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Bobby Stark

Bobby leads the Parthenon team in creating and delivering work that resonates with its audience and gets results. He takes on the role of strategist, communicator, marketer and editor for clients, guiding the staff to deliver their best possible efforts on every project. Before starting Parthenon Publishing, Bobby was president and founding partner of Hammock Publishing Inc., a Nashville-based custom publishing firm. Among his many roles at Hammock, Bobby served as publisher of MyBusiness, a 550,000-circulation magazine for small-business owners. Prior to Hammock, Bobby was account supervisor and director of multimedia services at the Buntin Group, a marketing, advertising and media firm. Bobby received his undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University and his M.B.A. from the Jack C. Massey School at Belmont University. He is also a graduate of the Stanford Professional Publishing course and the Birthing of Giants, an executive leadership program managed by MIT, Inc. magazine and the Entrepreneurs’ Organization. He is the former president of the Nashville Chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization and a past board member of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund.

  1. Social Media Lessons from Southwest Airlines

    While most businesses can only dream of having the seven person staff (not to mention the much-admired brand) that Southwest Airlines has to manage social media efforts, every business can learn from Southwest’s approach and experience.

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  2. In business, silence wrecks relationships. Are you talking?

    When it comes to employees, customers and members, mum is not the word. Why you should get strategic with your internal and external messages.

    Communication is at the heart of building business relationships: top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top, peer-to-peer, internally and externally. The best relationships are two-way with active dialogue. You can have a solid plan and vision, employees with phenomenal capacity and business integrity – but not communicating to your employees, customers and members can be toxic.

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  3. Is it Time to Redesign Your Magazine?

    Tip: Don’t Expect Your Readers to Tell You

    Publication redesigns should be done in order to better serve readers, but you can’t expect readers to realize it’s time for that change. That is the role of the publishing team — to identify reader needs, then lead them through an engaging publication that meets those needs and even addresses a few they may not know they have. That is part of the art of creating a great publication.

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  4. Facebook Is Not a Strategy

    Social media is different, but should be utilized with the same thoughtfulness as traditional media

    With Facebook topping 200 million active users, and traditional media outlets bombarding viewers with pleas to become fans, many marketers are feeling the pressure to jump on the bandwagon. While Facebook and other social media are new outlets to many, like more traditional media, they require a strategy to be utilized effectively.

    Before setting up a Facebook page and expecting thousands of fans to act as your cheerleaders, it is important to answer many of the questions you would in approaching any other media.

  5. Why did you pick up that magazine, anyway?

    The art of crafting engaging covers While custom magazines don’t typically compete with other titles on the newsstand, employing tactics […]

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  6. 2009 Industry Forecast

    Have you noticed that magazines are losing weight? It’s not your imagination — magazines are facing the same problems afflicting the rest of the media business: less revenue, dwindling readership and a rapid-fire digital world that makes weeklies and monthlies alike seem like old news.

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