Passing The Atlanta 100 baton to …

My first consideration following my PR firm’s acquisition was which firm should manage The Atlanta 100 next.

We’d launched this eNewsletter, website and social media platform in October 2013. After presenting it to a 2015 national conference, 12 PR firm owners handed me business cards, requesting 100s in their markets. We’ve since launched 16 with eight in queue.

The first owner I approached after closing was a woman I’d met when she was an intern promoting her first Music Midtown and I’d just launched Atlanta INtown. In two weeks, her firm’s columns will appear in this space. Now, please meet …

– Chris Schroder, The 100 Companies

Tara Murphy, owner of 360 Media, whose website describes themselves as “PR ninjas, content curators, personal brand managers, therapists and strategists navigating between corporate and cool.”

Another sentence on 360 Media’s history page reflects how I also feel about The Atlanta 100 and our growing international network of The 100 Companies members: “You have to be unswervingly invested in every project – to plant the seed, nourish it and watch something beautiful grow out of nothing.”

A rendering from WRS Inc., developers of the new Underground Atlanta, showing their concept for the outdoor plaza. WRS is a 360 Media client.

360 Media’s client roster begins with some of Atlanta’s better known brands – Atlanta Food & Wine Festival, ADAC, Atlanta Dairies, Atlanta Marriott Marquis – and continues with some of our most exciting new ventures: Krog Street Market, Pinewood Forest, Thrive Homes and WRS, the South Carolina firm that is transforming our original city center, Underground Atlanta, into its third and finest reincarnation with a blend of retail, office, residential and musical venues.

360 Media is engaged with so many cool businesses, musical events and food festivals that they will continue keeping readers of The Atlanta 100 tantalized with what to do, where to go, who to know – all the while maintaining our tradition of providing a sense of place with interesting history columns.

Speaking of sense of place, Tara and her team have graciously asked me and a few other longtime columnists of The Atlanta 100 to continue writing each week. So while we may occupy new locations in your 15-story eNewsletter format, we will be honored to join in the evolution to an even more enriching read.

Chris Schroder, left, and Tara Murphy, founder of 360 Media in her Grant Park offices. Both are proudly wearing The 100 lapel pins. Tara and her PR team’s columns will take the top positions in The Atlanta 100, while other columnists, including Chris, will appear, as they say in the newspaper business, “below the fold.”

So though we haven’t yet completed our fifth year of publishing, The Atlanta 100 experience will be similar to Atlanta’s growth: maintaining a little of the old while featuring new talent arriving, making for an ever-fresh and exciting city experience.

As always, we thank you, our loyal readers. The Atlanta 100 is now emailed to 30,000 readers and our ever-growing network of 100s – currently delivered to a half million readers in 16 markets stretching from Denali to Dubai – is planning to evolve into new countries and fascinating categories, such as travel, tech and healthcare.

To think this all began with us sending you an email in October 2013 promising the “best 100 words of your day.” We credit God with the inspiration for this platform. He downloaded this idea to us as He has so many others – in the quiet of the night. Atlanta is home to many ideas that have spread throughout the world. The 100 Companies is just one more small example.

Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be back in two weeks with a new roster of stories, a new logo and a new website. As Robert Browning wrote in 1864, “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be.”

– Chris Schroder, The 100 Companies