20160208-NEWS--1-NAT-CCI-CL_--
2/5/2016
3:45 PM
Page 1
VOL. 37, NO. 6
FEBRUARY 8 - 14, 2016
Business of Life
MANUFACTURING: Outlook It’s a mixed bag for industry in 2016
Ice wine
P. 6
How frozen grapes
SPORTS: Arena football
become a sweet drink
Cleveland is rare AFL success story
P. 20-21
P. 8
CLEVELAND BUSINESS
FOCUS: Middle Market Heinen’s downtown move paying off P. 15
The List NEO’s largest software developers P. 27
A to Z podcast making a mark kkleps@crain.com @KevinKleps
Zac Jackson casually tells a reporter that he didn’t get an iPhone “until like a year ago.” Andre Knott, his best friend and podcast partner, immediately chimes in, “And he still doesn’t know how to use it.” The scene was a Panera’s in North Olmsted, but it might as well have been one of the undisclosed locations (Jackson and Knott prefer to keep their audience wondering) at which the two record their increasingly popular A to Z podcast. They like to say they’re “just two fat kids from Akron,” but that’s more of a self-deprecating bit than it is an accurate description of their appearance. It’s all part of the fun that is A to Z — two 30-somethings with fulltime jobs who decided to turn their all-the-over-place conversations into what might be the most popular Cleveland-centric sports podcast. Jackson, a writer for Pro Football Talk, and Knott, the Indians on-field reporter for SportsTime Ohio, became friends while working for the Cleveland Browns for the majority of the 2000s — Knott as the sideline reporter for the team’s radio network and Jackson as a writer for the Browns’ website. “We’re out boozing one night with our friend, just being ourselves,” Jackson says of a night he estimates was in 2005, “and our friend says, ‘When are you guys going to get a show?’ He says, ‘We already got the name, A to Z.’ ” In 2014, after a couple of failed trial attempts, the A to Z podcast debuted at 603brown.com, a website run by Mike Burgermeister, a friend of Jackson’s. After a year of doing the podcast basically just for fun (there were no sponsors), Jackson, 36, and Knott, 37, took a brief break from the podcast prior to the 2015 football season. It was then that Vince Grzegorek’s
frequent inquiries led to a partnership that really helped the podcast take off.
Here to stay “I bugged them for a long time,” said Grzegorek, the editor-in-chief of a pair of alternative weeklies, Cleveland Scene and the Detroit Metro Times. Grzegorek said he would call Jackson “at least once a month” and ask him if “it was time for us to have a serious conversation.” Late last summer, Scene made an offer — it would pay Jackson and Knott a fee for the podcast, which would be streamed on the publication’s website (in addition to iTunes and the hosts’ atozpodcast.com), and they would share the revenue from any podcast sponsorships. Jackson and Knott committed to producing a couple podcasts per week, and Scene’s sales team got to work on selling the podcast after its late-September relaunch. By January, the podcast’s downloads had jumped 50% and three sponsors, including a presenting sponsor and a social media sponsor, had come aboard. “In a very short time, it’s turning a profit,” Grzegorek said. Jackson said the hosts have reinvested all of the money they’ve made from the podcast into recording equipment, their new website and such expenses as paying a designer (another friend of Jackson’s) to illustrate a logo for the show. “We’re in this for the long haul,” Jackson said. “Some day, this is what we’d like to do. In the meantime, we are having fun with it.” The often-hilarious nature of the podcast — Knott once played parade music while Jackson went on a rant about Browns fans celebrating little victories such as on-field progress by Johnny Manziel — has contributed to its growing appeal. Another key factor for two guys who still work part-time at a pair of Cleveland radio
Entire contents © 2016 by Crain Communications Inc.
SEE PODCAST, PAGE 23
A display of LED technology at GE Lighting’s Nela Park campus in 2015
Shakeup at GE Lighting Unit gets new CEO, igniting more sale rumors BY CHUCK SODER csoder@crain.com @ChuckSoder
GE Lighting is undergoing major changes — just like the rest of the lighting industry. General Electric cut the business into two parts last fall, which sparked a shakeup at GE Lighting and reignited rumors that it might be sold. For one, it has a new CEO. Bill Lacey, who previously served as chief financial officer, has replaced Maryrose Sylvester. She recently moved to Boston to lead Current, the new business unit that GE carved out back in October — a unit tasked with commercializing some of GE Lighting’s biggest ideas. And she’s not the only GE Lighting employee who has joined Current. On LinkedIn, it’s not hard to find former GE Lighting employees who now say they work for Current. Some of those employees will move to
Boston, and some will continue working from GE Lighting’s headquarters in East Cleveland, according to a statement from the company, which wouldn’t say how many people work for Current or GE Lighting. The company also wouldn’t comment on a recent Bloomberg article stating that GE is open to the idea of selling its retail lighting business. The article cited “a person familiar with the company’s thinking.” But one GE executive — Lacey’s new boss — did reveal some of her thinking in that Bloomberg article. From Bloomberg: “The lighting industry has become somewhat commoditized,” said Beth Comstock, vice chair and head of the business innovations unit that includes lighting. “We like where we are, but the focus on our future really is on the smart, connected, commercial space for lighting.” GE Lighting is in charge of the other part of the business: Consumer
Bill Lacey, CEO, GE Lighting lighting and the sale of incandescent bulbs and other traditional light sources. Two of three industry insiders SEE GE, PAGE 26
REBECCA R. MARKOVITZ
BY KEVIN KLEPS