MIPtalk is pleased to announce our new partnership with the Center for Hispanic Leadership (CHL).

We’re working with our good friend Glenn Llopis to interview Hispanic and multi-cultural business and thought leaders who will be participating as delegates in the 2010 Hispanic Leadership Summit.

Here’s some additional info about the work being done by Glenn and his team:

CHL’s mission is solidly founded. Hispanics represent the largest minority group and workforce community in the United States. Their historic promise, immigrant perspective, their own diversity, and their generous purpose nurture Hispanics cultural affinity to a diverse cultural environment. Their Latin passion and entrepreneurial spirit, as well as their unique vision  feed their ability to contribute toward making things happen for those they serve. Hispanic talent and management capabilities have already proven to be of significant positive influence on the US economy; both as entrepreneurs and as high level executives at IBM, PepsiCo, Toyota, Wal-Mart, McDonalds, and many other multinational corporations.

CHL’s curriculum is designed to maximize corporate Hispanic diversity skills and the opportunities for Hispanic professionals in leading innovation. We seek to propel Hispanic contributions across business and society through proven culturally-tailored talent development programs that provide a network for inspired sharing and successful utilization of Hispanic talent.

In the coming days we’ll be speaking to a range of individuals including:

• Midy Aponte – President, The Sánchez Ricardo Agency
• Dr. Miguel Corona – Founder, AdMentis Hispanic Talent Solutions
• Placida Gallegos – Ph.D – Professor, School of Human & Organization Development, Fielding Graduate University
• Anita Perez Ferguson – PhD, Professional Speaker, International Trainer and Consultant; Co-Author, Women Seen and Heard

We’ll also be filming interviews with delegates during the summit which will be held on September 18 at the following location:

Junior Achievement Finance Park
Mike Curb Center for Free Enterprise
6250 Forest Lawn Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90068

Stay tuned for additional announcements.

The MIPtalk Team

In the latest installment of CMO Insights we speak with Ann Lewnes,  Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Adobe Systems Incorporated.
As CMO at Adobe, Ann is responsible for Adobe’s corporate brand and integrated marketing efforts worldwide. She drives the company’s corporate positioning, branding and identity, public relations, marketing campaigns, field marketing and education segment marketing to ensure strong connections with customers and constituents. As champion of Adobe’s brand to employees and the community, she also oversees Adobe’s internal communications and community relations efforts including the Adobe Foundation, which funds philanthropic initiatives around the world.

Prior to joining Adobe in November 2006, Lewnes served as vice president of sales and marketing at Intel Corporation. At Intel, Lewnes helped build global demand for the Intel brand from consumers, business professionals, and key computer channels. She managed the highly successful “Intel Inside” program and oversaw several groundbreaking campaigns, including the launches of the Pentium® and Centrino® processor brands.

In 2000, Lewnes was elected to the American Advertising Federation’s Hall of Achievement. In 2010, she was honored with a Changing The Game Award by the Advertising Women of New York (AWNY).

Lewnes holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations and journalism from Lehigh University. She serves on the boards of the Advertising Council and the Adobe Foundation.

CMO Insights is a special MIPtalk series in partnership with The CMO Club.  For more information visit www.thecmoclub.com

As MIPtalk continues to evolve and grow, we’ve consistently been asked (and we’re asking ourselves), “what is the broader objective for the show/site”? When we really stopped to think about it, the answer was perhaps a bit more complicated than we realized.

In addition to pursuing a passion of seeking out and telling interesting stories, we’ve been fortunate enough to align ourselves with thought leaders in a variety of industries who have created successful businesses and brought new ideas to market. We’ve met authors and activists, CEOs and creative entrepreneurs; individuals with different backgrounds, nationalities and perspectives. Each of them has shared lessons and ideas that contribute to our growth and development.

We recently met D. Keith Pigues and Jerry Alderman through our partnership with The CMO Club, an exclusive professional networking group bringing Chief Marketing Officers together in an environment of openness and contribution that enables them to become better at what they do.

Keith and Jerry are leaders in B2B (business to business) marketing and operations. Since we work primarily in media and entertainment we’re not as knowledgeable with all the challenges facing this business segment but were eager to learn more. Their just released book Winning with Customers: A Playbook for B2B poses a fundamental question that every business needs to answer “Do Your Customers Make More Money Doing Business With You?

During our in-depth discussion, the authors explained the methodology behind a concept called Customer Value Creation or CVC. Here’s the basic premise:

In all business transactions a value exchange is at work. Companies seek products and services to meet their business needs and (most importantly) help them improve profits. In most value exchanges, neither party has a good way to measure how much value is exchanged or how it is shared.

If you really think about it the ideas behind value creation relate not only business but to all sorts of daily interactions. We touched on a lot of other areas from the book including:

Engaging Employees In The Value Conversation
How To Operationalize Ideas
Understanding The Differential Value Proposition (DVP)

In the end we discovered that “Winning with Customers” offered an invaluable framework for how we will grow our business and make the MIPtalk Network a must-have resource for our partners, customers and listeners.

Even if you’re not a business person, we hope you’ll enjoy our discussion with Keith and Jerry as much as we did.

For select excerpts from our interview, please visit the MIPtalk YouTube Channel.

Stay tuned for our much anticipated site relaunch (it’s coming soon — we PROMISE).

You may have noticed that things have been a bit quiet around here lately so we figured it was time to give you a quick update on some of the exciting developments going on behind the scenes. For starters, the MIPtalk site will soon relaunch with a new look and a whole bunch of cool new features.

In the year and a half that we’ve been doing this, our goal has consistently been to find truly unique individuals and garner insights into their profession, their passion and their world view. We’ve interviewed over 100 amazing thought leaders in multiple states and different countries – and we’re just getting started.

The feedback that you’ve given has been amazing and incredibly helpful.  Whether on this site, through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or wherever else you congregate online you’ve let us know what’s working and what isn’t and continually inspired us to keep moving forward.

Our relaunch is focused on two major areas; categorizing our content in a way that makes it much easier for you to find what interests you and making video a much bigger element of the site while still maintaining the downloadable audio that many of you enjoy.

We’ve got a significant batch of new episodes in the pipeline that we’re excited to share with you in the next few weeks. You’ll see a lot of familiar faces and meet some incredible new people who are transforming the world.

But wait, there’s more…

We’re also going to be launching a Talk Back section to enable you to be an active part of the conversation and help guide MIPtalk’s programming going forward.

There’s still a lot to be done. We’ll continue to experiment to ensure that we’re creating a program that you enjoy watching as much as we enjoy making it.

Thanks for your continued support.

We’re excited that you’re sticking around as we begin this next chapter.

Your MIPtalk maestros,

Brad & Noam

Niko Drakoulis, one of the featured delegates at the 2010 KIN Global Summit, is the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Chief Executive Officer, and founder of Akoo. He provides the leadership, strategic direction & vision for the Company.

Niko has led a distinguished 19-year career as an entrepreneur, inventor and investor in the telecommunications, Internet technology, and broadcast media industries. Throughout his career, he has pioneered several next-generation digital media and technology solutions for leading Fortune 500 companies.

Niko founded Akoo in October, 2001. The company has since become the largest social music television network in the world delivering major label music videos and original programming to 89.6 million monthly consumers in premium out-of-home environments across America.

Akoo empowers social engagement by uniquely enabling viewers to control programming on its high-definition TV screens with their mobile devices. Viewers can select music videos from Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI, via text message request or Akoo’s mobile app, and share them on the network, free and on-demand. Akoo’s ability to engage media-elusive demographics, while integrating brand sponsors within the media experience, results in increased advertising effectiveness.

In recognition of its innovative technology, Akoo has been profiled in the New York Times, CTIA’s SmartBrief, Reuters, Associated Press, Advertising Age, and BrandWeek, among hundreds of additional media outlets.

Niko holds four United States Patents and currently has several patents pending.

For additional reference we’ve included links to some of the people, places and things discussed in this episode*:

*coming soon

Mary Tidlund, one of the featured delegates at the 2010 KIN Global Summit, is the Founder & CEO of the  Mary A. Tidlund Charitable Foundation, a charitable foundation that identifies, financially supports and participates in medical and educational programs in Canada and overseas. The foundation also has a mandate to alleviate poverty.

Mary was adopted at the age of 7 by a loving Calgary family. Along with 3 other adopted children, she shared her childhood with at least 40 other foster children that her parents nurtured and loved. She knew at a young age the importance of giving and receiving and that she would give back in some way. Early in her business life she organized functions for hundreds of Calgarians where the proceeds would be given to the Red Cross – Bangladesh projects. In Saskatchewan where she operated her businesses she annually contributed funds for educational advancement for children.

In 1998, after extensive world travels, she realized she could do far more by creating a formal structure and using her skills with others to aid in areas where they could identify medical, literacy and the alleviation of poverty needs. The foundation was registered and now she can continue to give back what has been given to her.

For additional reference we’ve included links to some of the people, places and things discussed in this episode*:

*coming soon

Seth Starner, one of the featured delegates at the 2010 KIN Global Summit, is the Senior Business Innovations Manager at Amway, a direct selling company and manufacturer that sells a variety of products, primarily in the health, beauty, and home care markets. His specialty lies in surfacing, evaluating, building and testing new ideas.

His latest work has been focused on creating and building effective and profitable models in the Bottom of the Pyramid in West Africa. Other projects have taken him to Brazil, Japan, Korea, Thailand and Taiwan. Previous to Amway, Seth worked for Wirthlin Worldwide.

For additional reference we’ve included links to some of the people, places and things discussed in this episode*:

*coming soon

Warning – This interview was conducted via Skype to a land line in Switzerland. Some of the audio may be slightly distorted. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Melih Keyman, one of the featured delegates at the 2010 KIN Global Summit, is the President & CEO of KEYTRADE AG, a leading global fertilizer trading company based near Zurich, Switzerland. KEYTRADE AG trades fertilizer in more than 90 nations and has offices throughout Europe and Asia.

KEYTRADE AG, founded in 1997, buys fertilizer, primarily nitrogen products but also phosphate and potash, in 35 countries and markets it in 65 countries. The company has extensive commercial relationships in both fertilizer supply and market regions. It trades approximately 3 million tonnes of fertilizer each year.

For additional reference we’ve included links to some of the people, places and things discussed in this episode*:

*coming soon

One of the best things about interviewing “the world’s most interesting people” is the opportunity to meet and interact with global thought leaders; individuals from diverse cultures and backgrounds who are able to share their unique stories and experiences with our MIPtalk audience.  We always appreciate when our guests take the time to speak with us and are genuinely humbled when we’ve made a positive enough impression that they ask us to be a part of new initiatives that they’re involved with.

As part of our work with the Center for Innovation and Humanity this past January, we interviewed Rob Wolcott, Lecturer of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the Kellogg School of Management and author of the book Grow From Within: Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Professor Wolcott invited MIPtalk to participate in the 2010 KIN Global Summit and interview the featured delegates to discuss what prosperity means within various regions and contexts and how we work together to achieve it. The Summit frames the discussion in terms of three interrelated types of prosperity: Economic, Environmental and Community.

Here’s a brief summary about The Kellogg Innovation Network:

The Kellogg Innovation Network (KIN) is a platform for on-going collaboration between Kellogg faculty, corporate innovation leaders, nonprofits and government. Founded in 2003, the KIN facilitates strategy and management dialogue to promote innovation led growth and build long-term value.

We’ve already had the opportunity to conduct pre-interviews via Skype with some KIN delegates around the world including:

• Melih Keyman– President & CEO, KEYTRADE AG
  
• Seth Starner – Sr. Business Innovations Manager, Amway
• Mary Tidlund– Founder & CEO, Tidlund Foundation
• Niko Drakoulis – Chairman & CEO, Akoo

The journey continues as MIPtalk Studios heads off to Evanston, Illinois next week to explore innovation and entrepreneurship with leaders in business, government, non-profits, academia and the arts.

When we return we’ll post videos from the Summit and continue the discussion with additional conversations that explore the questions, answers and ideas presented by the KIN Community.

Right now you, our loyal listeners have an assignment (and this WILL be part of your final grade).  Please visit the KIN Global site and learn more about the amazing group of people who are participating in this year’s summit.  Is there anything you want us to ask while we’re there?  Let us know via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter or any other form of digital communication.

As always, please continue to post comments on this site and in the other places you hang out online.

In the words of KIN Founder Robert Wolcott:

“Your dedication, creativity and leadership ensure that we pose the right questions– from which inspired answers will emerge.“

Thanks for your continued feedback and support.

Until next time,

Noam & Brad

MIPtalk co-host Brad Rowe has brought numerous characters to life in a range of Film and TV roles but the one fans always ask him about is Shaun.

Shaun is the writer who develops a deep emotional and physical bond with the budding painter/graffiti artist Zach in the 2007 independent feature film Shelter, written and directed by Jonah Markowitz. The winner of the 2008 Audience Award for Dramatic Feature at Outfest, the film was heralded as a reinvention of LGBT film making that defies the conventions of gay cinema to tell a heartfelt and authentic love story in a unique setting.

In partnership with the Screen Actors Guild LGBT Actor’s Committee, MIPtalk presented a screening of Shelter on Saturday, April 17, 2010, to an enthusiastic, capacity audience in Los Angeles.

The screening was followed by a lively and informative Q&A featuring Shelter star Brad Rowe, its writer/director Jonah Markowitz, and here! Network’s Director of Development Billy Cogar, all of whom shared their recollections in making the film. The event was moderated by Zino Macaluso, SAG national director/sr. counsel, Agency Relations.

This is Episode 36 of MIPtalk.