Rotary Club of Needham Newsletter June 30th, 2020
Due to the coronavirus pandemic and mandatory social distancing, most of our volunteer opportunities and community support activities have been postponed. In response, we've continued to fund local and international charities. We've continued to meet on Tuesdays at noon. But, to maintain social distancing, our meetings have moved on-line.
In Our Local and Global Communities:
At our last zoom meeting, Needham Rotarian Sylvia Kiggundu (originally from Uganda) told us about the challenging times her home village of Bujuuko is experiencing. They normally have food security / hunger issues and COVID has made things worse. She is collecting money to help feed people in her village. For $10 you can feed a person for a week. It would be awesome if you would consider making a donation through her gofundme page. Any sized donation is welcome. The link is: https://gf.me/u/x3xvy4.
Speaker: Lynn Holmlund (photo below), Marketing Director, IDG Inc.
We welcome IDG, Inc. to Needham. IDG Inc. is relocating this coming January from three buildings in Framingham to 140 Kendrick Street in Needham, the space by Cutler Park formerly occupied by PTC, Inc. IDG is the world's leading technology, media, data and marketing services company. Through the publication of expert reviews of new technology, they connect buyers of tech with sellers of tech. Founded in 1967, IDG has 300 employees in over 100 offices worldwide, with 600 employees working at company headquarters in Framingham. IDG is an acronym for International Data Group. This private company is organized into two business segments: IDC generates media content and consumer technology market intelligence with 1000 analysts offering global, regional and local expertise on technology and industry trends in over 100 countries. The second segment distributes the content: IDG Communications is a trusted source of technical insights and product reviews that connect tech vendors with informed buyers. Brands include: "CIO", "Computer World", "PC World", "Mac World", "Info World", and "Tech Hive". The basic business model is: tech buyers pay subscriptions for the content and tech sellers pay for advertisements to reach the buyers. But, there are other business segments that offer digital distribution, data and lead analysis and a segment that organized over 325 tech events and conferences for over 20,000 delegates in 2019.
IDG looked at space in Boston and Cambridge before deciding on Needham. The company originally wanted to gather all headquarters employees under one roof. The difficulty of commuting into the city and the connectivity of Needham to the T and route 128 were factors in locational decision making. The need for social distancing due to the coronavirus added to the suburban impulse in that many employees are going to be more comfortable working from home until there's a vaccine or herd immunity. The amenity of the site by Cutler Park also helped: employees anticipate using the recreation trails and nearby restaurants.
Welcome IDG!
Next Week's Speaker: Liz Adler, Esq., Beacon Law Group, on employment law, including the issues employers face in reopening after quarantine.