading with fresh eyes:

• No one knows how high the stock market will go, or quite what to make of it. Major indexes, including the NYSE and the S&P 500, have been setting records by the day, but there is also a steady stream of mixed signals from major economic indicators (housing starts, IPO activity, employment rates, corporate earnings, etc.).
• Green anything continues to make the news. Folks within the environmental community have been remarking over and over that mainstream conversations on climate change, pollution, water use, etc. have changed fundamentally, even within the past year. These days, they say, the mainstream question isn’t whether to do something about these problems (or whether these problems exist at all), but how, how much, and how soon to address them.
• Maybe you’ve heard something about these cats in the private equity world? Here’s a bulletin: despite the gargantuan sums of money they’ve already spent this year, they’re not nearly tapped out. Likely next big buyout: Avaya.

More commentary on these issues and more as I settle back into the saddle, first here in Denver and then back at Hoover’s Galactic HQ in Austin.