Here’s what hatched in the nest these past weeks:
Week 24 – Digital Fitness
It’s not often that you get to spend 7 uninterrupted hours discussing digital fitness with B. Bonin Bough. Stay tuned for a very cool announcement.
Week 25 – Le Web & Cannes
The tech scene is alive and thriving in London. And the venue where they held the conference looked magical. Equally magical was the few hours I got to spend reconnecting with my friend and former employee Deana Burke. She is brilliant and beautiful.
This was my first year at Cannes. “A” for the cool billboard; “MIA” for agencies, brands and consumer facing web start-ups actually doing anything digitally disruptive. There is a huge opportunity here — time for the festival owners to pull a page out of the sxsw playbook.
Week 26 – Bats & Balls
Irwin P. Raij is a partner with Foley & Lardner LLP and co-chair of the Sports Industry Team. Irwin led the team that represented Guggenheim Baseball Management in the acquisition of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the single largest transaction ever for a professional sports franchise. We got a chance to have dinner together and his success is not due to luck. Watch him in action.
Congrats to my friend Rick Welts of The Golden State Warriors for adding sports marketing veteran Chip Bowers to the front office as the team’s new chief marketing officer, a new position for the club. That same week they also landed Harrison Barnes, Festus Ezeli and Draymond Green in the 2012 NBA Draft. Let the games begin.
Week 27 – Fireworks & Juice
My friend Arthur Pergament recently invested in Organic Avenue, a company that produces the highest quality plant-based nutrition on the planet! Unlike the competition their juices are hydraulically extracted through a First-Cold-Press-Process and are made and delivered in a chilled environment. This method ensures stable, nutritious juice that’s full of good enzymes and lasts for up to 96 hours. Their juice is made and delivered fresh daily, bottled in glass and is entirely organic. So you can imagine that both my wife and I were excited to spend 5 days at Arthur’s house in Water Mill, NY for the 4th of July Holiday. There is nothing better than good friends and a sub zero filled with never-ending Organic Avenue juice and food.
Week 28 – MAYA, Most Advanced Yet Acceptable
Have you ever had somebody show you something so amazing, you knew the way you thought about life was forever changed? Well that happened at MAYA when I met with Mickey McManus. MAYA is a technology design innovation lab that helps organizations large and small tame the complexity of technology and invent the future. They stand at the crossroads between design, commerce and technology to help businesses prepare for what’s next. Watch his TEDtalk about education and the next literacy and his TEDtalk about the future of computing. Also Pre-order his book Trillions: Thriving in the Emerging Information Ecology. Thanks Mick.
Week 29 – 6 Years In The Making
I got a chance to recently spend time with Michael Torres our Director of Product Development and it was inspiring to see the progress he and his team has made with the SocialChorus Influencer Relationship Marketing (“IRM”) Platform. We looked at 8 brands on the IRM Platform and with the click of a mouse he was able to tell me in real time the Earned Media Value of each program. Our enterprise level IRM platform is fascinating. Here is an asset from the current Dallas campaign.
Week 30 – You Heard It First
The Heart Whistle is the soon-to-be greatest product placement in motion picture history. I am looking forward to this implant surgery. Keep your light on Richie.
Until next time.
Chief Eagle Cohen.
