I wanted to say thanks to so many people who have given us positive feedback on the M+M Weekly Report. Our little email list has grown to over 4,000 and we do our best to keep it interesting.

Save the date! M+M’s May Mixer is Wednesday, May 15th at Rosie Connolly’s from 5 – 8pm. Visit our Facebook Event page to let us know you are coming.

I dropped my 5th grade son Jack off at school the other day and it got me thinking. The bus loop at Alberta Smith Elementary school is a model of Six Sigma efficiency. Each morning there is a carefully choreographed ballet of parents, teachers and students who work with each other to offload 700 kids in 7 minutes. Amazing! Parents in minivans, teachers in orange vests and 5th graders with yellow AAA safety officer garb all directing a logistical mega production. I find it amazing that they do this 180+ days a year, day in and day out.

We read a lot about teachers and we thank them because they teach our children, but today I wanted to give a special “shout out” to the elementary school Principal. Think about it, an elementary school principal is a business leader, an operations director, an HR manager, a food and transportation logistics officer and performs all of these duties while adhering to often ridiculous countywide, state and federal guidelines. I live in Chesterfield County and we are fortunate to have an excellent school system.  Kudos and well done!

Monday 4/29 – Last Monday I made edits to our website, madisonmain.com and worked on my personal blog, madmain.com. Check out both sites to see some cool stuff. On Monday morning we welcomed two spectacular young people, our new summer interns: Emily Farrar, a Mass Comm graduate from VCU and Dustin Hennessy, heir to the Hennessy liquor fortune and soon to be graduate from Christopher Newport University. 

We think Emily [L] and Dustin [R] will bring a lot to the table… probably lunch.

I was also able to have a lunch at Capital Ale House with longtime friend and client, Christie Newman, the boss of the bossiest website in town, Richmond.com. Also special thanks to the folks at Can Can Brasserie for inviting the team out to sample the finest in French fair at their banquet facility, adjacent to their Carytown landmark restaurant.

Tuesday 4/30 – Last Tuesday morning it was good to get back to Rotary after a three week hiatus. I also spent some time in the studio recording some radio and TV voiceovers. At Madison+Main we always try to save our clients money by having me record many of their voiceovers. 

That afternoon, we welcomed the lovely Laurie Aldrich, Executive Director of the Virginia Wineries Association, to talk about some exciting new programs being launched by the association this year. When you work with fun and creative people, it makes the process a lot better and Laurie is always fun to work with. We also love working with VWA, because sometimes we get free samples. Make Mine Virginia Wine.

Wednesday 5/1 – Wednesday was a First Bank kind of day, I spent most of the day working on social media, billboard concepts and launching their new Card Cash Rewards program. What better day to launch a new product than May Day? This is the second TV spot we’ve produced for First Bank, which began airing on TV stations across the Northern Shenandoah Valley this week. If your antenna isn’t that big, click here to see the video on You Tube.

Katie Hurst and I joined super rep Karen Newmyer, from Comcast Spotlight, for a major announcement regarding the Cadillac Cup, which will be held in Charlottesville this September. Special thanks to Jacques and Carolyn Moore, owners of the Moore Family of Dealerships, for inviting us to their lovely home overlooking the James River.

Thursday 5/2 – On Thursday morning I attended Insiders Club and was able to maintain my Mayorship over the Commonwealth Club. I was pleased to give an introduction to friend and fellow member, Harry Garmon, President of Top of Mind Mailings who has a unique B2B direct mail program. Learn more at http://www.topofmindmailings.com/.

We also had a great meeting with the leadership team at Howell’s Heating & Air, which reminds me Howell’s is sponsoring the Summer Concert Series at Stony Point Fashion Park. The season kicks off with Kings of Swing on Saturday, May 25th. Visit here to find out who is playing this summer. And who knows, you may win a chance to sit in the Howell’s “Waaay To Comfortable” couch in the front row!

Friday 5/3 -On Friday, we had a great meeting with Maureen Medlin, Melanie Wynkoop and Matthew Steilberg at C&F Bank at beautiful downtown Toano, Virginia. Big thanks to Katie “Fireball” Devlin, AVP, E-Commerce Manager, at the bank who treated us to lunch at Jason’s Deli.

Be sure to check our Twitter and Facebook pages tonight for lots of posts from the Madison+Main-iacs. We are headed to the Richmond Ad Club’s “The Richmond Show” tonight and hope to bring home some hardware.

This week, we will participate in The READ Center’s Spelling Bee at The Camel, it’s a fundraiser to raise awareness and help adult literacy programs. Katie, Jeff and I will square off against corporate teams from all over Central Virginia. All are invited to attend the event and cheer us on, and if you would like to challenge us, click here to register. As long as I remember it is “I before E except after C”, I think I’ll be okay.

P.S. Vignette noun (vin-’yet) – French, from Old French, meaning a brief series of scenes in a movie or play. Antonyms of vignette: a very dark circle around photography. Ask Scott Harris.

Dave

Greetings from the beautiful Kingsmill Resort and Spa, along the beautiful James River, in beautiful Williamsburg, Virginia. It’s so beautiful here, I may just puke.

On Friday, I wrapped up a couple of days of inspiring speakers and tremendous networking opportunities at the Virginia Council of CEOs retreat here at Kingsmill. In fact, the entire retreat turned out to be slightly profitable, as I cleared $250 at the poker table last Friday night.

It was a stellar week at Madison+Main, and this week we have decided to tell the story in pictures.

Monday 4/22 – Below is a photo of the front page of last Monday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch; tangible proof that our integrated PR campaign for Richard Bland College has been a great success. Congrats to President Dr. Debbie Sydow, whose energy and enthusiasm has been detailed in multiple publications recently. Special thanks to Account Executive Sarah Dawes, the architect of this PR campaign.

Tuesday 4/23 – Below is a screen capture of a new TV spot that we produced for the Vintage Virginia Wine & Food Festival. I’ve always known I had a talented team, but I had no idea what wonderful actresses I have around the office. Special thanks to Sammy, Sarah, Dorsey and Mackenzie – stars of the Scott Harris mega-production. Click here to see the TV spot, click here to get your tickets to Vintage Virginia. Our entire team will be there and we hope you will join us June 1st and 2nd. (You do like wine, don’t you?)

Wednesday 4/24 – Special thanks to Angie Baker from Vitamin T, sponsor of this week’s lunch and learn at Madison+Main. In addition to a great talk on finding talent, Angie dropped off these little robot guys, who we’ve been playing with all week.

On Wednesday I traveled down to the Virginia Counsel of CEOs retreat at Kingsmill, but before I left I broke out the good stuff to celebrate the five-day weekend. It is not often that you get to try “The World’s Best,” but on Wednesday afternoon, the Main-iacs and I sampled the World’s Best Bourbon, Pappy Van Winkle’s 23-year reserve; the World’s Best Rum, Havana Club 7-year; and the World’s Best Scotch, Johnnie Walker Blue Label. The world class liquor sampling was the perfect end to a perfect day.

Thursday 4/25 – On Thursday morning I heard an extremely inspiring talk by Bill Taylor, founding editor ofFast Company magazine. I’m a huge fan of Fast Company, and Bill’s talk left my head spinning with crazy new ideas.

Speaking of crazy ideas, our non-profit client Positive Vibe Cafe held the Coaches’ Cookoff at Benedictine last night, and Richmond Spiders coach Chris Mooney and VCU coach Shaka Smart went head-to-head in a fundraiser for the Vibe. Below, Senior Account Manager Katie Hurst gets a hug from both coaches.

Friday 4/26 – I woke up late Friday morning after closing down the pub at Kingsmill Thursday night with about 30 rowdy, bourbon-filled CEOs. Many times you go to a conference and the speaker will leave five minutes after the presentation. However, I was lucky to spend some extra time with Wharton Business School’s Stuart Diamond, the author of Getting More and the world’s foremost authority on negotiating. Here’s a pic of Professor Diamond and Rainbow Station CEO Gail Johnson negotiating with the bartender to keep the bar open for an extra half hour.

Here’s another picture of Dorsey’s dog Pippin; there’s no reason for this photo, we just took it and I arbitrarily put it in the email.

The REAL highlight of the day is that I shared three meals Friday with Melissa Ball, CEO of Ball Office Products and my buddy. We shared breakfast and lunch together at Kingsmill and Friday we treated our spouses to a big, fat steak dinner at Morton’s. We worked hard for it, we owed it to ourselves,#dontjudgeus.