Week ended 11/04

If there was one word to describe how I'm feeling about our progress, it would be... "anxious." Last week was packed with big decisions, lots of sales calls, and yet ANOTHER opportunity knocked on our door. A great one in fact. Some tasks took a slight backseat, but I suppose that comes with the territory when all business hours are spent selling to the Fortune 1000.

Last week marked the second week that Nick and I put on full-steam Sales hats, for both Long Drive and the Advisor. This upcoming week has some MAJOR follow-up calls to be made: Taylormade Adidas, Marriott, DirecTV, Sirius, BOSE, and Coca Cola - to name a few. I'm also a call away from getting a meeting with Kinetic in NYC to pitch our stuff to all their account reps. I can't wait to tell Tony the good news.

We put the DTRA on hold for a year - an outcome with which I am very pleased. The limited time we spend on the DTRA will be time well-spent: handling one-off tasks, selling a sponsorship here or there, and attending some board meetings. This will give us a chance to get our hands dirty and intimately connect with some folks in the racing world. Plus we'll have no risk, an entire year of brainstorming for DTRA growth plans, and we'll get to see how the DTRA team does in their fourth year (without paying for any add'l tracks business).

Meeting up with the U Guide boys tomorrow to discuss the sale of their company. We'll have much more of an update on this topic next week. Once we find the golden solution to local ad sales at campuses nationwide, it seems to me that we're home-free.


Last week's goal: 8 hours in the office = 6 hours of phone time.
--- Passed with flying colors. Now we just gotta maintain the pace.

This week's goal: redefine PT. Old definition - "personal time" New definition - "productive time".
---This doesn't mean the end-all of free time, it means only spending time on activities with purpose. Going for a run instead of watching TV, reading instead of playing poker, or learning something from someone as opposed to shootin the shit.

Great ideas and companies executing on them

http://akismet.com/
Eliminates spam from blogging. Simply genius.

Taking book smarts to the bank

Two U students took a business launched for a class project and continued to run it after graduation. Now they plan to take their student-themed Alumni Advisor to campuses across the country. And they're well on their way...

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All State - are you in ignorant hands?

As a traveler, I have often thought about how much longer I can take living in the U.S. Not to be a country-hater - quite the contrary, actually. I love the States and aaallll the freedom that comes with them. Because of these freedoms my parents have been able to economically position our family to allow me to get a good education and see some of the world. I now know that one can't get a TRUE sense of a place/city/environment until one lives in said place. And with this constant "the grass has got to be greener" voice I have in my head, I have this urge to pack up shop and dive head-first into a new land and culture... somewhere.

But after last night... I've been inspired to stay, at least for the time being, to help my ignorant country right itself as best I can before I leave it helpless and self-deprecating. The shakedown:

I love new technology. It is the future, today. And I have a growing passion for innovative media (www.longdrivemedia.com, www.thealumniadvisor.com). So when I heard that NBC's website now has FULL EPISODE streaming shows, I had to check it out (thinking in the back of my head - how can this be financially worthwhile? It must be costly to maintain, not to mention the development of the infrastructure). Welcome advertising, Web 2.0-style. Kudos to NBC for constructing an multimedia, interactive medium with a captive audience, multiple iterative impressions, opportunities for click-through's, and more...

But watch this... (and if you're a tree-hugger, environmentalist, or just plain ol' human preferring a healthy Earth over lungfuls of auto exhaust- grab the Kleenex and watch with caution)

Friday Night Lights and All State Plan to Kill Earth One Car of Teens at a Time

For real? Ever hear of Carbon emissions? Greenhouse gasses? People, we are making hybrid, electric, and Hydrogen cars now because there are TOO MANY CARS ON THE ROAD!! So, yeah, let's tell our planet's future leaders to STOP CARPOOLING and drive themselves to the movies.

We've got some work to do.

Initiation

Hello world - Kevin Carlow here. Just to clarify... while this blog is titled Vici, it's purpose is not to solely update and reflect upon Vici Enterprises-related matters. This is my porthole, my journal, my sounding board, my notepad, my...life. Welcome and enjoy.