Down The Avenue is a blog dedicated to delivering news and insights on technology, marketing, public relations, politics, media and life. Its goal is to provide an 'authentic perspective' to many of the issues that touch the industry, including mobile wireless, corporate blogging, aggregation, digital audio technology, VoIP, and publishing. Philosophical insights and personal experience are blended into its daily posts. Down The Avenue also covers content from many of the top technology, cultural and social industry conferences.
I have been providing full service corporate communications and marketing consulting to technology companies and executives worldwide for nearly 18 years.
Since founding Blodgett Communications, my client base has spanned across industries, including social media, digital photography, blogging and RSS solutions, mobile & wireless devices, embedded software applications, OCR, networking, digital audio and video, enterprise and consumer Internet technologies, video online publishing, anti-spam and security, speech recognition, collaboration tools, web publishing, VoIP, CRM and content management.
We provide corporate communications and marketing strategy and execution, messaging and positioning development, media and analyst relations, viral marketing, blogger outreach programs, product launches, new business development, writing and event management.
My global approach comes from living in ten countries and consulting for companies around the world, including South Africa, Australia, Holland, Scotland, England, Belgium, Germany, Israel, and France.
Prior to launching my own consultancy, I headed up worldwide corporate communications for leading speech recognition player Dragon Systems, through to the acquisition to Lernout & Hauspie.
My agency experience is extensive with posts at Cone Communications, Cudaback Strategic Communications, London-based Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising and Saatchi & Saatchi Direct, Brodeur Worldwide and Porter Novelli.
Having studied and lived in London for years, I have a soft spot for Brits. Here, I received a BA in International Marketing Communications.
In addition to my marketing and PR hat, I have taught English in third-world countries, promoted art around the world, managed international sports events and am working on a novel.
Although Blodgett Communications started in Boston, it is now based in California and continues to represent clients worldwide.
I subscribe to the following: Just trust yourself, then you will truly know how to live.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
I grew up in the Adirondacks of upstate New York, where I spent most of my time in canoes and ski boats, reading, writing, skiing and fishing. Like my grandfather, my soul is there despite twenty+ years of roaming.
My luck followed me around the world for two decades as I traveled to hundreds of countries throughout SE Asia, Africa and Europe and managed to live in many of those, including: South Africa, Kenya, Malawi, Israel, England, Austria, Holland, France, Greece, New Zealand, Australia and Turkey.
Oh yeah, lest not forget the U.S. (Arizona, New York, California, Florida, Massachusetts).
I love to dance, simple but fabulous design, writing in hammocks on a hot summer day, eating home grown veggies and herbs, taking photos of people, buildings and abstract images and basically anything on the water.
When I'm not writing, you can find me blading, with tennis racquet, camera or golf club in hand, climbing, skiing, traveling, or playing the piano.
I also love what technology can create and how it is being used to build communities not just in the U.S. but around the world. I think its important to realize its value only in ways we cannot easily do with people face-to-face.
Blogging has been incredibly useful for making this happen. My thoughts on blogging and why I do it can best be summarized here: http://www.downtheavenue.com/2004/10/my_mothers_kitc.html
One quick thing to note: what looks like a black and white sketch in the banner on my blog's home page is actually a color photo of Main Street in the upstate New York town where I spent most of my childhood. A couple of hours with Photoshop at 3 in the morning resulted in what you now see.
