Tag: Ross Martin

  • A Brisk Morning & A Morning Risk

    If you told me when I was a graduate student in poetry that, 20 years later, I’d be addressing someone called a “Chief Risk Officer” and his executive leadership team at one of the largest financial services institutions in the world, sharing strategies and insights on innovation and risk management… I would have told you…

  • Congratulations To Viacom’s MBY Graduates

    I had a super fun time today celebrating the 151 graduates of Viacom’s “Maximizing Brand You,” a peer counseling and career development program that helps assistant- to director-level employees define and strengthen their own personal brand.  The year-long program has participants define their career goals and gives them the mentoring and skills they need to…

  • Research You Can Walk Through

    For years, Scratch has studied the compression of time and space between, say, a good idea and a better one; a thriving company and a dead one; instant success and precipitous failure and then (often in a reality show?) premeditated redemption. “Time’s moving faster than ever,” right?  Sure it is, or at least if feels…

  • The “Millennial Disruption Index” On Bloomberg TV’s Market Makers This Morning

    I was a guest this morning on Bloomberg TV’s show “Market Makers,” hosted by Stephanie Ruhle and Erik Shatzker, where I talked about THE MILLENNIAL DISRUPTION INDEX.  It continues the discussion Scratch and Viacom started about the ongoing transformation we see in financial services at the hands of the largest generation in American history, which was first covered…

  • Sometimes I Don’t Aim

    “Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” – Jane Hischfield     Ever write a…

  • 150 People Knitting Boobs

    It was 9am on a beautiful Friday morning in Brooklyn, four years ago, the first ever Viacommunity Day, a day of service for all employees of our company.  I was walking up to my wife’s art studio with several bags of bagels.  She was expecting about 50 people that morning. Neither of us expected our CEO to…

  • Need To Complain About Millennials? Here’s Where…

    I spoke at the inaugural DLD NYC Conference, today, where Scratch launched the Millennial Complaint Hotline.  Call 1-855-SO-ENTITLED and bitch about Millennials if you want. The fact that no one will ever return your call does not seem to be stopping people from leaving hilarious messages hating on the largest generation in history.

  • Happy Holidays

    I had some fun making a video for my team as a warm-up for our holiday party, tonight.  I’m so proud of everyone at Scratch for their incredible work this year — our biggest and best ever.  This represents the first time I’ve ever been turned into a Belgian action star from the 90’s…  

  • Knowing Your Place

    Long ago, in what seems like another life, a colleague much senior to me (in age, experience and level) summoned me to his office on a Friday afternoon for a “chat.”  Sounded ominous, and it was. I’d been working for the (unnamed) company for some time, and had achieved some early success.  Enough success that I wasn’t just feeling confident, I was feeling unstoppable. …

  • Trying Out My New Starbucks Name

    Amorpha is a genus of plants in the pea family, Fabaceae.  It’s also the name made famous by this SNL skit: Inspired by countless visits to Starbucks in which my name and my friends’ names are mis-transposed onto cups via green or black markers, I set out to test my new “Starbucks Name” in the field.  Each time I’m asked for my name…