About Me & My Team

My Realist team includes me, Kim Garretson, and a luminary Advisory Board.

I have been developing and launching emerging media, advertising and commerce platforms and breakthrough media properties since 1982. Recently, I helped lead Best Buy’s corporate Strategy & Innovation Department as the first mass retailer to develop partnerships within the venture capital industry. Both at Best Buy and today, I advise high-potential pre-VC and VC-backed portfolio companies on product development and distribution strategies to secure joint ventures with all mass retailers and major media companies.

MY BACKGROUND


BEST BUY – Minneapolis, MN 2001-2006
Director of Emerging Media & Director of Corporate Venture Capital Strategy and Innovation

I joined Best Buy to create an emerging media and advertising platform and content property for the company’s customers focused on enhancing their digital lifestyles. I then helped lead the company’s partnership development with the top 50 venture capital firms and helped bring breakthrough technology products to Best Buy’s shelves ahead of its competitors.

ON HAND NETWORK – Minneapolis, MN 1998-2001

I led the emerging media and advertising development practice, helping early stage VC-backed companies in business planning and business development. I also consulted major media companies such as Time Warner, where I created the first all-video broadband channel, and Scripps Networks, where I developed a hybrid video and Internet property, LivingHome.

NOVO Media Group, San Francisco, CA 1993-1998
Co-Founder of the fourth largest private Internet professional services firm at its sale to a global advertising network. While at NOVO I won the first ever awarded Internet prize in the advertising industry's premier annual competition for my creative direction on Toyota.com.

SHANDWICK, Minneapolis, MN 1984 - 1994

Partner in the largest marketing communications services firm in the Northwest. Led the development of the first ever Interactive Communications unit at a national public relations agency. Clients included Sega, US West, Prodigy, and Books That Work, a Hummer Winblad backed digital media start-up.

DATABAR Digital Media, Minneapolis, MN 1981-1984

A member of the founding management team of a venture-capital backed consumer media and advertising start-up. I was in charge of product development for the consumer technology industry’s first ever hybrid digital software and print publication, a magazine for owners of Commodore, Atari and IBM personal computers.

BETTER HOMES & GARDENS, Des Moines, IA 1975-1981

Consumer Electronics & Personal Computing Columnist. I created the first ever columns on consumer technology in the lifestyle magazine publishing industry. I helped lead the development of advertising programs targeting the major CE and PC advertisers.

The Luminary Realist Advisory Board

Depending upon the need, one or more of the following board members often contribute to our engagements. Also, we have other advisors from the VC, entrepreneurial and media ranks.

Channing Dawson


Channing L. Dawson is senior adviser to Scripps Networks Interactive, the dominant media and marketing company in the home, food and living categories. Properties include HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network, Fine Living, Great American Country, Shopzilla and U Switch. Each uses multiple media platforms to deliver content. As a member of the founding executive team of HGTV, Dawson has led company efforts in Web development, broadband production, video on demand, mobile, IP video distribution and interactive television.

Scott Danielson

Scott Danielson is a proven innovator with more than 25 years experience designing, developing and implementing effective customer engagement platforms. He is currently focusing on the intersection of technology and healthcare and leads a stealth start-up codenamed VIVA. Danielson has led a multitude of customer experience design initiatives for clients worldwide, including: AOL, IBM, ESPN, NBC, HBO, PBS, QVC, AARP, Travelocity, Vail Resorts and UnitedHealth.

Steve Hanson is the founder and principal of the digital agency Hanson in Toledo OH. He also is CEO of Backstage Gallery.

Bill Crosby has a 30-year history in emerging media and breakthrough digital media and advertising innovation.

Jeff Giarraputo is a founder of the digital agency Factory Labs in Denver and the leading digital electronica music site Beatport.

Steve Rosenbaum is the CEO of Magnify and the inventor of user-generated video content as the creator of the series MTV Unfiltered.

Susan Sandler is an emerging media consultant in New York.

Kelly Rodriques is the founder of Blowtorch, one of Fortune magazine's Six Companies to Watch in 2008. He previously was CEO of Totality and Publicis' global network of digital agencies.

Tech Summit: Dedication of media & ad industry's premier research institute

In conjunction with the Realist Advisory Board, I am co-chairing the Sept. 12th Technology Summit during the dedication of the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri Journalism School, the world's first journalism and advertising school.

From the event site:

The Technology Summit is an action-packed exhibition of the ideas, trends, tools, technologies and companies that are leading the way into 21st-century journalism. Leading technology experts and industry pioneers will preside over interactive presentations divided into three tracks: Digital Storytelling, Disruptive Technologies and Web 3.0 Economics. Guests will have the chance to see new technologies at work and visit with those who are shaping tomorrow's media.