Mays Business: “Funny Man”

After seeing my humiliating failures in bold print on the pages of the press — bombing on stage at StandUp New York comedy club, I’ve decided I will never again grant this type of unfettered  access to any reporter from The Rolling Stone or my alumni magazine.

Chrystal Houston’s interview took me on a journey, mostly fun, back to the epiphany when I realized I had an obligation to get over my fear and pursue comedy, to the terrifying first UCB improv class at Solo Arts theater,  to the failures at the early attempts on stage and finally on to some fun.

Read the article here.

Mr. Bartley’s @ Harvard Square

When you’re at Harvard, you have to make smart decisions, and mine was to never again order a cheeseburger with barbecue sauce.  I arrived at that decision after eating at Mr. Bartley’s, a venue the Boston Herald describes as “Boston’s best burger, in cheerfully, post-hippie dorm surroundings.”   I got into the barbecue sauce-on-cheeseburger habit back in my high school days, ordering the Rojo Burger at Chili’s.  I thought it was a classy move, but not everyone agreed, including my prom date. (btw, “Rojo” is the Spanish word for “impossible to get out of Taffeta”).

This place has a fun student vibe,  and I kept thinking I’d see Will Hunting sitting in the corner solving word problems.

I was on campus to speak about using comedy in social media to help put a face on the corporation.  Below is a short clip of my PowerPoint disaster.  And check out this review of Bartley’s from Billy Idol:

Yelp gives it 4.5 stars

Mr. Bartley’s

1246 Massachusetts Ave

Cambridge, MA

(617) 354-6559
About the Cheeseburger & Comedy series.

Conan O’Brien and Burger Joint

Behind a velvet curtain that reaches from the lobby floor up to the ceiling of the swankyLe Parker Meridien Hotel hides one of the best burger joints in Manhattan.  And it’s completely unmarked,  except for a neon sign of a burger.  So I had to save this spot for a special night — when Ian and I went to the Team Coco Tour at Radio City Music Hall.

Complimenting this juicy burger was a glass of the finest Cabernet Sauvignon available in Manhattan in a box.

About the Cheeseburger & Comedy series.  Yelp gives it 4 out of 5 stars.
118 W 57th St, between 6th/7th Ave

New Gig at Cisco

Started my new job today at Cisco as Product Manager for SureMute Technology.  And by that I mean social media / content marketing guy in the Service Provider group).   I’m working in NYC, reporting to a manager in San Jose, and have a dotted-line into Jack Donaghy.  Love this product placement scene on 30 Rock.

Onion: Red Sox Announce Plans To Return Fenway To Original 1912 Conditions

Red Sox Announce Plans To Return Fenway To Original 1912 Conditions

Comedy & Cheeseburger blog series

My doctor told me to cut back on dairy and red meat, which in layman’s terms means “write a blog about cheeseburgers.”  I’m no food critic, and a pretty simple man in general, so most burgers will score a 10.  This purpose of the series is not to offer useful information on where to find the best patty in NYC.  It’s to provide a structure for sharing stories about the pursuit of comedy in Gotham, and  a justification for the increased dining-out expense.  My wife is a former Deloitte accountant, so I get audited every fiscal quarter.

I’ll date back to the New York Comedy Festival to mark the official birth of this series, giving me an excuse  to re-post my photo with Ricky Gervais.   Before the show, Ian Berger, producer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and I grabbed dinner at the Redeye Grill.  The venue is not on my list, but Ian picked it for proximity  as it’s directly across 7th Ave from Carnegie Hall.  about a 60 second commute.  Or approximately 90 secs in traffic.  It was a little on the swanky side for my liking, but the burger was very good.

After a hilarious one-hour set which included an Elmo cameo, we went backstage to give Ricky a few notes on his Noah bit; chatted with the opener  Todd Barry, also Janeane Garofalo, then headed off to the afterparty at the Empire Hotel rooftop bar, where they served some amazing Kobe beef mini-burgers that tasted even better than our dinner.

After much internal debate  over the burger critique, I decided to give the Redeye Grill  a 10.

Redeye Grill
890 Seventh Ave. @  56th St.
(212) 541-9000

See reviews from Zagat and Yelp

Mad Science: Making Water Smarter

John Cohn, of Discovery Channel’s “The Colony” and I filmed our third Mad Science episode in the dead of winter, on Lake Champlain, in an unstable canoe.  Maybe not the brightest idea.  But it was a blast.

Check out our previous episodes, Micro-forecasting and Smart Grid.

The Business Case for Nonsense

I went to Harvard Business School.

But it was only for one evening.  Last Thursday, I was invited to present a case study on using comedy in corporate YouTube videos, and shared “Mainframe: The Art of the Sale.”  This video series we published in August 2006 continues to be discussed, simply because it’s funny.  It’s listed as a case study in the second edition of bestseller  The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott, published this month.  (Congrats, David!)

Comedy done well has the power to cut through clutter and to influence, and that’s helped me get an honorable mention on Click-Z’s Social Media All-Stars list.  My thanks to Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics.

Here’s my presentation:The Business Case for Nonsense: IBM Social Media

Best practices for creating B2B marketing videos

Interview with David Meerman Scott on producing comedy videos for the corporate world.  Thanks to Matt Kaplan and the folks at VisibleGains.

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