Today, the staff held a kickoff party, complete with cake. After feasting on cake, we now begin the work on it (actually, "continue" is the better word because we have already been brainstorming ideas for this special edition). We plan to include some special lists in the Dec. 3 publication, similar to the Power lists we publish throughout the year. But these will be uber lists of the influential, spanning 25 years. Trust me, it's hard enough to pick the
100 most powerful people in New Jersey business for a 12-month period. Now, Managing Editor Joe St. Arney and I will create a list of the 25 most influential business leaders during the span of 1987 to 2012.
Joe and I will also be working on a list of 25 people at the other end of the spectrum. We're still working on the name for this list but are informally calling it: 25 Fallen Stars. These are the people who were influential and at the apex of their career, and then burned out and watched their careers crumble. Maybe their business went bust—or maybe they got busted. They could be business people, or politicians (this is Jerseyafter all).
So who should be on these lists? As always, we welcome readers' suggestions, which can be emailed to me at
sharonw@njbiz.com.