Monday, May 15, 2000

Bright lights, big books


Black, silver and peach balloons covered the ceiling and tickled our heads as the ribbons dangled below. The jazz quartet played tunes to tap your toes to, and as I looked out the 23rd floor window of the Rhiga Royal hotel to Times Square, I had a bird’s-eye view of the new FT building. Formerly the ITT building, the FT building was unveiled in a ceremony with Dan Ackroyd, the ft.com spokesperson, on Monday, May 15th—Financial Times Day, as was announced by Mayor Guiliani. It also was a celebration of the marriage between FT.com and Prentice Hall, so we’ll be seeing a bevy of books coming from these titles too. One book, “Funky Business,” was being promoted at this soiree. It was written by Dr. Kjell Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale. Kjell teaches at the Stockholm School of Economics and is on the board of directors of Spray.com and Razorfish.com. Jonas, also a teacher at the Stockholm School of Economics, backs one of Sweden’s funkiest galleries. I also chatted with Jeffrey Pepper, VP/Publisher of Prentice Hall PTR, Bill Webber, executive editor of Introductory Psychology Humanities and Social Sciences, and Mark Dalton, president of Pearson Technology Group. Jan Lapidoth of Bookhouse Publishing and Britt-Marie Hesselback of SpeakersNet were two other fine folks that I got to chat with before we stood for some pictures, stared at the pretty FT sign and went our separate ways way home.