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Everywhere a (Low Tech) Sign
Why billboards in the Valley are in no hurry to go digital
Vince Kooch jokes that his fancy title at MGM Resorts is a bit of an overstatement. It’s a mouthful all right: executive director of corporate media and brand partnerships. The long and short of it is that Kooch scours the best media opportunities out there to expand his employer’s brand. Recently, with MGM unveiling its new M Life player loyalty program, Kooch took out three billboard ads along Interstate 15 that can be seen when heading north to Las Vegas from the California border. The string-along message is simple: “play better “ (one sign), “earn better” (next sign), “Live the M Life” (third sign). While Kooch is backing the program with plenty of support marketing, he says the signs represent a reality that both advertisers and billboard owners/managers are facing today: Low-tech is often the best tech for getting your message out.
Read More »Station’s math: More employees mean more business
The local employment picture has been a dire one. In the past five years, the unemployment rate has more than tripled. That’s why a local company hiring 1,000 new employees is pretty good news.
It’s particularly noteworthy when it’s in the high-profile casino sector, and even more so when it’s a company that specializes in the hard-hit locals market. Add that it’s a company that’s been driven into bankruptcy by the plummeting fortunes of the Las Vegas Valley, and it’s easy to see why Station’s big hiring push was a cause for celebration.
Read More »Please Stay on the Line
Remember pay phones? They’re still out there. You just have to know where to look.
The proliferation of telephones in the United States has never been greater. More than 285 million Americans, about 91 percent of the population, have mobile phones. As these numbers grow, there’s less need for pay phones. But there are still people out there who depend on pay phones for daily communication, and finding those phones is getting harder and harder to do. According to Willard R. Nichols, president of the American Public Communications Council, a national trade association that represents many of the country’s independent pay phone operators, there are more than 5,000 pay phones left in Nevada.
Read More »Over the cliff we go
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, an empty car pulled up to the State of the State Address in Carson City, and Gov. Brian Sandoval stepped out.
Sandoval’s attempt to raze Nevada’s government and become his party’s Senate or vice-presidential nominee in 2012 or 2016 wasn’t a surprise. He didn’t rise above his campaign rhetoric, and merely sounded like a broken record of some previous governors, especially his immediate predecessor.
Nevada’s economy is a shambles, and Sandoval wants streamlining and diversification. So do we all, and we have heard this song before. But other states throughout the West aren’t just talking about it; they’re doing it through partnerships between education and industries, and by combining cuts with increased taxes, knowing that gutting education won’t attract companies that need an educated work force that wants educated children.
Read More »Most of the People Some of the Time
If recycling is so popular, why can’t we seem to get it going?
You would think that when more than 80 percent of the people agree on something, it wouldn’t be too difficult to persuade the other 20 percent to get behind it. Unfortunately, when it comes to recycling our young city that loves to tout its forward-looking nature is happy to embrace the past.
Read More »Following the Blast
Six months after NV Energy’s Main Street substation exploded, local businesses are finally getting answers
At 6:33 a.m. July 11, the NV Energy commerce substation at 1004 Main St. exploded. The blast threw debris into neighboring properties, broke windows and doors, and completely destroyed some of the closest buildings, including H K Plumbing to the north and The Attic vintage clothing store to the south.
Read More »Gaming insider moves to the outside
Many Nevadans have transitioned into new jobs and even careers. Patrick Wynn is one of them. The former Nevada Gaming Control Board deputy chief of investigations, who recently retired after more than 31 years of service, sees his new role as more of a shift in position than in mission.
Read More »The Shadow People
More than 2,000 students in Southern Nevada will be spending a day at the office in February
Kenneth Bowman worries about the future of the health-care industry. As the CEO of HealthSouth of Henderson, a rehabilitation hospital, he predicts another nursing shortage is on the horizon nationally. He also worries about filling other positions, from occupational therapists to physicians, because the training for such jobs entails five to 12 years of schooling. If those positions are going to be filled down the line, says Bowman, more kids in Southern Nevada need to start getting interested today.
Read More »Forgetting our responsibilities as a republic
The following events are related because they reflect misplaced priorities and evolving politics: • State Sen. Bill Raggio, R-Reno, retired for health reasons. He may just be sick of his caucus, which deposed him as leader when Southern Nevada Republicans decided to punish him for endorsing Sen. Harry Reid’s re-election, because he’s saner than they are, and partly (no doubt) because Sharron Angle challenged his re-election in 2008, lost 53-47 percent and still thinks she won.
• A lunatic killed at least six and shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., his apparent target, through the head. The blogosphere, including the left, focused on incendiary rhetoric from the likes of Sarah Palin and the aforementioned Angle, rather than immediately pointing out the need for gun-control legislation, which they have largely ignored as an issue in recent years. Also killed in Tucson was a federal judge, barely a year after a similar shooting in the lobby of the Lloyd George Federal Building here.
Read More »Serious about cyber security
Amid the excitement of the Cosmopolitan opening and the end-of-year eagerness to get out of the office, an industry letter circulated by the Nevada Gaming Control Board attracted far less attention than it should have. Reading it is a reminder of just how reliant on player databases the industry has become.
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