Today’s 54th annual Jesse H. Neal Awards (awards for editorial excellence in business journalism) went off basically without a hitch…except for the boredom of hearing everyone go on ad nauseam on how the industry has changed…and when Boyce Thompson, editorial director at Hanley Wood and this year’s Crain Award recipient, basically called the awards show agonizing: “I won’t talk for long [a bald-faced lie] so we can get back to the agony this ceremony creates.”  He then explained that he was referring to waiting to see if he won.  Fair enough.

First, congrats to the editors at CSO mag for winning the Grand Neal for the article “Red Gold Rush”.  And congrats to all the winners in general.  Because I’m late getting this one in, there’s no new news I have to report here.  So, go here for Foliomag.com’s article (a bit of analysis), and here for the official press release on the winners.

I will take this as an opportunity to say that the Neals should be more about the editors than about brands.  Each editor’s name should be mentioned during the rundown of the finalists.  ABM should use the Neals as an opportunity to make its editors feel like rock stars.   You know that every two-bit editorial person at Conde Nast feels like a stud…why not top editors in B2B as well?  I think ABM can help encourage this through the Neals in two ways:

1. Encourage editors to only put one or two names on each entry form.  It’s true that most articles everywhere are a collaborative effort, but let’s give the person who did the most work independent recognition.  That way, when the finalists are read for “best single article”, the emcee will say “Scott Campbell, for his article ‘Beware the Bust Out’ in UBM’s CRN Magazine,” rather than “‘Beware the Bust Out’ for UBM’s CRN.”

2. Tone down the seriousness of the proceedings and let each winner say a word or two.  Give these guys who are public figures in their own industries a public pulpit in ours.