great business speakers

Last month, I was approached by BRINK to comment on the future of corporate events in the era of COVID-19. The full article appears below. This article first appeared on BRINK on August 23, 2020. A BRINK interview with Tony D'Amelio, Principal of D'Amelio Network

The article was originally published on the Walmart Book Blog. Interview by Gretchen Tarrant. Walmart: Regarding your process for the book, obviously you’ve written about numerous presidents and there’s been a lot of conversation surrounding this book in particular, especially regarding your reporting technique of using deep background sources. In what ways was writing Fear and researching President Trump different from past books and presidents? Bob Woodward: Well the same and different. In August when President Trump called me to complain that I hadn’t interviewed him—though I had tried to reach him through six different people—I said to him that there was no way I could do this book by going to the White House and just talking to people. I had to go talk to them at their homes and outside of the White House. The idea of show up, go see people . . . I had frankly become quite lazy, and was having people over here to my home, not going and knocking on enough doors at night. So I started doing that and found that it worked.

The Grateful Dead capped off their amazing career in Chicago this weekend with three record-setting sellout shows that were also broadcast to scores of sites around North America. Financial estimates for the weekend (including merchandising) have ranged from $40-45 million. Talk about going out with a bang! DAVID MEERMAN SCOTT, who co-authored Marketing Lessons of the Grateful Dead, was on hand for all three historic shows. David’s a huge fan (obviously) and filled me in on the amazing experience.

Lots of people love the cars from Detroit’s glory days – those gleaming and enormous vehicles with loads of chrome and steel. They were tanks – and in their day they were state-of-the-art technology. (My uncle had a Chevy Bel-Air just like the one above – except it was seafoam green. Quite a sight!)

It’s more challenging than ever to get your product, service and ideas noticed in today’s media-drenched environment. Earlier this month DAVID MEERMAN SCOTT was asked to address this issue in his talk to the Fortune Leadership Summit in Orlando. Organizers also asked him to include an interactive exercise and since he was speaking about real-time – he created a real-time exercise on Newsjacking (which is the art and science of injecting your ideas into a breaking news story to reach buyers directly and generate tons of media coverage http://www.newsjacking.com/). The content marketing exercise was a great hit.

It would be nice to have all the facts before we make a decision. We would feel more secure – I would, at least — maybe you, too.

The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders issue from Fortune just hit the newsstands this week. Senior editor-at-large GEOFF COLVIN again spearheaded the annual effort.

Happy New Year!

A few months ago David Meerman Scott turned me on to the extraordinary music industry blogger Bob Lefsetz. Since then I’ve become a die-hard fan of his brilliant observations, biting wit and a keen understanding of the profound ways digital has transformed the music marketplace and 21st century life. Whether it’s live shows, radio airplay; streaming music, breaking new artists, whatever – Lefsetz commentary on an industry rife with uncertainty and change is entertaining and thought-provoking.

When I started in sales, we all sat within earshot of one-another. It was a small booking agency and we were on the phone all day talking with talent buyers and selling the rock bands we represented to colleges, schools, nightclubs and organizations.