Monthly Archives: June 2010

Confused Yet?

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The NBA draft is a blur with lots of deals, lots of money being passed back and forth, and lots of picks moving around.

When the smoke settles, I hope we will have added two guards, a tough and mature forward, a promising fast-developing big man, and a really big defensively-minded center. Five new players added to the roster.

We will have received money back to offset some of the expense.

And most importantly, we will have stayed on strategy.

We added an additional first round pick — moving up in the draft so we could have ended the night with four draft picks pending approvals.

We may have added a vet player as a mentor — a great influence on the team in the locker room – and of course the number 1 pick in the draft, John Wall.

That was a lot to do in one night!

Stay tuned. Lots to get approved and lots of work left to do.

Thanks to all of the fans who attended our draft party last night.

It was so great to meet you all.

No Rest for the Weary

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And now on to the NHL draft.

Dick Patrick and George Mcphee and staff are all in LA. I am here in DC.

We believe in the quality of this draft. We also have so many young and promising prospects in our system that we are running out of opportunities to play new, young players.

This is the situation we wanted to create. You can never have too many good young prospects, but it does allow you some freedom to make deals.We seek to always improve our team. Draft. Trades. Free agency.

Wish us well. Go Caps.

Mystics Win on a Fun Night

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In front of a nice crowd, the Mystics won again — we are now 8 and 4.

The Mystics played on one side of the building, the NBA draft war room was on another side, and the VIP party was on the third side. It was a busy night for us all, and it was great to see the Mystics play again with so much confidence. It was great to see players we have drafted and developed step up big. Kudos to Crystal Langhorne again. She is turning into a true star right before our eyes.

I Knew AOL Owned It

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I helped start it, and I funded it, and I embraced it. It was called Digital Marketing Services. See article within.

It was the first ever online paneling research company. It created the first online rewards program. It managed the AAAdvantage Program — the first online, offline usage-for-miles program with an airline. It did the first set of consumer testing for marketing companies and Hollywood studios. “What would you think of xx as the lead actor in this film?” “Will you be eating more or less salty snacks this Super Bowl Sunday than last year?” It helped ease the first set of brave advertisers to use the medium back in the mid 90′s. Its work helped to validate the medium.

It was the first research company in the world to package up the opinions of US households that were online — 400,000 families in the panel at the height of AOL’s growth. We knew what America was thinking thanks to these polls and panel. It helped to instruct and inform in-house product feature decisions as well and internal marketing campaigns.

DMS was a great little company — very valuable at the time to AOL. A big thank you to all who worked there, and to your early and seminal contributions to our industry.

Tonight

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Tonight there will be plenty of coverage surrounding the No. 1 overall selection in the NBA draft. Follow all the action, including live blogging, on WashingtonWizards.com. And tomorrow you will have an opportunity to see the top pick in person at 11:30 a.m. when he arrives at Verizon Center’s F Street entrance.