I’ve just returned from the Waldorf-Astoria ballroom, where I had the pleasure of seeing our diamond editor, Rob Bates, win a Jesse H. Neal award for excellence in business-to-business editorial!

The awards, often referred to as “the Pulitzer Prize of the business media,” are the industry’s most prestigious honor. Began in 1955 by American Business Media and named after ABM’s first managing director, they recognize and reward editorial distinction in business media publications. A huge honor, indeed.

However, even more exciting is the fact that Rob won this award for his work in the online medium, his JCKonline.com diamond blog, Cutting Remarks. Cutting Remarks represents a perfect marriage of a personality and a new way of communication. Rob’s knowledge of the industry, his unique style, and his dedicated enthusiasm to the blog all combine for a terrific read.

For JCK, this win recognizes our desire to bring excellence to every aspect of our business, and our understanding that award-winning journalism is not just limited to print. Rather, we strive to bring the highest-quality standards to everything that shares the JCK brand name.

If you’d like to check out Rob’s blog, simply log on to www.jckonline.com. Once there, you’ll see a vertical column titled “Blogs.” Rob’s blog is the one with his smiling face! Enjoy.

I’m also happy to report about the success of the Plumb Club’s first Forum at F.I.T. The event was well attended, intelligent, timely, and even controversial at times (always a good sign).

JCK had the honor of being the official publication of the event. I had the pleasure of hosting a particularly lively panel titled “What Keeps You Up at Night,” with Beryl Raff of JC Penney, Cecilia Gardner of JVC, Peggy Jo Donahue of JA, and Doug Hucker of AGTA. As you can imagine, we discussed a broad range of topics. The audience participation was fantastic as well.

Look to the pages of JCK in the months ahead for stories and news from the forum.

Congratulations to Ofer Azrielant, who (in addition to his day job) had the vision and drive to pull this terrific event together with the help of Virginia Halevi and Lynn Ramsey. Well done.

I’m off next week to Istanbul and Basel … I look forward to seeing our many friends there!