United Business Media

United Business Media is a conglomerate that runs the Independent Games Festival, Games Developers Conference (GDC), PR Newswire and publishes several technical and gaming-related magazines.

Brands
UBM Tech is the owner of these brands:


 * 4G World
 * App Developers Conference
 * ARM TechCon
 * Bank Systems & Technology
 * Black Hat Conference
 * Cloud Connect
 * DesignCon
 * Designers of Things
 * Dark Reading
 * Dr. Dobb's Journal
 * EBN - The Online Community for Global Supply Chain Professionals
 * EDN
 * ESC - Embedded Systems Conference
 * Enterprise Connect
 * EE Times
 * Embeddded.com
 * Gamasutra
 * Game Advertising Online
 * Game Career Guide
 * Game Developers Conference
 * GTEC - Government Technology
 * HDI Conference
 * Information Week
 * Independent Games Festival
 * Interop
 * InsideView
 * Network Computing
 * NoJitter
 * Planet Analog
 * PR Newswire
 * TechOnline
 * Tower Summit

Staff complaints
On Glassdoor, UBM employees complain of regular layoffs and a good-old-boy network in management.

Sources:
 * United Business Media
 * UBM Tech
 * UBM

Complaints:
 * Sep 24, 2014, San Francisco, CA - Sweatshop! The workload is insane and the salary is well below industry standard


 * Sep 9, 2014, San Francisco, CA - Never experienced a company with so many internal problems, miserable employees, corruption and numerous layoffs, AVOID... An overwhelmingly toxic work environment where compensation is way below market rate. Multiple layoffs where many talented people are let go for no good reason then hired back then they would resign shortly after because of a better job offer elsewhere and this cycle would continue during the next two rounds of layoffs. Leadership is scattered often making false promises with never any real delivery because the only goal for them is to receive their bonuses and only upper management receives bonuses. The non-existant HR dept is a bunch of gossipy catty girls and are a complete joke. They only help, protect and recommend colleagues they are friends with for advancement and pay increases.


 * Aug 17, 2014, San Francisco, CA - plenty of old guard preventing change. Advice to Management - The employees you haven't lain off are leaving in droves because you compensate them like a media company instead of a SF-based tech firm. Pay them what they're worth in San Francisco and they'll stay.


 * Aug 4, 2014, San Francisco, CA - Challenging Market, Overworked People, Leadership Boys Club. I worked at UBM Tech full-time for more than 5 years ...


 * Aug 4, 2014, San Francisco, CA - Advice to Management - Make sure to stay in communication with staff at all levels. Stay open and honest with employees - once negativity and resentment starts it will continue to build.


 * Jul 18, 2014, New York, NY - growth. Senior management doesn't care about work-life balance. You never get any acknowledgement for the good work that you do and small issues often get blown out of proportion unnecessarily.


 * Jul 15, 2014, New York, NY - Some Friendly People Within a Corrupt Organization...You feel a sense of servitude to a corrupt and broken system that is coated over with appearances that the company is doing well ... Within my first year, there were 3 organizational changes resulting in heavy layoffs ... Although upper management tried to be friendly and amicable, there is a high level of deception felt ... When there is a small issue it is blown completely out of proportion


 * Jul 3, 2014 - Virtually no path to professional development - there are a few lifers that hold the reigns and everyone else is disposable. Numerous bosses in the last couple years, multiple reorganizations, structure doesn't stay in place long enough to even validate if it works, SUPER high turnover


 * Jun 26, 2014 - Horrible Atmosphere. I have been working at United Business Media full-time for more than 10 years... Always laying off, and I mean always. Will get rid of employees to make a profit. If you want job security you will never feel it here. Office politics, depending where you are, if you're not the teachers pet, you have to watch your back. Typically big company, if you can't take the heat, don't work here.


 * Apr 18, 2014, Barueri, Brazil - The company is managed by unexperienced managers, which cannot focus on strategy. No investment in HR and Managers micromanage every single action from every employee. It is a family company bought by a multinational. No opportunities to grow by potential, just by lowering your head. The managers do not have people's management skills. No flexible hours, a lot of overtimes. Military system rulled company.


 * Apr 5, 2014 - Very high work pressure, senior management is terrible, pay is below average and don't expect pay rises, turnover is really high - which tells a lot about the company ... generally employees are disappointed by the company and especially their managers ... Advice to Management - Get rid of the managers with the highest turnover in staff, their people are leaving for a reason.


 * Feb 11, 2014 - Reading the internal HUB mails, you get the impression that one show after another is a big hit, more visitors, more revenue, etc, etc. For instance Confex, greatest post show report ever. Two months later it was sold because they could not get enough visitors, The success story of UBM is a big sham, people are being laid off one by one, all throughout the hierarchy... CEO David Levin is firmly established in his ivory tower, sending out internal messages to the employees about the weather in the various countries he visited (always on the road), Same for all the other members on the board. They are having so much fun all over the globe, they never fail to mention the weather either. Which gets you a bit annoyed if you need to cut down on travel budgets, making f2f contact with clients difficult.


 * Jan 28, 2014, San Francisco, CA - Some good people have left while incompetent people stay on because of entrenched cronyism.


 * Jan 24, 2014, Los Angeles, CA - Air is thick with negative energy. Practically no room for professional growth. Unreasonable layoffs - company cares more for revenue than its staff. Decisions made create the worst customer experience and then they wonder why the clients complain and don't return. Advice to Management - Rather than constantly making reactionary decisions, try thoughtfully creating a plan and sticking to it. Own up to your mistakes. Reward the employees that are knowledgeable and hard-working, not the phonies.


 * Jan 16, 2014, San Francisco, CA - Massive problems ... Horrible management that doesn't take responsibility.


 * Apr 2, 2014 - Lack of trust and transparency. Employees without any qualifications promoted.


 * Dec 18, 2013, San Francisco, CA - There is almost no path to professional develop, below-market pay, and continual sweeping rounds of layoffs (3 times in 2013), I've had 3 different bosses in the last 3 years, been switched between divisions, and asked to start over from scratch with new responsibilities twice.


 * Dec 16, 2013, Colorado Springs - Very little room for upward mobility and advancement - unless you're the "teacher's pet." ... A "commitment" to 'corporate culture' that's primarily used as a reason to eject hard-working employees who aren't a "fit." A company of this size should have tons of opportunity to advance, but generally speaking, the only time someone tends to leave their small division is when their position is eliminated or downsized.


 * Nov 12, 2013, Norwalk, CT - Much to be desired ... salary freezes for years ... high turn over ... few opportunities for professional growth, and limited areas for career advancement.


 * Jul 30, 2013, New York, NY - Miserable place to work. I have been working at UBM Tech full-time for more than 5 years... state of paranoia throughout entire organization. constant shuffling just to shuffle and see where the pieces land. No career development. No annual bonuses. Not a place to be successful.


 * Jul 24, 2013, Miami, FL - a division can be ruined by a few closed minded individuals - slave drivers with no common sense ... Lack of accountability, Slave drivers, Dishonesty, Appreciation and grattitude is not shown, Consistent for being inconsistent, Lack of vision and execution. Advice to Management - Get rid of the one person that has been the issue over the years. Everyone that has left/ fired due to this person has gone on to greater and better things.


 * Jul 11, 2013, New York, NY - "It starts out great then drops to bad very quickly ... Does everything to NOT pay commissions, they will do everything possible to make targets unreachable ... Senior management does not care about anything but their bonus by keeping their employees at a lesser pay (i.e not paying commissions) thus creating higher profits for them.


 * Jul 8, 2013 - I worked at UBM full-time for more than 5 years... - Upper management lacks focus, clarity and communication; they claim to want to be transparent, but it's a classic case of "You're either with us or against us".


 * Mar 11, 2013, Santa Monica, CA - Incompetent managers. I have caught numerous errors on the work done by the managers. There is absolutely no communication and no training. If you can't catch on, you are doomed.


 * Mar 11, 2013 - Low salary and low increment; Quite much internal politics.


 * Feb 6, 2013, London - management in constant state of panic, everything is urgent and they use fear to motivate their employees. TIP: only accept the job when it is the salary you require because they generally don't give increases.


 * Nov 15, 2012, New York, NY - For a company that prides itself about people and culture - this is an area where they fail as this is lost with internal politics particularly from upper management. Advice to Management - Balance - new business and listen to your team of experts when it comes to strategy and execution. Know that you have a small team who works hard and executes on big business but is getting burnt out and you fail to listen because of the politics at the top level.


 * Oct 25, 2012, New York, NY - I worked at UBM full-time for more than 10 years... Upper management tends to make decisions without consulting with employees' and obtaining valuable input. I don't know how the corporate office doesn't notice how bad these decisions are expecially since their products' revenues are declining or worse, eliminated completely. If you can't manage it, then replace management.


 * Sep 18, 2012, Bedford, NH - Absolutely Horrible Place to Work ... Management is a disaster. The Everything Channel division of UBM bought a company I worked for and destroyed it in short order. They let go of several top-performing sales reps because one of their Senior VPs didn't feel they were toeing the company line. In fact, they just refused to suck up to her. Also, HR had complaints from several employees about the woman and did nothing. The people were let go instead. Advice to Management - Quit. Seriously, just quit before you ruin the company any further. And after you quit, go to the homes of the people whose careers you needlessly destroyed and beg for their forgiveness.


 * May 9, 2012 - Is an ok place to work if you like big company politics, favoritism, brown nosing, and nepotism at it finest ... The amount of favoritism that is actually involved in keeping your job or being promoted is almost hard to believe. Advice to Management: New management for UBM Channel that is not has been there 15–20 years. They are more interested in partying at-events.


 * Apr 19, 2012, San Francisco, CA - There was a lot of screwing off by those who were friends with the people in charge. And if the managers didn't like you, there was no protection offered. Managers could say whatever and there was never any follow through to see if those accusations were true... Advice to Management - If there are suddenly a lot of people leaving voluntarily or being shown the door by the same manager in a department, maybe there's a problem.


 * Apr 10, 2012 - very top heavy, very male heavy, low morale throughout


 * Feb 17, 2012, San Francisco, CA - Wear thick boots and stay out of the weeds, they're full of snakes. Back-stabbing and an obsession with greed coupled with a total disregard for people is management's highest priority. Advice to Management - Do everyone a favor and jump off the building.


 * Dec 22, 2011, Manhasset, NY - Some of the worst managers were promoted and are now at the top of the company. They have clear-cut favorites and if you are not a favorite, they will make your life unbearable. Advice to Management - End the culture of nepotism and provide feedback to non-favorites who do good work. Perhaps you could explain why some people are promoted.


 * Oct 5, 2011, New York, NY - Senior management is totally aloof. A lot of walking around but no engagement. Many sycophants layered around divisional presidents. Genuine effort not to seek or hire people from top schools and an underlying inferiority complex that shapes a lot of dialogues that are supposed to be "open". Sales engine is totally broken and turnover, particularly among the "elite" salespeople is mind boggling. Advice to Management - This advice is for the board: Your divisional leaders with 2 possible exceptions are killing your company. You may need a new chairman as well (look at your stock price). There are brilliant B to B leaders available with resumes that would trump anybody currently on your team. Find them, hire them and pay them (and let them pay the teams) and you will see results quickly. Maybe even fast enough to save the company.


 * Sep 11, 2011, New York, NY - Current CEO continually adds more highly paid people in London that never meet with customers or add value in the market but which need to be paid for


 * Sep 7, 2011 - Media is a dying business, and content creators are not particularly valued. In fact, you are made to feel like you're lucky to have a job. For awhile there was a constant cycle of layoffs, followed by hiring contractors or others at lower salaries. Managed with what I'd call a new world old-boy network. Hard to advance unless you're accepted into the fraternity.


 * Sep 6, 2011 - Hard to understand why they promise and then lie about the future there. Company was sold. Closed NM office, closing Miami. Just tell people so they can plan and feel decent. We worked hard for you and got nothing but falsehoods and lies. Advice to Management - Stop Lying to Employees and Customers.


 * Aug 21, 2011 - Political jockeying of upper management is at a level it impacts productivity ... Weak leadership and high level of incompetence in upper management. Advice to Management - Need to eliminate favoritism and cronyism and discourage overindulgences of upper management.


 * May 11, 2011 - Way too much "transformational" activity (e.g., restructures). Transformations are necessary, but not every six months ... there are a few really bright people in the organization who truly want to succeed, but the bloated levels of bureaucracy and a horribly lackluster effort by HR (strategic and operational) will never allow them to be recognized and/or developed. For example, all the brightest people I know in the company are *not* in the company's "elite" Business Leadership Program; meanwhile, there are quite a few leaders who *are* in the program, and the rest of us just shake our heads in dismay at their inclusion.


 * Jan 21, 2011 - For the most part the only people that get real promotions (with real money and titles) are those in the "leadership circle". They don't promote from within as much as they say they do (although management preaches about rewarding and retaining talent constantly). The head of sales has forever changed the culture in this firm, people walk on egg shells around her, she has surrounded herself with "yes men". She likes you or doesn't and if she doesn't you are miserable and eventually quit or she finds a way to fire you.


 * Jun 24, 2008, San Francisco, CA - As the Web side picks up, there's just constant pressure on reporters to hit ever-rising Web traffic benchmarks. This absolutely gets in the way of enterprise reporting and disincentives breaking a story or doing any kind of deep-diving analysis, because it's just much more efficient to chase popular stories that are clustering at the top of the various Google News categories. What that means, in essence, is that reporters are becoming the stenographers of the various PR firms, vendors and operatives that drive news cycles. Just a real shame.

Intel
Intel is a Diamond Partner with the Games Developer's Conference (GDC). Prerequisites for being becoming a Diamond Member are spending at least $250,000 and participating at two events. Intel will only participates with the American GDC where they spent roughly $500,000.

In order to receive Diamond Member status Intel resumed Advertisement with Gamasutra, in exchange for promotion at GDC.



Noted Financial Ties

$62,400 by Intel Securities at the Black Hat Convention ran by UBM

Luca Global
Luca Global is the company of Carla DeLuca of San Francisco. From its front page pitch:

LUCA is a marketing collective that lives at the intersection of tourism, transport and urban revitalization.

We maintain offices in San Francisco and Sydney and a stable of marketing, communications and design specialists throughout the world.