This Focused Performance Weblog started life as a "business management blog" containing links and commentary related primarily to organizational effectiveness with a "Theory of Constraints" perspective, but is in the process of evolving towards primary content on interactive and mobile marketing. Think of it as about Focusing marketing messages for enhanced Performance. If you are on an archive page, current postings are found here.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Blogger/Geek Dinner with Stormhoek -- As previously mentioned, I attended a "Geek Dinner" in New York on Thursday night (My Flickr photoset, and Josh's). Set up in order that a London blogger and self-described media influencer might meet some interested (and, it turned out, interesting) folks in the NYC area while on this side of the pond, it also served as a North American introduction to Stormhoek a new South African winery known best over here among the blognoscenti for being virally blog-flogged by Hugh Mcleod.
(Sheesh. Did I get carried away there with the blogisms or what?)
It should be no surprise that a fair proportion of the 15 or so attendees were from the intersection of the web, marketing, and PR, some of who were visibly salivating at the possibility of getting in front of Heath Row of Fast Company Now fame, whose name was on the wiki planned attendee list. I want to assume that Heath actually intended to show but was waylaid, however, the idea of seeding sign-up lists with well known personages of influence...well...let's just say it intrigues those of the darker, skeptical bent. (No evidence of this here, but that just shows with my mind goes.)
Some of the conversation surrounded the reason for Adriana's visit to the US -- her participation in a big corporate communications conference at a well-known pharmafirm in New Jersey. Interesting to listen to her response to the big corp ways of doing things, with teleprompter monitors and buttoned down presentations. Clearly coming from the Web 2.0 age of collaborative, highly interactive gatherings, there was a tinge of impatience in her reaction to the old fogey way of doing things. I tried to point out that those of us who live on the edge tend to forget that we are still out on the edge, and that big corporate executives are not yet ready to make the same leaps that free-living open source developers do. They got to their positions of power and influence by playing by the old rules, and one shouldn't expect them to easily change. Fortunately, Adriana was asked back for a follow-up conversation, so there's always a chance for evolution where revolution doesn't take hold.
In the small world department, the evening provided a meatspace meeting with Bill Seitz, who has dropped a comment or two on my Focused Performance blog in the past. There was another attendee at my end of the table, Theresa Brigandi, whose current entry in her resume sounds a lot like my own day-to-day role at DigitalGrit. And in chatting up my work at DG, I found out that attendee Mike Hudack recently worked with one of my co-workers. Mike, along with attendee Charles Hope, is working some interesting stuff in the media serving area, centering on blip.tv.
In the comestibles department, the dinner was held at Two Boots in Grand Central Terminal. Cheesy garlic bread, garlic knots, and variety of not-bad pizza, including a cajun-tinged version with shrimp and andouille. The Stormhoek Sauvignon Blanc was a nice light, crisp, highly drinkable quaff, maybe a bit overpowered by the heavy pizza flavors, but worth checking out once it really arrives in full distribution. One aspect of it that garnered some conversation was the screw-top cap. The industry has been moving toward this solution, as an effective way of protecting the product from bad corkage. Some of my favorite wines, including Vin Gris de Cigare from forward-looking vineyard Bonny Doon, use screw caps with no noticeable deterioration in quality.
A good time was had by all, including myself, despite the intense humidity of the evening, and arriving via the sweatbox of the NYC Subway.
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