Our Trip to Connecticut

March 30 to April 3 2012

We took a trip to Connecticut to look at houses and schools. I have not talked about the move in this journal. Daddy's new gig is based in New York City so we are moving back to the Northeast. It is a crazy time! We have not leased or sold our house, we are unsure where we are living, you don't have a school and I am 6 months pregnant. Everything is happening all at once, but when I was 9 months pregnant with you, we moved into a new house as well, so this is the norm I guess when I am preggies!

So, we decided we are not going to live in the city (although I would love to) so we are looking at two suburbs outside of the city - Westchester, NY, primarily Bronxville, and Greenwich, CT, primarily Old Greenwich. We did not take you on the trip to see Westchester, but decided to take to you to CT since it is on the beach. We had a very good time, although you were getting tired of looking at houses. It's confusing for a three year old going on all these house tours. We have not told you we are moving yet, just getting you use to the idea that someday we may have to move because Daddy works in NYC. We also took you to see a school, the Whitby School, it is one of the premiere Montessori Schools in the country and one of the first ones. It was amazing, truly. We had to leave you in a classroom and you did not like that at all. You cried and threw a fit so that part didn't go so well. You calmed down eventually after we left and all the kids made you cards - it was so sweet! The classroom was identical to yours now, so that helped.

We went to the beach in Old Greenwich, Todd's Point, and visited Daddy's friends, Dave and Alicia Collier, who live there and have 4 sweet children. You absolutely fell in love with Grace, like in love. You were all over here. You seem overly girl crazy for 3 - I mean you are 3! What am I in for when you are a teen?

Then, we also went to see Daddy's other friends, David and Kid Salomon, who live in Greenwich, CT. They have 4 sweet kids as well and you had a blast with them. They had a absolutely gigantic house - it was a crazy. We could have lived in their basement.

The trip was good and we like CT over Westchester, which was surprising for me, because I have always thought of CT as white, rich WASPY people, and we already live in that environment (Highland Park, Texas) and I want you to have diversity and culture (and I want that for me too). There were a lot of Europeans in Old Greenwich, which surprised me and it was so beautiful and happy, especially because of the beach,

Funny, when you are reading this years from now, you may not even remember Dallas, Texas, the place you spent the first 4 years of your life. We shall see where the wind takes us....

I love you my love. Remember, it doesn't matter where we are, Mommy loves you and Daddy loves you and you are safe.

xoxoxo

airplane...

exhausted in the car from La Guardia to Old Greenwich, CT.

You and Dave and Alicia's kids.... You hugging Grace and tackling her (Oh Hudson!)

You and Grace at Todd's Point Beach... You running on beach.

You and David and Kim's little girls, who were beautiful.

Exhausted in the car after a long day in Grenwich.

You and Grace. If we move to CT, seeing Grace again will help with your transition. That's how in love you were with her!

Daddy's Got a Big New Job!

October 31, 2011

Hudson,
A press release came out today and your Daddy was all over it. Daddy has a new big gig with the Gannett Company working for The USA Today Sports Media Group. He will be senior vice president of sports marketing and will direct league relationships. I am very proud of Daddy!! Your Daddy has a super cool job, which almost any guy would love to have.

Here is the press release from The Sports Business Journal:

Terry Lefton's story from this morning's Sports Business Journal:

USA Today beefs up sports
Investment in Sports Media Group includes big-name biz hires http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/10/31/Media/USA-Today.aspx

Gannett and USA Today are getting serious about sports, with a major refocus and investment that includes the hiring of top names in editorial, marketing and sales to fill an expanding USA Today Sports Media Group.

The new hires, which include such sports business veterans as Dave Morgan, Peter Lazarus, Merrill Squires and John Von Stade, are backing print and online content plays designed to make the digital version of the nation’s biggest circulation newspaper more competitive against top sports sites in an effort to drive traffic.

The overall effort is being led by former Sports Illustrated and Broadband Sports marketer Tom Beusse, brought on in January as president of USA Today Sports Media, with a mission to marshal sports content over Gannett’s 82 daily newspapers, 23 television stations, USA Today and digital assets, including USAToday.com.

Related Gannett sports assets are also intriguing, not only the daily newspapers, but sites like HighSchoolSports.net and action sports site BNQT.com, and the USA Today Weekly sports publication and associated website. In 2008, Gannett also took a minority stake in Fantasy Sports Ventures, which now operates as Big Lead Sports.

Gannett has hired longtime editorial executive Morgan to lead the news effort. Morgan was executive editor at top-five sports site Yahoo! Sports before he left in June; prior to that he was deputy sports editor at the Los Angeles Times. Morgan will serve as editor-in-chief of the USA Today Sports Media Group, and he will start this week while being based in Los Angeles.

The goal is to expand the relevancy and impact of the USA Today brand in sports, while balancing and enhancing sports content within Gannett’s local print products and their accompanying sites.

In an interesting parallel, while Gannett is looking to burnish the USA Today brand and reinvigorate sports within strong local print titles, ESPN is extending its scope with local Web and radio plays in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and New York. NBC and new parent Comcast are facing the same challenge in merging their local and national sports assets.

“Everyone’s trying to be local, but we are local already, so then it is just about execution, integration and picking our spots with all of our local content under a national umbrella,” Beusse said, pointing to Yahoo’s extensive network of sports blogs as an area USA Today would look to emulate.

With Morgan just starting, new editorial products are still being planned, but they will be gradual and won’t be readily apparent until 2012. “By midyear, we should look wholly different,” Beusse added.

An industry launch during Super Bowl week in Indianapolis is being planned.

Specific editorial plans are perhaps not as important as the support the plans have from senior management at Gannett, one of many old-line print empires trying to find their way in an increasingly digital world.

Beusse would not say exactly how much Gannett, a company with $7 billion in annual revenue, has committed to the effort beyond saying “millions.” The top-level executives he has been able to recruit offer some indication of Gannett’s enthusiasm. Morgan, the new top editorial voice within Gannett sports, will report to Beusse. Beusse said he will also hire 30 or so Web developers and 25 to 30 marketing and sales types.

Aside from money for staffing, Beusse also has the nod for acquisitions.
The first of those came last month when Gannett acquired US Presswire’s network of photographers and images, and with it a library of 10 million digital images.


USA Today’s Sports Media Group’s sales will be directed by Lazarus, who joins as senior vice president/head of multimedia sales after working for the last three years leading sales and marketing at Univision. Lazarus was NBC’s top sports and Olympics sales and marketing executive from 1997 to 2006. Also on board is Squires, former sports marketing and Olympic director at SI, now senior vice president of sports marketing, who will direct league relationships.

“USA Today is a strong brand that’s never been extended into sports from a marketing perspective,” Squires said. “We see a void out there and there’s a commitment from the top to build and buy. That’s a pretty exciting place to start.”

Von Stade, longtime Velocity/Team Epic senior vice president, is also on board as vice president/properties, under which he will develop and sell properties around print franchises like the paper’s college football coaches poll or with the niche it has established in covering high school sports on a national basis, with elements like the Super 25 high school rankings across various sports.

“If Big Lead Sports can crack the top 10, you have to believe a brand like USA Today, with deep pockets and 30 years’ heritage, has a great opportunity,” said Jimmy Lynn, former AOL Sports vice president of partnerships and strategic development, now an independent consultant. “If they can win the battles for audience in developing areas like high school sports, lacrosse or MMA, those are the younger demos so many advertisers want.”

September’s comScore monthly rankings have USA Today Sports 10th among sports sites in terms of unique visitors (12.7 million for the month), just below NBCSports.com (14.6 million). Beusse vows to get the site into the top five, but he will have to compete with leagues and TV networks, both of which have unfettered access to compelling sports video. So how will USA Today and its local newspaper sites acquire the requisite video to surpass the likes of NBA.com, FoxSports.com and NFL.com? Beusse said it will be acquired through distribution deals and content generated within Gannett, using John Elway’s weekly show on Gannett-owned KUSA-TV in Denver as an example. “Video is critical absolutely; consumers and advertisers are insisting on it,” Beusse said.

Tom Richardson, a former NFL and AOL digital executive who now heads Convergence Sports & Media, added, “Certainly, video acquisition will be a big question for them, but most mainstream print media is treading water at best, so you have to applaud anyone breaking ground there.”

Beusse said he is leaving most of the editorial development to Morgan, but said it will be vital to add gravitas and personality to USA Today’s sports.

“We need to reinfuse the voice back into the brand,” he said. “That may or may not be through more columns; these days it could be a tweet, but it definitely has to be personality driven.”