Bird's Eye View

How to Run a Viral Event

Here is the note sent from Lucas Watson, the digital marketing genius at P&G, who has championed Digital Veterans Day in the name of our client MyVetwork.  His note and the materials attached reflect the work of the highly organized and deeply passionate team who will be participating in this evening from 6 to 10 PM Eastern time, to create awareness for MyVetwork and its amazing work on behalf of our service men and women and their families.

These people really know their stuff.  Can't wait to be part of Digital Veterans Day as it unfolds.  Don't hesitate to check it out...and join the Twitter crowd.

Assets:
•    We have built a virtual digital toolkit that will enable you to spread the message for My Vetwork. The toolkit includes media assets, FAQs etc to help you get started. http://myvetwork.com/share/
•    You can watch the progress on our live scoreboard: http://dvd.myvetwork.com/stats/
•    You can encourage people to register by sending them to:  http://dvd.myvetwork.com/
•    You can tune in to watch whats happening from our Cincinnati hub by watching on our live webcam:  http://dvd.myvetwork.com/live/
•    You can follow the action and share progress on Twitter at:  http://twitter.com/myvetwork  #myvetwork
 
Logistics:
Our official event will be happening from 6pm 10pm from Bridge Worldwides offices in Cincinnati OH. However, your efforts can start earlier and continue on well past our official time. My Vetwork appreciates your help any time you are willing to give it over the next year. Feel free to use these assets long after tonight.
 
We have a Satellite Support Team whose only mission tonight is to serve you and to help get you the assets, questions, and support you need to be successful. Your support team is:
•    Lucas Watson (watson.l@pg.com)
•    Stephanie Lo (lo.s.3@pg.com)
•    John Campbell (jcampbell@myvetwork.com)
 
We will publish other ways to contact us right before the event.
 
HOW YOU CAN HELP:
Help us reach our goal of 100,000 registrations to Myvetwork.com tonight. You can help us by:
1.    Reading and understanding the attached material and marketing strategies.
2.    Enroll as many friends and others in your effort as possible.
3.    Enable others to be satellite leaders. 
4.    Based on your expertise, your network, and your skills make a decision to focus on one part of our marketing strategy where you feel like you can help most.
a.    If you can help us earn free media, focus on getting banner ads and search ads placed to build awareness.
b.    If you can help us drive 1 to 1 connection, focus on placing content and leveraging social media to peruade people to register.
c.    If you can help us drive closure, focus on getting Myvetwork registration widgets placed in places that will reach people who are in our target.
5.    Remember that we wont reach our goals if we only focus on our immediate friends and family. We need to think big and act with scale. Keep working in ways that scale your impact. We have 100 people trying to reach 10 million people with a message and trying to get 100,000 people to register. Think, act, and play big !
 
FINALLY:
A tremendous thank you to each of you for helping. Your efforts are truly appreciated. You have already made a difference in peoples lives and we appreciate your humble service. Have fun tonight and please leverage your support team above if you have questions on how to get started. Send us Tweets or messages as you focus on an area and start having success or need help!
 
Thanks,
Lucas Watson on behalf of John Campbell, Susan Bird and the entire My Vetwork Team!

360 Summit Over The Top

...at least that's what we're hearing today from people who joined us last night at the New York Stock Exchange.

Keep an eye here for guest posts from the bloggers we included in the 200+ group of senior executives and board directors of publicly listed firms.

I'm in Cincy, where the big Digital Veterans Day program takes place tonight, starting 6 PM, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to fill you in on both 360 Summit and DVD.  Two awesome events back to back...What a blast!

WHAT IFs...AND WHAT CAN BE POSSIBLE?

Guest post by Simon Applebaum

Great dialogue, great location and most important, great listening.

That's what you have the opportunity to take away at 360 Summit--the opportunity to experience all three at the same time, with the dialogue and listening provided by an assortment of leaders in all walks of life. That's what I came away with from last night's 10th anniversary Summit at the New York Stock Exchange, my first Summit journey.

Why is great listening so important? In order to address the "what if" questions Susan and her well-chosen speakers posed, you have to be willing to go out of your comfort zone and hear from others. When you open those ears up, and by the tone of the buzz from table to table, many in the exchange's dining room were opening the lobes up, there's an opportunity to generate some answers.

Shelly Palmer's "if" regarding a nation of 55 million broadcasters exercising content democracy perked my table. Point of order: I've known Shelly for years, been on panels and forums with him, and he's been on Tomorrow Will Be Televised, my Internet radio program covering the TV world. This isn't the first time he's posed that if somewhere. But here, this if was posed quite powerfully, and it showed.

My table's reaction: those 55 million broadcasts better have some advertising or subscription models in hand to afford the expense of producing content in their democratic ways. Especially if that content reaches the consumer free. Otherwise, their ranks will shrink rapidly.

Another POO: 360 Leadership awardee Maggie Wilderotter is someone I covered during her days at CableData (the Microsoft of management information systems for cable system operators) and Wink Communications. Take her pointers about leadership to heart, whether learned at the dinner table or on the job. She earned kudos from her peers for her CableData and Wink tours of duty. What could be possible if everyone in the room followed her advice? An incredible lot. Kudos also to her for her advocacy of more women on corporate boards, and backing up that advocacy with actions.

A few sentences from General Martin Dempsey, and you get why he's a commanding general of U.S. Army training. You're clear this is someone with a firm grip of what counts, coupled with deep appreciation of who he impacts. He does walk among heroes every day.

Truly sorry Christine Lagarde couldn't attend in person. What incredible class, insight and sensitivity she displayed in her tape presentation. The highest political role in France will be hers one day soon.

Which leaves me with some "what ifs" to share. Unlike all the other bloggers sharing thoughts about Tuesday night and 360 version X, my what's include another question: What could be possible?

**What could be possible if every television venture and every venture in industry had full diversity? More than 35 percent of everyone in this nation is a person of color, and we're not far from the day when this nation will be a multicultural majority. What could be possible if every TV venture and every venture in industry made diversity priority one?

**What could be possible if venture capitalists and angel investors spend just as much money each year on new TV programming and technology ventures as they do on the Internet, green tech, biotech, nanotech, health care, information tech and the like? What could be possible if the next great television innovations could be funded that way, a few billion dollars available per year?

**What could be possible if people of color were in the mainstream of new, unfolding TV opportunities like video-on-demand, interactive TV, 3D TV, teleeducation and telemedicine? What could the possible impact be on people of color and society at large?

**What could be possible if events like 360 Summit were the norm, not the annual exception?
Game on with my listening for your replies. Thank you in advance for what results.

WF360 Reception at the NYSE!

Guest Post by Isabel Draves

Last night's event opened with a reception on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.  I got several compliments on my handbag, which is definitely a first for a business gathering! As expected, Susan Bird put together a stellar gathering of successful women and men (although the event is not officially billed as a women's event, attendees were about 80% women by my estimate.  It was very inspiring to go to a business event and see successful women everywhere). 

The reception, in about the coolest location ever, featured delicious hors d'oeuvres, generous bars with no lines, pretty bouquets on the cocktail tables, and you could peer into traders' workspaces and wonder about how they survived the adrenaline ups and downs of their daily routine.

I was immediately made to feel welcome upon walking into the elevator with the gracious Anne Chambers, CEO of Red212, a Cincinnati ad agency with, needless to say, a bunch of top P&G brands as clients.  During the reception I crossed paths briefly with Joanne Landau, president of Kurtsam Realty Group and a director on the board of Hudson Holdings Corporation, who spent a chunk of her career heading up marketing and communications for Citigroup. Alice Young, chair of the Asia Pacific practice at Kaye Scholer, was wearing a family heirloom, a beautiful antique embroidered ivory silk jacket in perfect condition that was a real conversation piece.  Unfortunately, I barely got a chance to say hello to Clare Hart, the former CEO of Factiva, now EVP at Dow Jones in charge of enterprise media.  Her face and name were so familiar to me that I know I've met her somewhere before.

I also met Nurit Amdur, founder and Elin Kabo, dir. of communications for Alex Toys, a maker of children's toys with a perfectly adorable website; and had a great chat with Yijing Brentano, VP of investor relations for Sprint.  I asked how the Sprint stock was doing and she positively beamed, telling me it went up 20% the day before, despite a big layoff announcement, due to some now-confirmed rumors that Sprint was funding 4th generation wireless with Clearwire.  Howard Greenstein and Tamar Weinberg were there with me representing the social media set, and I was delighted to discover in my WF360 swag bag Tamar's new book "The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web", the first O'Reilly book I've seen without one of those weird animals on the cover.

Since today is Veteran's Day, it's fitting that I struck up a conversation with MyVetwork founder and CEO John Campbell.  I met him the last time I came to WF360, and his online support community for the US military seems to be thriving.  There were several friendly family men in military dress milling around, presumably because General Martin Dempsey was there as one of the evening's speakers.   After a couple of nice conversations with these guys, a few of whom had just come home from Iraq, I conversed briefly with the General himself.  His dress uniform was covered with decorations and badges, including the distinguished four stars, and medals for the global war on terrorism and the Iraq campaign. 

Dempsey is the commanding general for the official branch of the army responsible for training soldiers and civilian leaders, as well as developing operational doctrine and new weapons systems.  During our conversation he emphasized his commitment to outreach to the military wherever they are, including through twitter and facebook, and even expressed interest in learning more from online multi-player games like World of Warcraft.  He had a firm grasp of the "times have changed" concept, and later in the evening when he spoke to the assembled crowd, he posed a "what if": "What if the definition of success in the military were the ability to adapt?... It would become a competitive learning environment."  I liked his message.  Also during his talk, he thanked the servicemen and women who are out there committing their lives to the military, and got the one standing ovation of the night.

More soon about the delicious dinner, good company and good conversation.

Isabel Walcott (Hilborn) Draves, 360 Leadership Summit Blogger

The Viral Storm and Ft Hood

I'm getting it.  I think.  Once the momentum starts, it's amazing how the excitement can gather when aided

Today we heard from MySpace people who plan to put the Digital Veterans Day program on their homepage on Wednesday 11.11.

There is going to be a live Twitter feed on 11.11 for the Digital Veterans Day crowd.  Check it out at #myvetwork

And if/when you tweet about Digital Veterans Day on Wednesday, be sure to include #myvetwork so others around the nation, even the world, will see it.  Keep the conversation going!

Meanwhile, I've been disturbed about Ft. Hood for many reasons, as I'm sure we all are.  I asked John Campbell, CEO of MyVetwork today about his response to the horrific shootings at Fort Hood.  Here's what he said.  Read it and tell me what you think:

"PTSD: Its a 100% issue, not a 1% issue
When I try to understand the tragedy at Fort Hood Im struck by the fact that the stress and trauma that leads up to PTSD is not limited to combat veterans nor even to those who operate in a war zone (or treat those from a war zone). Indeed stress and trauma are with all of us every day, yet thus far its been discussed as something that the military, less than 1% of our population, has to deal with while the rest of us are safely immune. 

Perhaps this incident will spur an awareness that PTSD is a civilian as well as military issue, and for two reasons: 1) if we don't deal with our veterans who are afflicted, we render civilians less safe, and 2) civilians, whether from an auto crash, an assault or a myriad of stressful conditions, are vulnerable to the affliction as well.

HEROISM: There is a new face to heroism
More should be made to recognize everyday Americans putting their lives on the line both in combat and here at home (police, fire, first responders). Second, we need to focus on this brave policewoman as a heroine. It should send a message on two levels: 1) to all women, that women are indeed getting recognition for being up to the task of anything men do and often at the highest level, to boot. This woman is at the top of her game and her game has up to now been thought of as a mans game. 2) to the many men who still don't get it that women are equals and, often, superior.

FALLACY OF SAFE PLACES: There is no safe place. Deal with it.
No place in this country is really safe anymore. 9.11 and Fort Hood remind us. Ironically, we often look at returning vets who exhibit hyper-vigilance as crazy. They are simply responding extremely to what many of us fail to see. What we need to do is acknowledge that we live in a dangerous world, but there is a way to deal with this known danger and much of it is about building and maintaining strong bonds with those we love and value. We need to reach out to our friends and family both physically and on-line and continue to build our collective trust with one another. Whether face to face or in a virtual place, we are each others safety net."

John is a decorated Marine who served in Vietnam. 

Do Your Bit on Digital Veterans Day Nov 11

This is entirely awesome!  Talk about a global conversation...this is it!

I've mentioned here that we advise MyVetwork, the online community for our Nation's military service men and women and their families.  Active Duty, Vets, all branches, all conflicts.  And their families and friends and supporters, too.  It's an amazing interactive community.

 

On November 11, a bunch of superstars from the worlds of marketing, the military, and technology, are staging Digital Veterans Day (we call it "DVD" for short).  It seems to get more remarkable every day.  Those of us who will be in Cincinnati on November 11 will be at DVD headquarters, guaranteed to be a blast, especially with the opportunity to watch how the pros conduct a viral blitz online, using Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and all the other means at their disposal to get the word out.  Fast.

But folks taking part remotely will have an extraordinary experience as well.  We've now got people all over the U.S., plus Hong Kong, Paris, you name it...asking for the DVD digital "toolkit" so they can be part of the action.  The folks at Bridge Worldwide, the amazing media folks who are hosting the Cincy event and providing all the tech expertise, have outdone themselves.  They are led by Marty Boyer, who really knows his stuff.  Thanks to his team, and the P&G tech people--led by Josh Becker-- with whom they're coordinating this, people taking part remotely can watch the Cincy action, see the scoreboard which will record activity, etc. 

The team at TBWA\Chiat Day, led by TBWA's Global Chief Marketing Officer Laurie Coots, have volunteered their efforts to create amazing marketing assets for DVD: everything from video clips to animated banners to blurbs of all sorts.  You can check out the video clips right now.  We've got Rajiv Srinivasan, a US Army Lieutenant now serving in Afghanistan who talks of how people on active duty need MyVetwork.  We've got Peter Kim, recently graduated from Columbia University, telling how valuable MyVetwork is for vets transitioning to a civilian workplace.  We've got Tara Crooks, from Army Wife Talk Radio, who talks of how families can use MyVetwork. And Jay Chalnick explaining how the MyVetwork community works...You can check out all the video clips here...

If there is even a remote possibility of your taking part in DVD on November 11 wherever you are--home, school, the office, with friends at Starbucks--do contact Jay Chalnick at jchalnick@wf360.com for the digital toolkit.   Put up some banners, send them to friends, send them to everyone you know who is supportive our service men and women and their families.

And even if you can't take part on November 11, help us spread the word before then by putting banners on your blog, send to friends, go crazy.

Let's make this a viral conversation like none other.  Here's to Digital Veterans Day November 11...all over the world!

Guestblog: First words you learn in the USA

How are you?

Those are the first words heard by a newcomer to the United States of America. You can answer with “fine”, or you ask the counter question (“How are you?”) or the third way of responding is, you ignore it.

Do you think people are really interested in you and “how you are” at this moment? No, I don’t think so...the question is more a friendly way of saying “hey.”  And a question like “How are you?” starts every conversation on a friendly basis. And that is a good feature. Or is it?

I’m Max Kellner, an intern at Wf360.  I come from Berlin, the capital of Germany.  It’s a big City with 3.5 million people and an area a little bit smaller than New York City. But New York is not the same as Berlin. They are two amazingly different cultures. Perhaps it would be best to describe my experience after my first month here with adjectives: fast, busy, cool, chic, crazy…that sounds for me like a typical metropolitan City.  But in what ways does New York distinguish itself from Berlin or even all Europe?

Sometimes when I sit in the train I feel like a European. I’ve got the notion that everyone must see that I’m a foreign person. European clothes, different way of sitting or not enough coolness… I don’t know…something must define me. Or is it just fantasy? The last few days, my roommate confirmed my idea that there are differences between the two of us.

  

The best way to the see differences is to go to places where all people must go.  For example: the shopping market. In my eyes, the typical New Yorker around my age has an IPod, sneakers and wears baggy pans, most of the time with a baseball cap. That is the cliché, but I think it is accurate. However…the cliché says nothing about the person and if you answer the question “How are you?” in the third way that I mentioned above (by ignoring the question), then you never will learn more about the American culture beyond the stereotype, that is certain.

Furthermore I’ve learned that here you must get comfortable with being very open to others.   That appears to be very normal here. People talk to you in the train, bar, supermarket, elevator and all other places. It’s normal and the people don’t appear annoyed.  At least most of the time.  That is a big difference from Germany, where people are more reserved.

Everyday is a new day for me. Often I’m not sure I’m doing the right things. I want to give you an example. Last weekend, I went to a Bar in SoHo, which had live TV coverage from Yankee Stadium. What I didn’t know is that the Yankees (Blue/white shirts) were playing against the Los Angeles Angels (red shirts). The problem on this evening was that I wore a red shirt, so I looked like a real LA Angels baseball fan. That is the reason I got in trouble with a group of three drunken people after the game:  all because of my red shirt. It was crazy! I don’t know what the people were talking about but I understood from they behavior that something was wrong with me.

   

Those are the small things you learn over time. You don’t learn these things from a book; if you come into these situations like I have, you will be learning it from experience. Guaranteed!

Guest blog: My conversations in Manhattan

I’m Daniela, coming from Berne, Switzerland and doing a four-week internship at the Wf360 Company. This is my first time in New York but I have already traveled around California and Florida. I have been in New York City for almost 8 weeks.  I love it!

This whole 24-hour lively atmosphere amazes me.  I live in Chelsea right on 8^th Avenue, at 25^th Street. Even though the apartment is on the 18^th floor I still hear every siren and every other possible noise coming from the streets.  So I live directly “in it”. Sometimes when I watch TV I don’t know whether a noise comes up from the streets or if it’s in the background of the movie. That sometimes makes me feel I am in my own movie.

Once I sat at a table at the window in the Starbucks in Grand Central Station when out of the blue the woman sitting next to me started to talk to me. This is another thing I like about New York and still surprises me every time. In Switzerland it is uncommon to start to talk with somebody you don’t know. If it’s not in a bar or in a club, it’s quite unusual. Here, people start a conversation with strangers anywhere, whether waiting in a line or in a stuck subway or in a store. And when they hear my accent, they are curious as to where I come from. Even if it’s only small talk it might lead to some kind of relationship. It makes the whole adventure here in NYC even more interesting because you don’t know whom you might meet on any given day.   

To get back to this woman in the Starbucks - she asked me “Isn’t watching people here better than TV?!”. Of course I agreed. Both of us were observing all the many different people passing by. There was one man who stood out from the crowd. He was standing close to the wall, while all the people were rushing by, trying to catch their train. Nobody noticed anybody else; they were too busy getting as soon as possible to wherever they were going. This man was very nicely dressed and was holding a bunch of flowers. He had already been waiting for quite a long time and kept checking nervously on his blackberry. So we wondered about him, and were talking about who he was going to meet and guessing about what that person would look like. Who would it be? A good friend, his mother, a first date? Finally there was a happy ending to our “movie.” A pretty woman arrived and they happily walked away, hand in hand.

That is how we started our conversation, and ended up talking for almost 1 hour and half. We agreed on how important it is to always take some time for one’s self, even if it’s short, just to escape from the daily stress and rush.

It is always so interesting to see how other people think and you can always learn a lot. We even made an appointment to meet another day, to continue our chat. For me this was one of the nicest experiences during my stay here. To get to know people to whom you somehow feel connected, and you share similar points of view makes me feel more at home here.

Another example of a lovely encounter: yesterday, sitting the first time on the bus M104, I was looking around to make sure I wouldn’t miss my stop. The elderly lady next to me started to talk with me, in order to help me. It turned out that she also spoke German and has relatives in Switzerland. She told me she has been living for more than 70 years in New York. I was impressed by her lasting delight in the city. It was funny;- she sounded like me when she was saying that she loved the city and that there was always so much to do.

It’s true that there is a wide range of great activities around the city. From the different neighborhoods to explore, to all the shopping stores – which sometimes are open even late at night – to the Broadway shows and Exhibitions, to the wide nightlife and great varieties of restaurants with food from all over the world. Just to mention some…

In New York it’s impossible to get bored, even if you just sit somewhere to relax or rest your legs from all that walking, you have an interesting movie flashing by in front of your eyes. And it’s all free.

New York Marathon Conversations

As a New Yorker, I take a somewhat cynical view of Marathon craziness as it nears and seems to take over the City in terms of crushing crowds on the subway; people commandeering the sidewalk while gazing at a map; crowded restaurants.  You get the picture.  Actually, from an economic point of view the marathon is big business for Gotham and we welcome it.  There was lots of talk this year about it getting too big, too crass, too focused on elite runners.  But the fact that 42,000 people officially registered for the run argues that a lot of people think it is a great idea, indeed, to torture themselves into running for over 26 miles, even if they're not in their prime.  And I say bully for them.

At about 4 PM yesterday, we walked over to the 24 mile marker yesterday to watch the race.  This means that the runners who passed in front of us were a little more than 2 miles away from completing their goal.  Most of them were struggling (the elite and faster runners had long since passed).  I imagine this group of runners had not even gotten started until 2 1/2 to 3 hours after the official start of the race.  In any event, all were pretty slow, some walking, some really dragging.  But they were clearly determined to finished.

We quickly got into the spirit of the crowd and picked up the modus operandi.  The deal is, most of the runners have their first name written large over their chest.  What a brilliant idea!  It means that those of us--nearly everyone in our part of the crowd--standing there and shouting encouragement were total strangers to these marathoners.  But because we could say "Attaboy, George;" "Good job, Natalie!;" "You're almost their, Sigfried!:" we focused on those with the names and we encouraged them as if they were our best friend.  And to a person, they responded, generally looked up and smiled, gave a thumbs up, nodded, gave some sign of recognition and thanks.

I realize there is a conversation going on, even in a marathon, between the performer and the observer.  The runners were clearly influenced by our enthusiasm and support.  We were right there with them and we carried them, as supportive conversations do, through the rough patch of "almost-there-ism" to the blessed end of the race. 

I'm thinking of how important that first name on the shirts is in this conversation between bystander and runner.  If you can't identify someone by name, your message is general and doesn't touch them. 

One of the runners was a woman connected by a strap to another who was blind.  Both of them had their names on their shirts.  As she ran by with him, she silently pointed her finger over his head, at him, letting the crowd know it was his name they should shout.  That was they way he would "see" the crowd and know it cared about him and his triumph of completing a 26+ mile marathon.  Without his name, we wouldn't have been able to let Neil know that yes, we were there for him.  Specifically cheering Neil, our hero of the moment.

Seems to me the lesson here is to "put your name on it."  Always.  Let people know you are responsible for whatever it is you are doing, and proud of it.  Make sure you are doing work that is so good you are pleased to sign it.  Pleased to let others know you did it and so there! 

After all, life is itself a marathon.  Just make sure people know you were there, you were running, and you just did it.

Judith Fox And I Still Do

Wednesday evening, I went to a book signing as a favor to the photographer/writer Judith Fox, whose personal story of love and partnership is stunningly told in her powerful new book, I Still Do: Loving and Living with Alzheimer's. The signing was at Pfizer's headquarters in Manhattan and it was a rainy, unpleasant night.  I intended, by showing up, simply to add to Judith's audience and support her as a friend. 

However, it became much more than that.  Judith spoke--movingly, as I knew she would--about the book and how important it is for this horrendous disease to be addressed seriously, around the world, in the effort to find a cure.  Listen to Judith Fox here. 

I was struck that in Judith's remarks, and in those of Pfizer's executives responsible for that Pharma's efforts to find a cure for the disease, there were several references to the need for a "conversation" about this disease.  A "national conversation" was called for, someone said and, at another point in the presentation, it became a "global conversation."  This sparked my interest, of course.  A conversation about Alzheimer's?  How--beyond depressing participants--could that be of value?

Major value, as it happens.  On several levels, a wide-spread conversation is exactly what is needed.  At the most personal, the level at which a family is affected when a member is struck by the disease, the more people are willing to talk about it, to abandon their denial, the more quickly action can be taken that can at least slow the disease's ravages.  At the civic level, it is important for communities to be aware of Alzheimer's patients among their citizens so they can take collective and intelligent action to help them as well as their caregivers.  At the national level, countries can lead the charge so that their citizens enter and shape the conversation, and their corporations can show support in ways that make sense: after all, sustaining a viable, healthy workforce (the impact on family care-givers of this disease is yet to be calculated meaningfully, but it is a seriously expensive--in societal terms alone--disease) is critically important to the financial health of a nation.  So every conversation can add to the pool of information, of concern.

It was noted that France's President Sarkozy has placed major importance on the disease, as have Scandinavian countries and several others. Pfizer executives talked of their intention to place Alzheimer's on the agenda for the upcoming Davos program in Switzerland, so that business and thought leaders can be brought into the conversation and determine how they can collectively do something about it.

As a friend, I know Judith to be a brilliant conversationalist.  What I had not known, until I heard her speak to an audience about the disease, is how compellingly conversational she can be in describing its impact, its sadness, its challenges, as well as the opportunities it has given her to expand her repertoire both professionally and personally.  

In short, Judith has sparked a conversation that most people would prefer not to have.  It's clear she has approached this project like the extraordinary entrepreneur she is: as a problem that needs to be solved and for which it is necessary to marshal powerful collaborators. To that end, she has brilliantly partnered with a major pharma, Pfizer, which is dedicated to its work of finding an eventual cure.  I urge you to purchase Judith's truly beautiful book.  And consider listening in to the conversation Judith has initiated to help find a cure for this brain-robber disease.