« July 2009 | Main | September 2009 »
August 27, 2009
Change Will Do You Good
I am a person who likes stability and continuity. I have been very happily married to the same inspiring woman for 23 years. I have worked at one company for my whole career (ok, so my name is on the door), now 32 years. I have played the same sport, tennis, for 49 years. I have belonged to the Harvard Club of NY for 30 years. I have been in the same building in Times Square for 20 years. While I travel the world to see our offices and clients, I have become accustomed to returning to my cocoon. Now events have conspired to change at least a few aspects of my life.
On the personal front, my eldest has graduated from college and has moved to Chicago. I dropped my second child at Bowdoin College in Maine yesterday. She left me with a cheery, “Bye Dad, see you in a few weeks,” and walked away with a few new friends, on to her new life. The last child at home (four more years, YES!) is desperate to avoid excessive parental attention and has extracted promises of time alone or with her pals. So I have no more days exploring the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum or visits to the Statue of Liberty on a blustery day in February.
On the business side, tomorrow marks the last day of Edelman at 1500 Broadway. We begin operations at 250 Hudson Street just above the Holland Tunnel on Monday. When we came to Times Square, we were one of the rare non-theatrical commercial enterprises in the area. Ladies of the night and dealers prowled the streets at dawn and dusk in front of strip joints and pornography shops. We have seen the evolution of the area from down and dirty to up market and touristic. In these twenty years, our number of New York employees has quintupled, from the 100 people who moved in 1989 to 500 today.
Here are a few of my memories from the building:
1) Being stopped by the guards for carrying computer equipment out of the building to a secret location in a nearby flea-bag hotel which served as our off-premise hub for top-secret talks between Ernst & Whinney and Arthur Young (now merged as Ernst & Young).
2) Working two consecutive all-nighters on the Viacom Paramount Blockbuster merger, wandering around Times Square early each morning to regain my senses after dealing with lawyers and investment bankers on endless drafts of press releases.
3) Coming back to New York City after being stranded in Omaha on 9/11 to see our team working in shifts to comfort bereaved families of Cantor Fitzgerald employees. Having the privilege of helping the City of New York to complete a web site and communications program on the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan for the first anniversary of the tragedy. Watching Microsoft XBOX hold the first public event at Toys R Us in Times Square in November, 2001, to help the city get back to normal.
4) Organizing crowd-stopping events in Times Square, from the germ-free cube for flu drug Tamiflu to the eBay auction at Good Morning America downstairs earlier this summer.
5) Establishing remote locations for more than 300 staff all over the city for several months after a crane being used to construct the Conde Nast building next door fell across more than six streets stretching from 43rd street up to 49th, including through our boardroom window on the 27th floor just before an 8 am meeting.
So it’s off to Hudson Square, the next hub for communications companies. Our space is very much newsroom format, with no offices (I retain my stand-up desk). We have an amazing HP Touch-screen with 50 live feeds from CNN, BBC, CNBC, NYTimes.com, WSJ.com, plus a history of Edelman and case histories of key clients. We also have a section of the Berlin Wall, to remind visitors of the importance of our profession. I’m joined by colleagues who moved with me into Times Square twenty years ago including our creative director Jody Quinn; Matt Harrington, now US CEO; Nancy Turett, our global president for health, Mitch Markson, global creative director; Carol O’Hehier, leads our NY HR function; and Johnny Malave who helps manage our NY facilities.
As I amble around the neighborhood vainly seeking another person dressed in a suit and tie, I will keep repeating the words of naturalist John Muir, “I only went out for a walk and concluded to stay ‘til sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”
Rooftop Garden
Interior
Posted by Edelman at 10:24 AM |
Comments
Honored to be heading downtown 20 years later. goodbye tourists, hello yoga on the roof overlooking the Hudson!
Posted by: carol o'hehier at August 27, 2009 12:49 PM
How I miss my days at 1500! I remember realizing I was a true New Yorker when I could get through Times Square in a matter of minutes during Wednesday matinees during the holiday season; sightings of Anna Wintour walking into our neighboring building, countless visits to the Starbucks downstairs and the Duane Reade next door for recaffenation during early mornings and late nights, and of course, packing up my desk at 1500 when it was time to move down South. Can't wait to come see the new digs!
Posted by: Jennifer Bodner at August 27, 2009 1:52 PM
Best of times in your new space!
Posted by: Leo Bottary at August 27, 2009 2:36 PM
Beautiful Muir quote and congratulations on the new office!
“There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction” - Churchill
..Sounds like the direction is right on the mark.
Would love to see a picture of the office once it's "alive" -- especially that HP touch screen, a fitting advancement of the tiny LCDs in the waiting area.
I remember my visit to the NY office. Steve Rubel and Janice Rotchstein were incredibly hospitable -- I still remember being walked to the elevator on my way out. Oh, and the receptionist even printed out my boarding pass for me since I was on the go. Here's to a new building with an old soul.
Posted by: Eric Hansen at August 27, 2009 3:24 PM
Best wishes to Edelman on its move to new space. I sold office furniture early in my career and have seen my share of office moves. All kinds of things go haywire but eventually everything settles down and "normal" business resumes. I look forward to seeing your new digs soon.
Posted by: Steve Shannon at August 27, 2009 3:41 PM
Richard, 1500 Broadway was where I started my PR career more than a decade ago. Thanks Edelman for taking a chance on a guy from Colorado who had no experience! The profession has been good to me, and I still carry with me many lessons learned in that building. Onward and upward! Enjoy the new space!
Posted by: Brian Sibley at August 27, 2009 5:17 PM
Enjoyed the list of some of your memories at 1500...especially your team's significant contributions in the aftermath of 9/11. Congratulations and best wishes as you set off to inspire, create and lead from your new digs.
Posted by: Michele Nix at August 29, 2009 9:54 PM
Glad to read that you retain your stand-up desk, Richard. Is it the same one you found waiting for you in 1978 when you arrived at 711 Third Ave., from Chicago, the gift of client Beech-Nut Foods? Who knew what to make of you then, son of the owner, 'in training' he said, and you never combed your hair for client meetings. What a long way you've come, from 711 Third to Hudson Square, 13 employees to 500! Congratulations on the new digs. I gotta see that rooftop garden!
Posted by: Paulette Barrett at August 30, 2009 8:06 PM
For some bizarre reason reading about the new office in NY reminded me of our office in London over the Post Office in Albemarle Street - Mike Morley and I shared a small office made into two even smaller office by a wooden partition...to communicate we cut a hole in the wall and stood up to talk with one another. It worked and we flourished...!
Best wishes for continued growth.
Posted by: David Davis at September 7, 2009 10:37 AM
Post a comment
| TrackBackAugust 21, 2009
Canoe: The Cable Empire Strikes Back
Canoe Ventures is cable television’s answer to migration of audience to the personal computer and smartphones. The appeal of what you want when you want it is compelling, particularly for a younger demographic less bothered by screen size. In order to change the nature of the TV viewing experience, the six largest US cable TV companies have agreed on a standard for interactive television, with the catchy name Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), allowing set-top boxes to be updated each night with new content. The consortium hired media planning guru David Verklin of Carat as CEO, with ambitious plans to ramp up 25 million of the 60 million total cable TV households by the end of 2010. I had lunch with Verklin today to better understand the opportunity for PR in the new world of Canoe. Here are highlights from our discussion:
1) Cable is the dominant force in broadcasting, with 66% of total TV households in the US (33% are connected via satellite, 1% by phone company). Cable programs are watched by 60% of homes during prime time, leaving networks at 40% and declining.
2) The concept behind EBIF is akin to Windows on the PC. “We want to create a new eco-system for interactive applications on the TV. Why not have a fantasy football statistical package super-imposed on the NFL Game of the Week instead of having to run back and forth from TV to PC?” he said.
3) There is a constraint on the ability of cable programmers to provide content for PC and handheld devices. No more than 10% of Discovery or ESPN content can appear on these other screens without jeopardizing the all-important carriage fees paid by the cable companies--Comcast pays ESPN more than $1 billion per year to broadcast ESPN content.
4) The key to retention of the present mass television audience is to give them “a voice and value,” he said. Canoe is launching four applications in the next year. The first is for lead generation, whereby a viewer can respond to a crawl at the bottom of the screen during an advertisement, triggering receipt of a coupon or brochure. The second is a voting and polling option for shows ranging from American Idol to Top Chef, with the host able to pose a single question to the audience and generate immediate results. Third is the insertion of dynamic video on demand, so that ads can be served overnight instead of 45 days in advance as at present. Fourth is the launch of addressable advertising, with names harvested from overlay of Acxiom or other customer lists. It is interesting to note that this type of technology has been available in the UK for the past five years from BskyB, and has slowed the migration of audience to the PC while limiting the use of DVRs.
As I walked back from lunch, it occurred to me that we are going to have to improve:
1. Measurement and targeting: Our clients will be expecting us to reach specific groups or even individuals. Can we rely upon the power of influencers and amplifiers to make the content so alluring that the average person will pull it in? Or will we have to push material to them based on our knowledge of their specific interests and purchase behaviors (who owns a pet, etc). We have to provide both paths to our clients, and we must have far better research/data to justify our recommendation.
2. Content creators: Cable will not cannibalize its own revenue by allowing programmers to distribute their latest content on web or mobile platforms because it vitiates the impact of advertising. But consumers want useful and self-generated content. We need to help clients become genuine media companies--creating original, compelling content that reaches people wherever and whenever they want it. J&J’s babycenter.com is a good example. PR needs to broaden its abilities and reputation from communicators to content creators.
Posted by Edelman at 11:45 AM |
Comments
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Betty
Posted by: Betty at September 9, 2009 8:03 AM