Richmond, VA: Five midsize agencies have banded together to develop new PR products and provide business education for their employees.

The quintet has formed Lumin, calling it an "intellectual collaborative" to distinguish themselves from agency networks already in existence.

Two Lumin firms - Minneapolis-based Padilla Speer Beardsley (PSB) and New York-based PT& Co. - already belong to networks of independent agencies.

"We would not have joined this if we thought it was just another network," said Matt Kucharski, one of two PSB ...