What’s going on: Baton Rouge-based Vivid Images today launched a new app for Apple and Android devices that compiles information on local social events. Vivid: The Event App allows event organizers to share basic details, as well as photo galleries, maps, notifications and weather details. The app also allows for interactions with event attendees via real time chat rooms, as well as rating of events by attendees. “We have already populated the app with events through our extensive network of event organizers, event planning companies, nonprofits, churches, radio stations and user recommendations,” says Vivid Images CEO Jason Gardner in a press release.
On staff: Norisha Kirts has left the LSU E.J. Ourso College of Business, where she served as director of development, to join Emergent Method as senior consultant, the management and strategy firm announced today. Kirts is also the co-founder and president of Kirts Fremin General Contractors. Prior to her work at LSU, Kirts served as director of development at Education Pioneers, a national organization based in San Francisco. She is a native of Tioga, Louisiana, and an LSU alumna. Along with graduating from the Baton Rouge Area Chamber’s Leadership Baton Rouge program earlier this year, Kirts was included in Business Report’s 2014 Forty Under 40 class.
By the numbers: First-time claims for unemployment insurance in Louisiana for the week ending Nov. 21 decreased from the previous week’s total. The state labor department figures released today show the initial claims fell to 2,404 from the previous week’s total of 3,196. For the comparable week a year earlier, there were 2,547. The four-week moving average, which is a less volatile measure of claims, decreased to 2,462 from the previous week’s total of 2,486. Continued unemployment claims claimed for the week ending Nov. 21 increased to 21,601 compared to 19,595 the previous week. The four-week moving average for such claims decreased to 21,571 from the previous week’s average of 21,863. Updates to the department’s unemployment information processing system are still being implemented. As a result, the department says all reported numbers on initial and continued claims are estimates.
