Judging by the traffic at 6.20am in a stormy Joburg, lashed by rain this Monday morning, everyone is back at work [sigh], so no more getting to work in under 12 minutes. The industry is off to a flying start with a slew of press releases for all the key events, conferences, awards coming up in the next few months. There're deadlines looming for the Mondi Newspaper and Journalism Awards, as well as the Citadel Money Journalism Awards - and quite a few new media announcements, the most significant and very interesting being a date for the launch of Maverick publisher, Branko Brkic's new magazine focusing on the media industry, to be called Empire (see below for more). Think Vanity Fair meets Fortune meets Vogue meets Mad magazine (for the irreverence of it) and you get some idea of the treatment the media industry can expect from Empire! Bizcommunity.com continues to expand, with another appointment to our sales team: Les van Dyk (ex-RSP) who has been appointed regional sales manager: Johannesburg and Durban. Les will be based at our offices in Rivonia and can be contacted on: +27 (0)11 612 3003. All the best for the new year! Louise Marsland, editor: editor@bizcommunity.com